Ah, Woe Is Me

In the beginning of this pathetic story we are introduced to Sarah, an aging black servant living in South Africa. She works hard for an upper-class white family and spends all of her cash on procreation for her three children who are sent to a embarkment school. They come home once a year at Christmas, and the number 1 time the fibber meets the children, she is surprised at their well-mannered behaviour. She finds, however, that Sarah is a catch harsh towards them, and she comments on this. Sarah tells her that it is recrudesce to learn the lesson now and grow to expect virtuosos fate later.In the course of the following year, Sarah must give up her blood line because of her legs, and one day her daughter comes to the house. Slowly she tells her story to the teller. How the jr. br both(prenominal) other is working now, and how she is taking care of Sarah. The bank clerk offers her some vesture and some money and invites her inside for a cup of tea. When she is round to leave, she starts yell and can only mutter that her mother is precise ill. Unsure of what to do, the narrator hands her a handkerchief. The setting in this story is South Africa in the 1950s.Apartheid and segregation are words that describe the conditions under which the blacks (the native Africans) drop dead perfectly. The blacks nearly sire no rights and must accept being crush by the whites. Sarah is only one of m any(prenominal) poor blacks who only full manages to earn a living by working as a servant for a rich white family (the narrator). Sla precise does non embody any more, precisely it can be difficult to distuingish the spiritedness of a break ones endure from that of a native African in the 50s except from the fact that they do after all get paid for their work.Sarah is real concerned round her children getting a good education. She be alike wants them to have a better life than she has had so far, and while that is a very noble thought, the facts give to ngue to against it. Her children do not at this time have a very good (if any) chance of getting a good solid education because it is very expensive, and their mother does not exercise that much money. Even if she did make enough money, her legs are disconsolate, and at the end of the story, she has to give up her chisel (and thus take her children out of the boarding school) because she cannot afford to pay for the school.This is what could face up like the final blow to her childrens future success in life. No education means no chances of getting a better life in South Africa (and just about everywhere else, too). But what if she did have enough money to give her children a proper education would that plug the children a good future life I gravely surmise it. As I said before, the blacks live nearly like slaves, and as such, they do not have the opportunity to climb the social ladder. only in all, Sarahs hopes and dreams for her children are all very noble, resultd, unf ortunately, at that time and place, very unrealistic. The narrator does not treat Sarah any better than most other white people in South Africa at this time. While she allows Sarahs children to propitiate in her house during Christmas, I compute the only reason she does it is because she tries to move her own dreadful conscience. It is Christmas after all. Throughout the rest of the year, she does not raze moot about admirering Sarahs children financially so they can verification in school.Even though she presumably has more money than Sarah bequeath ever see, the thought of gartering her servant out does not fret her at any point in the story. Her servant is her servant, and servants children are not someone she thinks about. This point is also very clear to see when one reads the description of the narrators thoughts about Sarahs children. She is surprised at how well they behave, how good their ingenuity are as if she was expecting a horde of wild animals instead of f orm human beings.She is undoubtedly not the only one to think this mien about the blacks, they were considered animals by many white people at that time. However, the narrator seems to excuse her treatment and behaviour towards Sarah and her family with ignorance (see lines 99-103). I find it hard to conceptualise that this ignorance really existed, precisely it is possible that it did, because the whites and the blacks were so distinctly segregated by the apartheid system. Yet I find it hard to believe that the narrator was exclusively unaware of Sarahs almost inhuman standard of living.Surely, even though apartheid almost divided the whites and the blacks into two separate areas, she must have known something about the conditions under which Sarah and her children lived, and that it was getting worse as the days went by (because of the mothers poisonous legs). When Janet, one of Sarahs two daughters, comes to visit the narrator in the end of the story, the narrator once agai n displays her ignorance about the blacks, but this time she openly admits it. Janet is, of course, in an unpleasant situation when she stands in the blanket yard of her mothers former employer.Everyone has some pride in themselves, and standing in the back yard, asking for alms is, of course, very degrading to a proud person, no matter who that person is. Janet has probably tried being in a similar situation before, but now that her mother is unable to provide for the disintegrating family (her father has lost his job and her sister has married and moved a delegacy), the life and death of her family depends solely on her and her brother who are the only ones working. Janet is of course very depressed and sad, but she cannot give up now.Her last hope is that the narrator exit help her out, and, fortunately, she does. The handkerchief is actually the first thing the narrator has ever make to help Sarahs children. It is not until that point in the story Janet realizes just how bad things are with Sarah and her family. Of course, one could again be tempted to think that it was only her bad conscience that made her give Janet the clothes, but there is no way to be sure. I am, however, inclined to believe that the narrator has finally know how immense the difference between the black world and the white world really is.However, the things she gives Janet (some money and the handkerchief) will not last long, and what will Janet do then Come back for more, of course. I am not truism that the narrator is doing something bad, but I do not think she realizes that Janet will probably come back again. It is like giving a cheat cat some food it will always come back for more. The question is if the narrator would give Janet more money if she came back, and if it would be any help at all. The first question is easy Yes, she would give her more money if she came back her conscience forbids her to do otherwise.The second question is a bit more difficult to answer. Of c ourse the money is an instant help to Janet and her family, but only a very insufficient one. The few dollars (or any(prenominal) currency they use in South Africa) she gives Janet will only provide the family with a meal or two, and after that they will be back to where they started, and would have to beg for more money. Now, I am not utter charity does not help, but I do not think it helps as much as many people would like to think it does. In many cases, it only puts off the sufferings.The apartheid system has formally been abolished in South Africa today, but I think old habits die hard, so to speak. I am sure there are still blacks like Sarah and her family who have to subordinate to the richer white population even though officially apartheid does not exist there anymore. Societies do not change overnight, curiously not when one group has to give up its right and privileges and per centum them with others (whom they dislike). Sarahs story is undoubtedly not the worst exam ple one could find, but no one knows what happened after the scene in the narrators back yard.