Ah, Woe Is Me :: essays research papers

Ah, Woe Is MeA) Summary of The Story In the beginning of this improvident story we are introducedto Sarah, an aging black servant living in South Africa. She works hard for anupper-class colour family and sp overthrows all of her capital on education for her threechildren who are sent to a embarkment school. They come home once a year atChristmas, and the send-off sequence the storyteller meets the children, she is surprisedat their well-mannered behaviour. She finds, however, that Sarah is a figure harshtowards them, and she comments on this. Sarah tells her that it is better tolearn the lesson now and grow to stimulate ones fate later. In the course of thefollowing year, Sarah essential give up her job because of her legs, and one day herdaughter comes to the house. Slowly she tells her story to the narrator. How thejr. brother is working now, and how she is taking care of Sarah. Thenarrator offers her some garb and some money and invites her inside for a cupof tea. When she is about to leave, she starts shout and can only mutter thather mother is very ill. Unsure of what to do, the narrator hands her ahandkerchief.B) An Essay About the Text The setting in this story is South Africa in the1950s. Apartheid and segregation are words that picture the conditions underwhich the blacks (the native Africans) live perfectly. The blacks nearly have norights and must accept being oppressed by the whites. Sarah is only one of many an(prenominal)poor blacks who only just manages to earn a living by working as a servant for arich white family (the narrator). Slavery does not exist anymore, but it can be herculean to distuingish the life of a slave from that of a native African inthe 50s except from the fact that they do after all get stipendiary for their work.Sarah is very concerned about her children getting a good education. She believably wants them to have a better life than she has had so far, and whilethat is a very noble thought, the facts speak agai nst it. Her children do not atthis time have a very good (if any) chance of getting a good solid educationbecause it is very expensive, and their mother does not launch that much money.Even if she did make enough money, her legs are bad, and at the end of the story,she has to give up her job (and thus take her children out of the embarkation