The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses

“‘Perhaps they want me to send a message to the children,’ he thought tenderly, noting that the clouds were drifting in the direction of his home some hundred miles away. But before he could frame the message, the warder in charge of his work span shouted:

‘Hey, what you tink you’re doing, Brille?’”

This passage encompasses the fanciful and trusting nature of Brille: He believes that the clouds moving toward his home are a sign telling him to reach out to his children. This naivety is stripped from Brille, signifying the harsh reality that apartheid will not allow anyone to be the true version of themselves. Instead, Brille must realize that the circumstances of racial discrimination may never change in his lifetime.

“The prisoner swung round, blinking rapidly, yet at the same time sizing up the enemy. He was a new warder, named Jacobus Stephanus Hannetjie. His eyes were the color of the sky but they were frightening. A simple, primitive, brutal soul gazed out of them.”

Hannetjie’s introduction illustrates how Span One demonizes, and even dehumanizes, him because of his brutality. The primitive nature that Span One sees in Hannetjie reveals how disconnected he is from reality: He views Span One as animalistic, and he will act and treat them in the same way. This passage is an example of how Head inverts the motif of nature to depict a terrifying person whose abuses are outside of Span One’s control.

“They were grouped together for convenience, as it was one of the prison regulations that no black warder should be in charge of a political prisoner lest this prisoner convert him to his views. It never seemed to occur to the authorities that this very reasoning was the strength of Span One and a clue to the strange terror they aroused in the warders.”

This passage highlights how apartheid contributes to the setting and themes of the story. The prison warders fearing that Span One will convert Black warders to their side shows that the prison knows Span One is innocent and right.