Investigating Racial Marginality in Athol Fugard’s The Blood Knot

Abstract

South African Literature of twentieth century exhibits manifold facets of racism. It is a powerful expression not only of how the black people are forced to live on the edges of marginality but also foregrounds multiple impacts of racial marginalization on the lives and psyches of the oppressed. The current research, in the same vein, attempts to investigate the impacts of racial discrimination on black people in the context of the play understudy and secondly, it analyses how marginality is psychologically deep-rooted in the non-white South Africans. Insights pertinent to the research objectives are gleaned from Critical Race Theory (CRT) as propounded by Richard Delgado. In the framework of Critical Race Theory (CRT), the study focuses on varied impacts of racism on main characters. The research findings suggest that the non-white South Africans face blatant discrimination on the basis of their race and it impacts their lives in negative ways. However, the racism is engrained to the extent of being naturalized. That is to say that the way they endorse this white supremacy, it indicates that they have internalized such social roles and the resultant racial discrimination.