Beggar My Neighbor by Dan Jacobson
"Beggar My Neighbor" by Dan Jacobson is a poignant narrative that explores themes of power dynamics, guilt, and the complexities of human relationships against the backdrop of apartheid-era South Africa. The story follows Michael, a white boy who encounters two impoverished black children on his way home from school. Initially reluctant, he offers them food, which sets off a series of events that reveals his burgeoning sense of power and the ambivalence of his feelings towards the children.
As Michael interacts with the children, he oscillates between moments of perceived generosity and a growing sense of superiority, ultimately leading him to treat them with cruelty. His fantasies about the children reveal deeper conflicts within himself, including an emerging guilt and a desire for connection amidst his loneliness. The narrative culminates in a fever-induced delirium where Michael's darker impulses surface, reflecting his internal struggles and the consequences of his actions.
Through this story, Jacobson invites readers to contemplate the moral implications of privilege and the haunting presence of those marginalized by societal structures, encouraging a reflection on empathy and the human condition.
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Beggar My Neighbor by Dan Jacobson
First published: 1962
Type of plot: Social realism
Time of work: The 1960's
Locale: A white suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa
Principal Characters:
Michael , a white South African boy, about twelve years oldFrans , andAnnie , black South African orphans of Michael's age, brother and sisterDora , the black cook in Michael's home
The Story
Michael, a white South African boy, is accosted by two black, raggedly dressed, almost emaciated children on his way home from school. Like so many impoverished black children, they are hungry and ask Michael for a piece of bread. At first he rejects them, but touched by their abject posture, he offers to give them bread and jam if they follow him home.
Dora, the black cook at Michael's home, grudgingly prepares the food, and Michael, experiencing the first flush of a power he has not hitherto known, gives them the bread and patronizingly demands a thank-you from the cowed "piccanins." The children begin to appear regularly, and the sense of his own generosity gradually helps to inflate Michael's ego and recently acquired power. He wishes, for example, that the children would be even more obsequious toward him. Michael, an only child, is lonely, and, compelled to rely on his own resources, he is much given to fantasizing. Michael's ambivalent feelings toward the black children—a sort of love-hate nexus—appear largely in his fantasies and the climactic dream sequence.
Yielding to a whim one day, Michael shows the children a particularly beautiful pen and pencil set, and the piccanins plead for it. Shocked by their desire for something other than food, Michael indignantly refuses and they leave, much to the delight of Dora.
Meanwhile, Michael's sense of his own importance and power increases, and his fantasies change rather noticeably: He begins to treat the children as if they were slaves, and in the real world he enacts these fantasies by deliberately keeping them waiting for bread and inflicting other acts of petty cruelty on them. Inevitably, Michael's scorn, which has been only partially submerged, surfaces and gives way to anger, and he summarily orders them never to return. The piccanins, however, are persistent, and time and again they return to haunt Michael, as if embodying his own imperfectly understood guilt.
Shortly after dismissing them, Michael is struck down by a fever, and in his delirium he sees himself brutally attacking the boy and sexually assaulting his frail sister. The delirium deceives Michael into thinking that he is awake, the fever broken, and he is leading the abused and rejected children into his room. Here Michael yields to the impulse of love, which has also surfaced in delirium, and he kisses and caresses the piccanins. They, however, have vanished into the dark world beyond the white, comfortable suburbs, and all of Michael's efforts to find them are futile.