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An Ideal Speech Situation as a Just Society: Athol Fugard's Master Harold . . . and the boys

  • Journal of Modern English Drama
  • Abbr : JMBARD
  • 2013, 26(2), pp.73-95
  • Publisher : 한국현대영미드라마학회
  • Research Area : Humanities > English Language and Literature > English Literature > Contemporary English Drama

Sohn, Yoon-Hee 1

1동국대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This essay amis to explore a just society through a ‘discourse’ of an ideal speech situation to increase reciprocal understanding and a kite and ballroom dancing as a political vision which is a world without collisions in Athol Fugard’s Master Harold . . .and the boys. In fact, the just society based on a initial position of equality transcends the bounds of class, race, and gender. However, supporting an enlightened reason which is to challenge ideas grounded in tradition and faith, and advance knowledge through the scientific method, modern Western society brought on inequality and conflicts between different classes and races because the West used rationality as an instrument of exploitation. In a word, the West dominated human by means of instrumental rationality that depends on a subject-object relationship. So Adorno and Horkheimer thought of the Enlightenment as a process of decay. But Jürgen Habermas disagrees with his teachers’(Adorno and Horkheimer) view of enlightened reason. He suggests the possibility of reason, emancipation, and rational-critical communication latent in modern institutions. According to Habermas, the communicative action provides a vehicle for criticizing the distortions of communications that have characterized the human history. I apply the ‘discourse’ of an ideal speech situation to increase mutual understanding to the analysis of Fugard’s Master Harold . . .and the boys. In his play, there are lots of examples that blacks and whites had the discourse based on reciprocal understanding without oppression and exploitation. When Same and Hally picked the best intrepid social reformer who was not be daunted by the magnitude of the task he had undertaken, they exchanged opinions on the basis of mutual trust and respect. After all they can reach mutual understanding and harmony through the discourse of communicative action. At the same time, Fugard presents a harmonious society by means of the kite and ballroom dancing in an aesthetic point of view which symbolize a world without collisions. Sam and Hally can communicate with each other while dancing together and working together to make the kite. In the end, both men based on reciprocal trust was sympathetic to each other. In conclusion, this play suggests not only the possibility of the mutual understanding between white and black through the discourse of ideal speech situation, but also the just society by the medium of the kite and ballroom dancing as a world without collisions.

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