Hope is, by definition, “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.” It is a specious and deeply revered emotion. Although it appears to be a beautiful, kind and optimistic feeling, hope can also be dangerous which Mr. M in Athol Fugard’s My Children! My Africa! describes as “a dangerous animal” (Fugard 28). Even though it is so dangerous, Hope is still seen as a wonderful and powerful feeling. However, what we envision Hope to be is far from what it is. No matter what when, where, or for what, Hope will always have dangerous, sometimes deadly consequences.
Hope for love is one of the examples of when hope is not always beautiful but ugly and cruel. All humans wish to be loved, even if that love is not returned. No…show more content… However, that quest for knowledge can be dangerous, and often deadly. In Margaret Atwood’s “Siren Song” the sailors become victims of their own curiosity. The sailors die in their senseless quest for the unattainable knowledge of the siren song. This quest to obtain understanding proves to be so dangerous few live to tell the tale. Yet the hope to listen to the siren’s song doesn’t stop the sailors as shown by the growing number of skulls added to the siren’s collection. The same deadly nature of the hope for knowledge proves to be true in Athol Fugard’s My Children! My Africa!. Thami kills Mr. M, albeit indirectly, through the knowledge he gleaned from the rebel group. Halfway through the play Thami becomes associated with of a group of rebels that he later joins. Thami changes; he is increasingly hostile towards Isabel and Mr. M, the only voice of reason in his life which leads to the end of the only realistically hopeful prospect in his life, the competition. Thami’s transformation during and after when he finds out about the rebel group foreshadows the terrible events that occur at the end. In the end, he throws away a realistic hope for his future in exchange for a fantasy one. When he joins the group, he believes he is creating a better life for his fellow destitute people, but by the end he has made their situation worse. In the case of the sailors it was the pursuit of knowledge that led to…show more content… Humans naturally crave choice, when that essential ingredient in humanity is taken away the desperation that follows is rabid and frantic. In Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie, both Luo and The Narrator are stripped of their choice in education, or rather their choice to have an education. As a result of the sudden vacuum, they crave education even more, quite the opposite of what was intended. The hope for freedom of choice leads them to such extreme methods of coping such as assault and theft. In My Children! My Africa! the same lack of choice and hope for freedom of choice leads to rash decisions that end in death and destruction. Thami is stripped of his hope for choice as he grows up and realizes that “it’s hard…for bright young blacks to dream…when [they] keep waking up in a world which doesn’t allow the majority of [their] people any dreams at all.” (Fugard 47). This bleak situation leads Thami to turn to the rebel group in his desperate search for anything to alleviate his pain. Marji in Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi also experiences the destructive nature that hope can have. The choice to wear a veil is taken from her which turns her faith into a harmful weapon instead of a helpful tool. Another example of the devastating character of hope are the young men sent to fight in a war that is omnipresent throughout Persepolis. The hope that drives these young men to
