Themes

• Social unjustice: Social discrimination is a symptom of the never-ending conflict between the desperately poor population in the townships of Cape Town and the white population. The gap between rich and poor is so wide in regions like South Africa that there barely exists almost no middle class any more. This leads to unequal lifestyles and constellations that make a black woman and mother of three like Mandisa work from morning till night for a white woman. While this white woman's day off consists of being nurtured, Mandisa has to go home each day with too little money in her pocket. Furthermore she could not spend a minute with her children because of her long working hours. The social ills must be addressed by the government, or at least they must be targeted by the political leadership of the country. But as South African leaders shirk responsibility for their country and the circumstances that prevail there, a large part of the black population feels neglected. In the end, the consequence of social injustice is that the tension has to be discharged in some way. The longer the unfair conditions last, the more eruptive the discharge can be. The example of the present work shows what cruel deeds a person is capable of who sees the possibilities of a life in abundance all his life, but will never be able to participate in it himself
• A mothers grief: A mother's pain of loss is like no other grief and may well be the most existential of all forms of grief. A mother is inevitably linked to the actions of her children, especially in a country like South Africa where the majority of child rearing is done by women. As Mxolisis mother says at the beginning in Magona's work, people look at her "as though [she] did it" (p. 1, l. 3). In addition to the feelings of guilt towards the victim's family, in Mandisa's case there are also feelings of guilt about the fact that her son had been tormented since early childhood due to traumatic experiences. Thus, Mxolisi has to witness the murder of his friends at the age of four, never had a father figure because China did not feel responsible for him, and his mother could not take care of him to an adequate extent either because she worked so much. It can therefore be stated that a mother's grief over her son's act of violence weighs twice as much, since as a mother she will always feel responsible for her child's actions. Mandisa points out that "it is not right to kill" (p. 1, l. 24), but nevertheless, regardless of the unspeakable cruelty of his act, he still is her son. It is this inner conflict that will leave the mother grieving for a lifetime: torn between the grief over an innocent girl and over her lost son, who's facing a life in prison

Motives

• The effects of violence on a child: The rebellious youth in Guguletu can be used to show the dire and far-reaching consequences of experiencing social and physical violence. For the purposes of this analysis, however, we will focus specifically on the example of Amy Biehl's murderer, Mxolisi. The greatest impact of violence in Mxolisi's life is that he had to witness a murder at an extremely young age. Violence in this case does not mean direct violence, but can also be verbal or passive. For Mxolisi, the incident resulted in him not speaking a word for two years. This "silencing" is a very common reaction of children when they are dealing with trauma or trying to cope with it. Other symptoms of Mxolisi that can be traced back to his trauma are school problems, concentration difficulties and an increased potential for aggression, which he later takes out on his siblings Lunge and Siziwe, among others. The most serious late consequence of his traumatic childhood, however, manifests itself in the murder of Amy Biehl. Probably one of the most dangerous consequences of violent experiences is the victim's chain reaction. Thus, a victim quickly becomes a perpetrator and is caught in a vicious circle from which escape is only possible with hard work and discipline on oneself and regular therapy. Neither of the two profilaotic measures against a possible personality development into a later offender was not consistently carried out in Mxolisi's case. He did attend therapy immediately after the murder of his two friends, but this should have continued throughout his life, as his reaction to the treatment clearly said that he still needed further support
• A life in oppression: Growing up in the slums of Cape Town, Mxolisi and his family experience a lifetime of what it feels like to live in oppression. What is crucial, especially for oppressed people during the apartheid era, is that the repression is felt in several areas of life for the coloured population. For example, we as readers learn from the example of Mandisa that black South Africans were relocated to special areas in the 1970s and 1980s without having any saying in the matter. The newly allocated slums to which the black South African population is forced to move are called "homelands". These are the outskirts of the big cities, as the centre of the city was reserved for the white population alone. We will go into the specific effects of apartheid in more detail in the menu item context, but another point of oppression should be mentioned for the sake of completeness: The symptoms of oppression and disadvantage are particularly evident in the education system. It is noticeable, for example, that the school in Guguletu offers below-average competent teachers and educational curricula for the pupils. While there are excellent schools in the South African capital Cape Town, which are, however, primarily attended by white school-goers, not enough is invested in the school education of the population of colour in the townships. One consequence of the lack of quality in schools is that many students choose to take their daily lives to the streets, where they create unrest out of their own dissatisfaction and the feeling of being treated unfairly, instead of continuing their education. So you can see that the "keeping down" of black South Africans is done in many ways, but especially the way via education is particularly detrimental. Because a person without education is a person who can be oppressed more easily