Diverse Cultures: Corporal Punishment'Crackling Day' and 'Sixpence'
...le more aware and active against it. This story is a perfect example of one of those stories. The event that leads to Lee’s whipping is, essentially, the oncoming of the white boys. As soon as they are seen, they are seen as a threat by Andries. His first instinct is to avoid them trouble, and thus they hurried past them to try not to be noticed. This does not work. As they walk along the path, the white boys start to throw insults and then even stones as the two black children. The one thing that causes Andries’ plan to fail is when one white boy says, “your fathers are dirty black bastards of baboons!” This affects Lee in an unprecedented way. He goes wild, thrashing at the white boy, all the time repeatedly shouting “Liar! Liar! Liar!” When Lee returns to his house, he has been badly beaten by the white boys. After he has been home for a while, the white boys who attacked him show up at his house, following a white man. This man is possibly the owner of the lot that Lee’s family (and perhaps many other black people) live. This can be seen when he says to Uncle Sam “If you and your family are to live here, you must teach him.” The reason for this intrusion is that Lee has broken possibly the most pinnacle rule of Apartheid: never raise your hand to a white man. The white man has come to see that Lee’s punishment takes place, and he is very clever about how he does it. Not only does his Lee get whipped, but also he humiliates his uncle whilst doing so, as if to crush his only remaining father figure. With the whipping done, the white boys leave the blacks alone in the mess. The next night, Uncle Sam gives Lee “an orange, a bag of boiled sweets and a dirty old picture book.” This is Sam’s way of apologising for what he had to do without actually saying it. “He smiled as he gave them to me, rather anxiously. When I smiled back at him, he seemed to relax.” This shows that Sam was anxious about whether he would be forgiven. The return of the smile shows that he was forgiven and all is forgotten. Sixpence is another story involving corporal punishment on children. The child here is Dicky, the only male child of an upper class family. Dicky is usually very well behaved, but sometimes goes what his sisters call “mad-dog”, which is immature and disruptive behaviour that appears from out of the blue. This happens one day during afternoon tea, when Mrs Bendall (Dicky’s mother) and her friend Mrs Spears are having a discussion upstairs. The even leaves Mrs Bendall distressed. Although, the reason for this is possibly a little crude: she fears that Dicky’s behaviour affects how Mrs Spears will think of her, especially as Mrs Spears’ children are so well behaved. Mrs Spears reveals a horrifying fact – her children are so well behaved only because their father beats them until they are too scared to be naughty. Indeed, they are so scared of the whip that they often stray into the garden to stay away from the presence of the whip that resides in the house. Mrs Spears then suggests to Mrs Bendall should try this on Dicky. Dicky’s mother cannot believe it herself, but she is weak minded and it seems she wants to be in Mrs Spears’ favour, and so promises to speak to her husband Edward as soon as he gets home. Edward finally arrives, and he is in quite a bad mood. Today was a bad day at the office, it seems. As promised, Mrs Bendall discusses the whipping of their son with her husband. He protests to start with, but with the mood carrie...