AFRICAN DRAMA ATHOL FUGARD: Sizwe Bansi is Dead. Give an account of the preparations for Ford's visit to the Assembly Plant.

Answer Details

The account of the preparations for Mr Ford's visit comes in Styles's long opening monologue in Athol Fugard's Sizwe Bansi is Dead. Styles recalls his days as a worker at the Ford motor assembly plant in Port Elizabeth, and his story is a comic yet biting satire on the way black workers were treated.

The announcement

• The foreman, Mr Bradley, gathers the workers and excitedly tells them that Mr Henry Ford the Second, the great owner of the company, is coming all the way from America to visit their plant.
• Bradley treats the visit as if a god were descending, and the news throws the whole factory into a panic of preparation.

The frantic cleaning

• The workers are ordered to scrub, clean and polish the entire plant. Floors are washed, windows cleaned, machines wiped and greased until everything shines.
• The place is repainted; even the grass and surroundings are tidied so that the factory will look perfect.
• The men are given brand-new overalls to wear so that they too will look neat and impressive for the visitor.

The instructions to the workers

• The bosses coach the men on how to behave: they must look busy, happy and hard-working, and must show no sign of grievance.
• Styles is even called upon to act as interpreter, translating the white bosses' instructions to the black workers, and he mockingly reshapes the message to expose its dishonesty.

The anticlimax

• After all the labour and anxiety, the great Mr Ford sweeps through the plant in a matter of minutes, scarcely glancing at anything, and is gone.
• The mountain of preparation is wasted on a visit that lasts only a moment.

Significance

• The episode satirises the servility forced on black workers and the hollow show put on to please a powerful white boss.
• It exposes the indignity and exploitation of black labour, foreshadowing the play's larger attack on apartheid.

Conclusion

The preparations for Ford's visit, the frantic cleaning, painting, new overalls and rehearsed smiles, all for a visit of a few minutes, form a memorable comic set-piece that lays bare the humiliation of black workers and sets the satirical, protesting tone of the play.