Under Construction @ Keele 2016 Volume 2 Issue 1 | Page 47

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fifteen pages in the script.22 The politically-charged theatre as revealed through
Styles’ representation of exploitation may sensitise the white audience to be selfcritical of apartheid rules. The headline about a car plant expansion without any
increase of the employees’ ‘pay-packet’ triggers the narration of a previous incident,
a visit to the Ford Factory by Henry Ford the Second (the owner from America),
where Styles worked before setting up as a photography studio.23 As Brink states,
Styles’ narrativisation ‘contains a strong and explicit political text’ and ‘signs of more
problematic ideological subtext’. Styles’ revelation is a ‘political satire’ and explores
the ‘economic choice’ of black subjects.24
Styles’ service in the factory for a year – in ‘the dangerous hot test section
without an asbestos apron and fire-proof gloves’, because authorities did not ‘replace
the ones [he] had lost’ – is a stark testimony to incongruities of exploitation.25
Working at a factory without safety and protective clothing is hazardous: the
authorities’ ignorance of and lack of concern towards Styles’ life intensifies the
creation of deadly environments for black workers, recalling Foucault’s definition of
political murder. Thus, for Styles, survival is uncertain in the factory, epitomising the
disavowal of black South Africans’ existence. This is a type of political murder.
In addition to the physical danger, Styles’ narrative depicts the verbal
harassment encountered by the black workers at the factory. Their Afrikaner boss,
the General Foreman named Bradley, insists that they must ‘impress Mr Henry Ford
that they are better than those monkeys in his own country, those niggers in Harlem
wh