The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses

Jacobus Stephanus Hannetjie is the white warder and antagonist in the story. Hannetjie is characterized by his brutality, abusiveness, and childish trust, but this dynamic character reveals his own humanity when he realizes the injustice of his abuse toward others. In the end, he even contributes to Span One’s workload, showing them more kindness than his initial agreement to Brille’s terms required.

Head describes Hannetjie more than any of the characters in the story. Since he is Dutch South African, he speaks with a unique dialect; he is young and white and has piercing blue eyes. Hannetjie’s eyes have a conflicting nature because they are blue like “the color of the sky but they [are] frightening” (Paragraph 5). Although nature, particularly the sky, is a motif of freedom throughout the story, Head inverts this motif when describing Hannetjie to symbolize both familiarity and otherness. As the oppressor, Hannetjie’s dehumanization of himself and Span One begins immediately. He has a “primitive, brutal soul” that causes Span One to think he is not quite human (Paragraph 5). Yet Hannetjie’s oppressive, elitist mentality proves to be only skin deep: once he experiences degradation and dehumanization firsthand, he crumbles.

In the second half of the story, Head replaces Hannetjie’s descriptions of otherness with childish characteristics. The narrative purpose in this replacement is to reveal how Hannetjie, like other Dutch South Africans, is so selfishly focused on himself that he has never thought to question his worldview, empathize with Black South Africans, or analyze how the orders he blindly follows affect real human beings. Head uses irony in this instance by showing that Hannetjie, the white warder who does not have glasses, is far less perceptive than Brille, the prisoner who wears glasses.

Martha is a static, secondary character. She is Brille’s wife and appears in the narrative only during Brille’s flashback when he thinks about his home. She is characterized by her role as a mother, as well as her inability to enforce discipline in the home.

Although Martha is a minor character, her memory motivates Brille to stand up to Hannetjie. Since Martha has been left alone to raise their 12 children by herself, Brille is compelled to survive prison and make it back to her alive. Although Brille’s time with Martha at home was not happy or peaceful, Brille feels guilty over how he used his political career to escape his home, giving Martha the burden of raising the children.

Even though the 12 children are never named, Brille sees similarity between his position as a father and Hannetjie’s position as a warder. At home, Brille played a role like Hannetjie, in that his severity in punishing his children was seen as necessary to their well-being. The children were allowed to fight and skirmish in Martha’s presence until he came home. Brille even thought that his severe presence could “change savages into fairly reasonable human beings” (Paragraph 24). Brille’s relationship with his children is an inversion of Hannetjie’s relationship with Span One. Once Brille makes this connection, he realizes that the way he parented his children was wrong, and he regrets not being able to tell them this. However, the relationship with his family aids Brille in abolishing Hannetjie’s oppressive system, restoring his own sense of humanity.