Dr.Kerry, you must learn to face up to facts. Only through accpetance of one’s life and history lies the path to health and happiness.
– Woman, pg.22
In Lewis Nkosi’s play The Black Psychiaritrist, we read about the horrendous history and consequences of Apartheid. Both Kerry and Gloria are the living embodiment of the ugly legacy of apartheid. Despite the fact that Kerry is the psychiatrist, Gloria acts as the examiner at the beginning of the play. She seeks to be Kerry’s psychiatrist and uncovers his hidden past that he tries to cover. She tells him that only by learning to face the truth can he begin to move on. Ironically, she herself is in no position to give that advice and be the psychiatrist when Kerry reveals the truth of their lineage to her. At the end of the book, Gloria herself was unable to accept the history and consequences of Apartheid. She could not believe that her father would commit such a crime and that her former lover is her half-brother.
The book ends with Gloria who can not face up the facts and Kerry wishes that Gloria as well as all memories of the best do not come back again. He does not want old stones to be turned because he knows there are scorpions under those stones. (pg. 22) Hence, Kerry does not wish to revisit his past because he wants to avoid the pain that comes with his memory of South Africa. I think Nkosi ends the play this way to reflect how that might have been how white women and black men reacted to Apartheid- with avoidance and denial. Yet, Nkosi might have believed and urged that South Africans and the world should come to terms with what happened in Apartheid. Only when South Africans acknowledge the history and consequences of Apartheid can they move on as a nation.
I think your interpretation is interesting. I agree with your analysis of how Dr. Kerry and the woman approach the acceptance of their history. Dr. Kerry seems to be trying to escape his past, given how he works in London as a psychiatrist (which is established as a primarily white job in the region), while the woman seems to be in denial of the truth. There might be some historical allusions hidden in their approach to acceptance, but I’m not quite knowledgeable on the topic to comment on that. What’s cool, though, is that Nkosi paints them both as trapped within a prison of their own making.
On the very first page, Nkosi describes Dr. Kerry’s office as similar to a prison, and later when the woman locks Dr. Kerry within his office and cuts his telephone lines, she inadvertently traps herself as well. In this respect, we can see that although the two characters approach their past differently, both are trapped under the same mindset until, as you stated, they can acknowledge their history and move on together.