Die Ballade van Robbie de Wee: An Essay on Epic Elements (AFK2601)

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of Deon Meyer's 'Die Ballade van Robbie de Wee.' It delves into the epic elements of the story, including the key events, characters, time frame, setting, narrative perspective, and overarching themes. The essay examines characters like Mr. Len and Robbie, highlighting their traits, relationships, and conflicts, particularly focusing on the portrayal of depression and grief. The analysis explores the narrative structure, the use of flashbacks, and the role of the storyteller in conveying the story's message. The essay also incorporates secondary sources to support its arguments, providing a well-rounded exploration of the novel's literary significance and its relevance to themes of loss, betrayal, and the consequences of personal choices within the South African context. The essay concludes with a discussion of the story's key virtues and its educational value, emphasizing the importance of talent, inspiration, and positive relationships within society.

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The story of Die Ballade van Robbie de Wee
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Introduction.
The story of Die Ballade van Robbie de Wee starts with Mr Len being the main
character. He had a family of one daughter known as Lisa .He was caring to the family until
when he was addicted to drugs. He had huge debts and he decided to borrow money from a
bar owner in the town.
My essay will describe how depression and stages of grief have been portrayed by different
characters in the story (Meyer, 2017 p.90).Therefore, through the subject of our story we see
many characters suffering. Robbie is suffering for suffocating Shasha with a pillow in the
hotel. This resulted to scandals to an extend that Robbie did not attend the big concert which
was to be hosted in Cape Town .Also, characters like Mr Len suffered and he is now
regretting for the big debts he has. In my essay am going to discuss each paragraph by
describing what happened and how each character used various skills to illustrate the subject
of depression in the entire story.
First is the background information of the story. The story starts by describing what is
to be expected by the reader. We see Mr Len regretting for wasting money and being
addicted by drugs (Van, 2011 p.270).It is through this lamentation whereby Mr Len comes to
a point of describing the key stages of a grief .Mr Len identifies depression as the source of
regrets .At the end of the story the same character is so much depressed after losing his friend
Robbie. Mr Len says that, “I blame myself for not realising the seriousness of Robbie’s
depression, Robbie’s death is loss to country, industry and I have lost a friend and indeed an
inspiration son me.” This summarizes the entire story thus revealing to the reader the main
subject in the story. The story is in Cape Town a big city in South Africa.

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On describing the happenings of the story; this part begins by describing how the
main characters met in the story and how their relationship impacted the whole story. Mr Len
met with Robbie in a bar. Robbie was invited for a concert in a bar. At this time Robbie was
at the age of 19 years old (Van, 2011 p.300).
Mr Len asks; “What’s your name and how old are you.”
Robbie says; “I am 19 years old call me Robbie.”
I am Mr Len. Says Mr Len to Robbie.
The conversation went on until they shared adequate information about each other. Robbie
said that he hails from Amersfoort and he stays with her mother. Mr Len went on and asked
the 19 years old boy on what he likes.
Robbie answers “I like singing.”
Mr Len got inspired from Robbie’s passion in singing (Meyer, 2017 p.190).He called for a
meeting with Robbie in his office .Robbie presented his music to Mr Len and afterwards took
a step to inspire the boy. Robbie introduced Mr Len to her mother after a while. Mr Len was
pleased to meet Robbie’s mother and he was proud to tell Robbie’s mother that she must be
lucky for getting this talented child. The mother knew the boy was talented and therefore he
used to pray and encourage the boy to work on his talent. Mr Len assured Robbie’s mother
that he will nature Robbie up to the end.
Mr Len told Robbie that he was pleased to meet a talented boy like him and therefore he
started advising (Minter, 2013 p.298).”If you want to make it in music then you have to
realise that there are two roads which a musician should follow; The first road for musician is
easy and therefore each musician need to be aware of it .This is on the idols but to me I used
but failed. The other road which each musician should be aware is touring to the whole world

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testing songs, building repertoire and presenting songs in front of audience. This is cruel for a
musician but one needs to work on it,” said Mr Len to Robbie.
The important event is seen when Mr Len defines the stages of grief. “I blame myself
for not realising the seriousness of Robbie’s depression,” narrates Mr Len. The part discusses
the whole story (Van, 2017 p.34).The character which Mr Len is illustrating captures the
attention and it introduces the reader on what is to be expected in the whole story. He says
that depression disturbs one’s mind. The whole story revolves about depression which has
resulted through denial.
Therefore, on describing characters in our story the main characters are Mr Len and
Robbie. The outward appearance of the characters in story is displayed through use of
different features. Mr Len is inspirational and caring while Robbie is hardworking and
pretender. They act different and their weakness is that they play tricks with each other. At
the end one can conclude that whole story is a betrayal. Robbie lied to Mr Len. He said that
his father died before but he was not open to say that he killed his father and buried himself
(Van, 2017 p.314).”Yes I was to shoot him and I buried him, “says Robbie .Mr Len on other
hand is secretive and pretender .He says that lawyers wanted to steal money from the concerts
but in real sense we see that Mr Len had a lot of debts and the idea to inspire was to get
money to settle for his debts from the concerts he arranged with Robbie. At the end we see an
inner conflict .After the scandal of Shasha Mr Len went to see Robbie in the hotel. The two
started narrating to each other and we see disagreement which resulted to death of Robbie.
Also, the burial of Shasha by Mr Len induces chaos .Shasha’s mother has lost one and only
daughter .This is an evident of a conflict in our story.
More important on time is that I have been in position to read the story for an hour.
The story not too long and it is open. The story starts in the morning by Mr Len driving to the

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bar restaurant where he met with Robbie. Mr Len meets with Robbie and the story continues
until the death of Robbie. The story ends in the hotel where Mr Len met with Robbie at the
roof of the hotel. Mr Len throws Robbie from the roof. It takes a short time for the story to
complete an event to the other. From the story of Mr Len with her daughter- Lisa we can see
how each is arguing .Lisa enters father’s room and asks his father why the door was closed.
Mr Len answers in a flash of seconds ,he don’t want her daughter to ponder or configure what
is happening in the room (White, 2016 p.321).Mr Len tried all what he could do to cut off
conversation in the scandal of missing girl. It takes two hours for me to read the whole story
from the start to the end.
In part of the space we can see that the story is happening in different locations.
Characters are in hotels where big concerts are hosted (Sinnreich, 2013 p.312).Robbie after
the concerts streams to the hotel while Mr Len goes back to his office. Also we see the Dj in
his office with cases being handled in court. The anticipated concert was to take place in
Cape Town but the event didn’t happen due to scandals.
More important here is that there is a flashback when Robbie laughs so sarcastically .He says
that he is aware of what happened to his father. Says Robbie to Mr Len (laughing),”You
don’t know my father you.” Robbie flashes back what happened to his father and he realised
that he is the one who killed women from Mbombela and buried them in Kimbo.Robbie
flashes back that he killed the missing girl –Shasha.”Yes I suffocated her with a pillow.”
In addition there is section of storyteller in our story. It is through this part whereby
we come to realise the type of storyteller we have in our story. The storyteller here is Mr Len
and he is motivator and friendly. He starts by narrating what a musician should follow in
industry. Mr Len regrets for all what he has passed through - stage of grief .The storyteller
describes everything from start to the end. Mr concludes the story by summarizing on the big

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loss which resulted after the death of Robbie. He says that,” I lost a friend, an inspiration and
son to me.”
In addition, storytelling tends to be advantageous through; at first it helps in learning and it is
versatile. It helps in accessing new theories and knowledge .It is the mandate of storytellers to
ensure audience gets the apt information from the story. On other hand storytelling will have
disadvantages such as; in most cases it is difficult to incorporate all what we have heard from
the story teller to our normal activities. Also storytelling the teller can decide to use
problematic words which audience will not be able to understand.
The theme in the story is around anger and depression. We know how characters have
suffered. Depression is evident when Mr Len when he wanted to throw himself from the top
of the roof unfortunately her daughter enters the room (Kruger, 2011 p.300).Mr Len had sold
all what he had and started drinking a lot since he had huge debts and had no adequate
income to pay debt. Robbie at the end pays for his deeds. Also from the story we realise that
hardworking pays and we need to work hard in our talents. Many knew Robbie for the quality
of music he performed whenever he was invited in concerts.
In addition, there are other sources which discusses similar events as related to Die
Meyers Ballard Robbie de Wee. The first article is (Konigsberg,2011 p.310).This articles
advocates for the stages of grief in a society. Grief is divided into; Denial, anger, the choice
of circumstances and the whole procedure of negotiation. We have seen anger and denial in
our story. This article uses characters who illustrates how denial destroyed a society.
The other article is (Japp, 2018 p.76).This summarises all aspects of depression and how
characters work hard to accomplish goals. The articles shows how characters are depressed
for their weaknesses in the society. Also, the article explains how characters work

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throughout, how they have been responsible in their duties and how they are utilising their
talents. This is relevant to our story.
Conclusion.
In conclusion, my opinion from the story is that it educates us on key virtues that we
need to understand as a society (Cordaro, 2012 p.320).We ought to utilise our talents. Robbie
was well talented and toiled hard to entertain audience in big concerts. Also, we learn that we
have to inspire and be friendly to other people in society. Robbie was friendly and positive
and that’s why he attracted many audience in his concerts.

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Reference.
Cordaro, M., 2012. Pet loss and disenfranchised grief: Implications for mental health
counseling practice. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 34(4), pp.283-294.
Japp, A.H., 2018. Robert Louis Stevenson. BoD–Books on Demand.
Konigsberg, R.D., 2011. The truth about grief: The myth of its five stages and the new
science of loss. Simon and Schuster.
Kruger, H., 2011. Postcolonial Polysystems: Perceptions of Norms in the Translation of
Children’s Literature in South Africa. The Translator, 17(1), pp.105-136.
Meyer, D., 2017. Die ballade van Robbie de Wee en ander verhale. TYDSKRIF VIR
LETTERKUNDE, 54, p.1.
Minter, L., 2013. Translation and South African English Literature: van Niekerk and Heyns'
Agaat: An exploration of the creativity of one particular effort at translation of an Afrikaans
novel into English. English Today, 29(1), pp.53-57.
Sinnreich, A., 2013. The piracy crusade: How the music industry's war on sharing destroys
markets and erodes civil liberties. University of Massachusetts Press.
Van den Berg, C., 2011. Collective trauma in modern Afrikaans fiction. and Danielle
Mortimer, p.165.
Van Heerden, N., 2017. Resensies: Die ballade van Robbie de Wee en ander
verhale. Tydskrif vir letterkunde, 54(1).
White, M.T., 2016. Musical activity across the lifespan as it contributes to quality of
life. International Journal of Community Music, 9(2), pp.157-170.