In the twentieth century alone, the world has witnessed oppression in many places, like the South African apartheid, which literally means “apartness” (Omond 11). Nadine Gordimer, an esteemed author and South African native, has lived to see the injustice and conflict her country has experienced during apartheid rule, which lasted just under a half-century. Most of her literary work throughout the decades of apartheid oppression united under the banner of freedom for the victims of apartheid. Her books speaking on the dangers and horrors of apartheid, as well as a call for its dismantling earned her a Nobel Peace Prize for literature in 1991. One of her short stories, “Once upon a Time,” published in 1989, creatively depicted many issues that people both black and white face in apartheid South Africa. In a time where there was constant political struggle, internal turmoil, deadly riots, and harsh segregation and oppression in her country, Gordimer used this short story to depict the reality of these atrocities in the guise of a children’s story by communicating the dangers of self-destructive fear and oppression presented in the ironies of the aptly titled “Once upon a Time.”
Nadine Gordimer “does not ‘ write about [the] apartheid’ system itself but ‘about people [living] under the system’” (Uledi-Kamanga 2). Her primary vehicle for literary exposition is irony (Uledi-Kamanga 1), and “Once upon a Time” is riddled with ironies that indicate the destructive tendencies of racial oppression on both sides. The first irony presented in the story is located at the beginning of the story. “Once upon a Time” is actually presented as a story within a story: the author and narrator (presumably Gordimer), who absolutely refuses to write a c...
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...and Jennifer Halle. "Gordimer's Once Upon a Time." The Explicator 56.4 (1998): 213-15. Print.
Gordimer, Nadine. “Once upon a Time.” Perrine's Story and Structure. 13th ed. Eds. Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson. Boston : Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2012. 189-194. Print.
Keisling, Katy. "Internalized Oppression or Rational Fear: Examining Internal Group Animosity in Nadine Gordimer’s “Once Upon a Time”." Five 2.1 (2013): 1-6. Scholarship @ Claremont. Claremont University, 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2014.
Omond, Roger. The Apartheid Handbook. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1986. Print.
Shurgot, Michael. "Imagery and Structure in Nadine Gordimer's “Once upon a Time”." Journal of Literary Studies 24.3 (2008): 54-67. Print.
Uledi-Kamanga, Brighton J. Cracks in the Wall: Nadine Gordimer's Fiction and the Irony of Apartheid. Trenton, NJ: Africa World, 2002. Print.
Amina Gautier has been awarded with Best African American Fiction and New Stories from the South; in addition, she has successfully created At Risk. Gautier’s story is based on the African American community and the different types of struggle families can realistically face. However, if a white person would have written this exact story it could have been misinterpreted and considered racist. Stereotypes such as fathers not being present, delinquencies and educational status are presented in the various short stories.
Story Time, by Edward Bloor, Harcourt: United States of America, 2001. 424 pages. Reviewed by Mar Vincent Agbay
Kaffir Boy enlightens the understanding of apartheid by exposing the crippling mental, social, and economical effects it had on blacks in South Africa, preventing them
Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi and Mark Mathabane’s Kaffir Boy are both coming-of-age narratives that were written through the eyes and experiences of young people who grew up in a world of apartheid. Although, it should be noted that they both have parallels in their stories as well as distinctions, one should take into account the times and places in which each occurred. While Coming of Age in Mississippi occurred during a Jim Crow era in the American South, between 1944 and 1968, Kaffir Boy’s autobiographical narrative occurred during the regime of South Africa’s apartheid struggle from 1960 to 1978 in the town of Alexandra. During the late 20th century both narratives offer a framework of racism, a value and yearn for education and the struggle and will to survive.
American Literature. 6th Edition. Vol. A. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 2003. 783-791
Holman, C. Hugh and William Harmon. A Handbook to Literature. MacMillan Publishing Company, N.Y. 1992.
By stating, “racism itself is dreadful, but when it pretends to be legal, and therefore just, when a man like Nelson Mandela is imprisoned, it becomes even more repugnant” and “one cannot help but assign the two systems, in their supposed legality, to the same camp” (Wiesel, p.1), the Holocaust survivor is creating solidarity within two separate decades that are connected by the government’s tyranny. The rationale behind constructing a system of unity is to ensure the lives of the oppressed, regardless of their personal beliefs and cultures. Mandela is not affiliated with the Holocaust, nor is he a Jew – rather the former President of South Africa who stood up against anti-black movements – but he is still bound by a common
Booth, Alison, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. The Norton Introduction to Literature. Shorter 9th ed. New York: Norton, 2006. A7
What do you think about Africans? Poor place, food shortage, disease or something else? If so, you may condition “a Single Story.” In the talk “The Danger of a Single Story”, the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie indicated, “Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories.” Adichie tells authentic stories that she has found when people hear a single story about another person or country. The single story could lead to dangerous consequences which make people limit their perspectives, create stereotypes and bias and even cognize things wrongly.
Massey, Douglas A. and Nancy A. Denton. American Apartheid. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.
Stillinger, Jack, Deidre Lynch, Stephen Greenblatt, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume D. New York, N.Y: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print.
Abrams, M.H., The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Sixth Edition, Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Inc., 1993
J. M. Coetzee' novel, "Disgrace," takes place in post-apartheid South Africa. The times swing chaotically in the great upheaval as South Africa's political power arm swings from a white ruling minority, to black majority rule. The power shift is anything but smooth; victims become victors and, likewise, oppressors become the oppressed.
I have always thought that Nelson Mandela has been one of the most important people in history. I find it very fascinating that one man could end the Apartheid and that is why I want to find out more about this. South Africa is a country with a past of enforced racism and separation of its multi-racial community. The White Europeans invaded South Africa and started a political system known as 'Apartheid' (meaning 'apartness'). This system severely restricted the rights and lifestyle of the non-White inhabitants of the country forcing them to live separately from the White Europeans. I have chosen to investigate how the Apartheid affected people’s lives, and also how and why the Apartheid system rose and fell in South Africa.
In July’s People, Nadine Gordimer gives a very detailed and knowledgeable explanation of the political turmoil within South Africa. By expressing the emotions of a family involved in the deteriorating situation and the misunderstandings between blacks and whites, she adds a very personal and emotional touch, which allows the reader to understand the true horror and terror these people experienced. Gordimer writes of how the Smales family reacts, survives, and adjusts to this life altering experience. She makes obvious throughout the book that prejudice plays a major role in uncovering the reactions of Bamford and Maureen Smales.