Nadine Gordimer is known as a Modern Period writer. The Modern Period was a time of inevitable doom, disillusionment, stoicism, and pessimism. Her writings give imaginative and moral shape to South Africa. Women were gaining more rights and Gordimer did not favor feminism in her writings, but instead racial issues. This story connects between Marais Van der Vyver and a young black boy, Lucas. Nadine Gordimer’s “The Moment before the Gun Went Off” strongly directs how the narrator’s point of view, attitude, and voice reflects the view on blacks in South Africa.
The point of view of “The Moment before the Gun Went Off” is a nation divided between the whites and blacks. The theme deals with apartheid. This was a system of racial segregation in South Africa. The story is being voiced by someone who knew Marias personally. The farmer, Marias Van der Vyver, accidently kills his black servant on the way to the hunting grounds. Irony is presented when Marias reveals that his father always told him not to carry a loaded gun in the truck. Throughout the story, one can feel that Marias is struggling with the death of Lucas. Marias brings up other stories about shooting accidents, but this story will make major headlines. Marias acts as his fate is already revealed, “He knows that the story of the Afrikaner farmer - a regional Party leader and Commandant of the local security commando - he, shooting a black man who worked for him will fit exactly their version of South Africa” (Gordimer 2850). Even though it was an accident, the public will not view it that way.
The attitude from the author is being portrayed as repulsion. Her view is that the policies are not fair and should not be in place. The Anti-apartheid banners and the Immoralit...
... middle of paper ...
...power and persuasion. A father caught in a situation where there is no positive outcome, in which he chooses his pride rather than a moral decision. His integrity is clearly defined in the end when he clears his name. Racial issues and personal tragedy allows all emotions to tell the story. Nadine Gordimer’s “The Moment before the Gun Went Off” powerfully guides how the narrator’s point of view, attitude, and voice reveals the view on blacks in South Africa.
Works Cited
Erritouni, Ali. "Apartheid Inequality And Postapartheid Utopia In Nadine Gordimer's July's
People." Research In African Literatures 37.4 (2006): 68-84. Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 Apr. 2014. .
Gordimer, Nadine. “The Moment before the Gun Went Off.” The Norton Anthology: English
Literature. 9th ed. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 2013. 2850-2853. 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.
Ever since the abolition of slavery in the United States, America has been an ever-evolving nation, but it cannot permanently erase the imprint prejudice has left. The realities of a ‘post-race world’ include the acts of everyday racism – those off-handed remarks, glances, implied judgments –which flourish in a place where explicit acts of discrimination have been outlawed. It has become a wound that leaves a scar on every generation, where all have felt what Rankine had showcased the words in Ligon’s art, “I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background” (53). Furthermore, her book works in constant concert with itself as seen in the setting of the drugstore as a man cuts in front of the speaker saying, “Oh my god, I didn’t see you./ You must be in a hurry, you offer./ No, no, no, I really didn’t see you” (77). Particularly troublesome to the reader, as the man’s initial alarm, containing an assumed sense of fear, immediately changing tone to overtly insistent over what should be an accidental mistake. It is in these moments that meaning becomes complex and attention is heightened, illuminating everyday prejudice. Thus, her use of the second person instigates curiosity, ultimately reaching its motive of self-reflections, when juxtaposed with the other pieces in
Mazrui, Ali A. "The Re-Invention of Africa: Edward Said, V. Y. Mudimbe, and Beyond." Research in African Literatures 36, no. 3 (Autumn 2005): 68-82.
In “Who Shot Johnny” by Debra Dickerson, Dickerson recounts the shooting of her 17 year old nephew, Johnny. She traces the outline of her life, while establishing a creditable perception upon herself. In first person point of view, Dickerson describes the events that took place after the shooting, and how those events connected to her way of living. In the essay, she uses the shooting of her nephew to omit the relationship between the African American society, and the stereotypic African American society.
McCandless’s family and peers expect him to live life a certain way, to follow the family tradition, however, it is McCandless’s high social standards for himself, and his sharp view of right and wrong, that would define the blueprint of his tragic flaw that caused him to go into the wild. In High School, McCandless would start to show some of his radical ideas about how he could help fix society. McCandless’s high school buddies explained that “’ Chris didn’t like going through channels, working within the system.”’ (113) Instead, McCandless would often talk about leaving school to go South Africa to help end the apartheid. When his friends or adults responded by saying that you are only kids, or you can’t make a difference, McCandless would simply respond “so I guess you just don’t care about right and wrong ‘” (113). McCandless would grow to learn that hi...
The way Staples structures this essay emphasizes his awareness of the problem he faces. The essay’s framework consists mostly of Staples informing the reader of a scenario in which he was discriminated against and then following it with a discussion or elaboration on the situation. This follow-up information is often an expression stating comprehension of his problem and than subtitle, logical criticisms toward it. For example, Staples describes women “fearing the worst of him” on the streets of Brooklyn. He then proceeds to declare that he understands that “women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence.” Staples supports this statement with information about how he had witnessed gang violence in Chester, Pennsylvania and saw countless black youths locked away, however, Staples pronounces that this is no excuse for holding every young black man accountable, because he was an example of a black man who “grew up one of the good boys” coming “to doubt the virtues of intimidation early on.” This narrative structure highlights that Staples is not a hypocrite because he is not show ignorance toward the problem he is addressing unlik...
In the article, “A Letter My Son,” Ta-Nehisi Coates utilizes both ethical and pathetic appeal to address his audience in a personable manner. The purpose of this article is to enlighten the audience, and in particular his son, on what it looks like, feels like, and means to be encompassed in his black body through a series of personal anecdotes and self-reflection on what it means to be black. In comparison, Coates goes a step further and analyzes how a black body moves and is perceived in a world that is centered on whiteness. This is established in the first half of the text when the author states that,“white America’s progress, or rather the progress of those Americans who believe that they are white, was built on looting and violence,”
Khapoya, Vincent B. The African Experience: An Introduction. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998. Print.
Although the film is slow, it takes on surprising power from the dignity of its performances and the moral strength of its ideas. The book is the same way except you are being fed more of the characters emotion through words than through pictures. Not every moment of the film is as potent as the book (which is noted for passages of passion and impassioned eloquence), but as I said before overcomes its own limitations to become a glorious tribute to the workings of a faith that does not blind but opens up the human spirit (Douglas 25). Alan Paton's novel of apartheid in 1940s South Africa receives a sanitized and overly sentimental treatment in this film, a little trivializing to the book's relentless power.
The young man’s predicaments all revolve around his need to satisfy those that will judge him and he becomes trapped between the apartheid rule and humanity’s desire for equality and respect towards others. This is purely a personal issue that can be resolved solely by him, but should take into the consideration of those involved. We see glimpses of this coming through the young man, but being raised in an era of apartheid it overpowers his common understanding of respect.
...o took care and fought for the African Native peoples and was in the middle of writing down these novel thoughts of his when he heard something downstairs, when he went down stairs where a frightened Absalom Kumalo shot him. This paradox makes a martyr of both men. A man killed who is on the verge of seeing a new South Africa, and naïve man hanged for his nervous and accidental but fated murder of that man. This shows how one man is not enough to change the path of all the mislead men and women in the world. It was the fault of that time period that a man sent to help was killed unknowingly by those he helped. Without both of their deaths one cannot truly and completely come to realize how truly wrong this system is. One can reconcile this troubling paradox by seeing the impact that on the fathers of the men killed and how their family’s views on the future change.
Opara, Chioma. "From Stereotype to Individuality: Womanhood in Chinua Achebe's Novels." Challenging Hierarchies: Issues and Themes In Colonial and Post colonial African Literature. Society and Politics in Africa. Vol 5. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1998. 113-123.
middle of paper ... ... ’s depictions of both traditional and modern beliefs in varying degrees illustrate the importance of both in contemporary Nigerian culture, as well as the greater Africa as a whole, and how both are intertwined and cannot exist without the other. In effect, she skillfully subverts stereotypes or single perceptions of Africa as backward and traditional, proving instead, the multifaceted culture of Africa. She further illustrates that neither traditional African nor western culture is necessarily detrimental. It is the stark contrast of the fundamental cultures that inevitably leads to clashes and disagreements.
Kaduna: Baraka Press, 2004. Magesa, Laurenti. A. African Religion: The Moral Tradition of Abundant Life. Nairobi: Pauline Pub., Africa, 1998. Mbiti, John S. Introduction to African Religion.
Old South Africa is best described by Mark Uhlig, “The seeds of such violent conflict in South Africa were sown more than 300 years ago, with the first meetings of white settlers and indigenous black tribes in an unequal relationship that was destined one day to become unsustainable” (116).