Saturday, April 16, 2011

Nadine Gordimer-The new way of thinking

                Throughout these stories we gain a sense of the effects of the Apartheid  and the effect they have on the individuals mindset.
                When thinking of the author Nadine Gordimer I think of the emphasis the author puts on the Apartheid and particularly they way it effected every individuals thinking. When thinking about this author it brings me back to our class conversation over "Six Feet of the Country".  This brought up the discussion about Petrus and his strong desire to bury his brothers body. We discussed the religious reasons behind it and more importantly the ways others felt about the individual passing away and how they deal with it. Something as simple as thinking about others feelings I had totally ignored. Like one of my outspoken class mates, I to agreed with him and his story of the horse, "who cares what you do with the body, it's dead". However this expression at the time I felt conveyed my only point of view as well if it was my body I would rather people dump it in the ocean then waist their money on my burial. However I was ignorant, furthermore my thought process was completely contradictory because I ignored the simple fact that if this was somebody I knew I would never think this way. Therefore it was quite foolish that I forgot the simple idea of considering others feelings over mine.
                Applying this to the Apartheid and the message I believe Gordimer was portraying to us had kind of worked in the same way. People in this system could only see everybody from one point of view. In this system whites were the highest class and therefore considered everyone else inferior. The lower classes aware that they're being oppressed were the victims and therefore had the majority view that all whites were bad and may had started to in fact believe they themselves were inferior because of society.   This system had altered everybody's way of thinking, never allowing them to realize that they were all victims (admittedly some more than others) in this institution.  
                In "Six Feet of the Country" we are shown this by the seemingly old grumpy white man who is calling all around for Petrus's brothers body. When he is unable to get the body back it enrages him not because his workers brothers body is missing or the amount of money Petrus had gathered to pay for his brothers body or the amount of calls the grumpy white man had made for it but because he was white and the "system" wasn't working for him when it was suppose to. However as we noted all throughout the story there wasn't any signs that he himself was a racist by his own accord in anyway yet his way of thinking just wasn't right.
                Even Lerice the wife from "Six Feet of the Country" seems very nice and open to her workers and even referred to them as "her children". Sadly enough when Petrus brother was dying because he had been seriously ill and they had not told the white farm owners until it was too late because they were afraid they would get in trouble for having a refuge. Lerice even says after it happens "You would think they would have felt they could tell us".  It's tragic to think even though they thought they were in a  better place and believed they had a good relationship with their workers that it wasn't as strong as they had thought.  Both sides were misguided in their thought process and once again it's safe to assume from this story and what we know that it was a result of the institution they were in.
                Further evidence of this misguided thought process is shown in "Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants".  In this we are introduced to an older white woman as the main character she does not seem to intentionally be a bigot I say because of several reasons but for one particular example she says in regards to Jack "Sometimes you find yourself talking to that boy as if he was a white person." This is aggravating for several reasons, first she is implying that only white people are intelligent and or speak that confidently. Moreover the other reason the story shows she is not a bad person we are shown this bye how she decides to help this stranger get a room for the night off her recommendation and then even allows this stranger in her place for several nights. However we also learned that she was quite paranoid of the towns people and feared they were out to get her. It's amazing when a system that says someone is better than somebody else creates tension and natural enemies.
                Nadine Gordimer does a great job of showing the effects of the Apartheid physically and mentally. I felt this authors story expanded my way of thinking. It's so easy to learn about the physical damages and the economical hardships it brought on the other "classes" in this system. However I would have never considered the long term physiological  damage this had been causing. Because these people were told long enough that they were either better or worse than others, they started to feel this way. Even if they weren't actually bad people they thought in very ignorant ways. It's scary to think that this can happen because if this type of thought process can be produced and developed, how long until it goes away. I have to ask myself, does it even go away and if it doesn't that horrible way of thinking will pass generation to generation  causing hate to live on.

1 comment:

  1. I like how your develop the evolution of your reasoning in this posting. It makes it more interesting in that one can see how each conclusion leads to the next. This makes for a good narrative. Well done. Your point about empathy is also important: I'm glad you thought about that.

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