Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Separation by Color



"What sorts of relationships are being described in this story? How are the relationships affected by each protagonist’s cultural background? Their difference economic status? The apartheid system? Why are the two stories combined?"
The point of, “Town and Country Lovers,” by Nadine Gordimer was to look at how racism and poverty could separate you from others. “Town and Country Lovers” is a two-part story about interracial lovers. In both stories, they are very similar in that one can see that the treatment of whites were by far more favorable than that of nonwhites. In the first story, Dr. Franz-Josef von Leinsdorf meets a young, colored girl who works at the grocery store across the street from his apartment. A few times a week, she would bring razor and groceries to his apartment (page 162). Before long, they became sexually involved (page 163). During her affair with Dr. Franz-Josef von Leinsdorf, the cashier was always very watchful because the laws forbid such relationships and therefore, she knows that their relationship cannot last. Though, Dr. Franz-Josef von Leinsdorf was aware of the taboos against their relationship, he goes forward with it anyway. He could not fathom the cashier’s terror when they were arrested; therefore, this indicates that he does not understand how different their lives really are. In this story, I thought that the razor was a symbol of their love for one another and how their relationship wasn’t going to last forever. With a razor, if you are not careful with it, it may cut you, which is exactly what happened with Dr. Franz-Josef von Leinsdorf and the cashier girl’s relationship. They weren’t being cautious about their love, and at the end, was cut deeply from it.  
The second story introduces Paulus Eysendyck, a white farmer’s son, and Thebedi, the black daughter of one of the farm workers. Growing up, they played together; however, as they reached their teenage years, they began a sexual relationship with one another even though they knew that they cannot be together (page 168). Thebedi married Njabulo, even though she bears Paulus’s child (page 170). However, Njabulo treated the baby as if the child were his own (page 170). When Paulus learned about the child, he panics—this clearly demonstrates that he values his social status more than his feelings. He visited Thebedi and tried to persuade her to give the baby to someone else to care for, but she refused (page 171). A few days later, he went to see the baby alone, and the baby soon died afterwards. Turned out, the baby had been poisoned, and so they arrested Paulus (page 171-172). Thebedi’s nonresistance for letting Paulus visit the baby alone reveals how powerless she is in a non-colored society. However, Paulus was set free when Thebedi did not come forward with the truth. From this story, the “gilt hoop ear-rings” that Paulus gave to Thebedi when they were young was a symbol of their love together.  Even after Paulus killed their baby girl, Thebedi still wore them and she even when she went to trial, she wore them. This shows that she still loved Paulus very much, even though she knew they could never be together.

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