“... It’s as dark as a kaffir’s₁ soul here...”
At that moment, the lemon orchard, which might represent many times innocence and gaiety, had gained a completely different significance. The atmosphere serves as a foreshadowing to the violence to come.
The group of white men hold a very superior attitude towards the Negro, calling him by rude and discriminating names. They take pleasure in jeering at the man and threatening him in several ways, even with a gun. At one point the reader is shocked at what one of the men say to the others:
“I would like to have a dog like that. I would take care of such a dog.”
At this moment in the story we can see how those white men considered the coloured a lesser life form, even than dogs; for the man would gladly look after a dog but saw no harm in beating up a man who stood up for his rights. The language used by the men is also extremely violent and coarse. A strong example of this hostility was: “Answer me or I will shoot a hole through your spine.”
Apartheid in South Africa is very common and accepted or ignored by most of the population. Alex la Duma manages to portray this separation, the hatred and disgust the Caucasians have for the Negros, all over the country by using the image of the bound black man and group of white men to represent the two different sectors of South Africa’s population.
“I will whatever hotnot or kaffir I desire, and see me get into trouble over it.”
Here the author is showing us how the violence between these two ethnical groups has become accepted, as the man is sure he would never be prosecuted by the government because if he had killed the Negro. According the attitude of the white men the story, they believe that having fair skin has somehow given them the right to treat other races the way the liked. They also act as if the Negros have stolen all that they work for, making them entitled to hand out punishments when they see it necessary, which is the case with ‘Lemon Orchard’. We can see there is true anger in the man for he truly believes the man deserves to be taught a lesson, even though we know he is innocent:
“A teacher in a school for which we pay. He lives off our sweat, and he had the audacity...”
The sudden and unexpected ending is one of the ingredients which only enhances the barbarities done to the Negroes. Alex la Duma ends his story right at the climax, when the men have found a suitable spot for the beating. The way it is suddenly silenced conveys the feeling that whatever would happen next is better left unsaid, and forgotten. I believe that the author also uses this end to criticize how South Africa turns a blind eye to the discrimination. This way, when the reader realises the story has finished, we already knew exactly what would happen when last line is spoken:
“This is as good a place as any...”
I believe that because of all of these several things, Alex la Duma was successful in making an impactful and criticizing the violence towards the Negros in South Africa. I believe there is also another factor which adds to the effectiveness of the story. The story’s structure is simple and uncomplicated; we can see that the author did not try to transform the story into an epic tale of heroes and villains. We can also notice there is a lack of characterization both in personalities and physical descriptions; Alex La Duma hardly mentions any names during his narrative. This, in my opinion, gives a story an edge of reality, and makes it much more believable. The lack of personal characteristics attributed to the Negro conveys a sense of randomness, as if the whole race is subjected to this brutality, no man in particular because of something he had done, but instead a whole race, because of their skin colour.
1: Kaffir- an insulting name for a Negro
