An Analysis of Nadine Gordimer's Short Stories

        I noticed that in the middle of the story the characters go through realizations of their own. In the story “Loot”, the man who the writer was speculating found a mirror. I think this symbolism self reflection and realization. I think that character was trying to collect all these things because he was trying to lose himself. In the end, when he picked up the mirror, he found that what he was looking for is what he has been trying to avoid all this time. It’s rather tragic that Nadine Gordimer decides to kill off this poor man that has just found self fulfillment. Her unconventional way of writing makes you unravel your brain and reflect upon things that you thought you knew. Nadine Gordminer put experiences in to perspective, with situations that have never occurred to you before. In the story “An Emissary”, there is the realization of death in the most peculiar situation. The characters notice death when they are in an intimate situation. This really contrasts the idea of death and the moods that death usually doesn’t portray. Nadine bends the common definition of death and brings out a whole new meaning to it.

        In the finale, for both the story and the characters, everyone gets swept away along with their memories and possessions. In the story “Loot”, I find that Nadine was not only trying to have the ocean be the cause of the deaths but also have the ocean to be a metaphor for death. The ocean puts a black sheet over everything and wipes it from existents; exactly how death does the same thing. She also says how the ocean hides everything underneath it and I think this is also exactly what death does as well.  In the story “An Emissary”, the end of the story becomes a circle to the beginning of the story. This, to me, represents the circle of life and how it’s always going to continue on the same path through different experiences. Death always is going to be there, no matter how hard you try to avoid it.

        These two stories really stuck to me because it made me question all my answers. It made me look at life in a different perspective. Nadine, as well, made me rethink what a short story is. I thought that short story was like a little story. However, she showed me that it is a reflection of another person’s experiences.  It doesn’t have a good ending and unexpected things happen throughout it - just like how life is. The definition I currently think of as a short story is that it is a little tidbit of life depicted on a piece of paper. A short story can teach us about things we feel and things we could have not understood before. The perspective of death has even changed for me. Now it is not necessarily a bad thing but a thing that I need to accept is going to happen. It really opened up how death can happen at any time, no matter the circumstances.  Her stories made me think about what I have in life and what I should cherish. She also showed that every story has many sides and no one in the end is absolutely right. Her stories and the way her writing reflects on society today, makes the reader understand more about the world around him/her and propels him/her towards self fulfillment.