Nadine Gordimer Comrades commentary. The following extract is from the collection of short stories by Nadine Gordimer called Comrades. In the story a white liberal woman befriends a group of black protestors and provides the
Name: Giang Tran ‘’Comrades’’ by Gordimer – IOC written commentary
The following extract is from the collection of short stories by Nadine Gordimer called ‘’Comrades’’. In the story a white liberal woman befriends a group of black protestors and provides them with food, although it was unusual to have this kind of friendship during the Apartheid system where the whites and the Coloureds were segregated. The title ‘’Comrades’’ is ironical as the friendship between those two races, Europeans and Africans, was forbidden during the Apartheid system. Nevertheless, in this extract Godimer portrays the friendship, though it is uneasy at first, between the white liberal woman and a group of Black youngsters.
Gordimer’s description of the young men clashes with the description of the white liberal woman. The author highlights the contrast between the European and African cultural backgrounds through the use of contrasting language and diction. The men are presented as hungry, "they are stacking their plates and cups", suggesting they lack basic commodities in contrast to the woman’s wealthy house, which has a symbolic significance as the Blacks were stripped off not only of essential human rights such as education, "they are children…for whom school is a battleground», but also wealth creating an inequality in the South African society. Gordimer makes use of irony as the woman is presented as generous, providing food to the youngsters, which was unusual due to the barriers between the two races set up by the government and engraved by stereotypical views of the older generation. The insignificant and detailed description of her fruit bowl, ‘’…perhaps there is a peach or two under the grape leaves with which she likes to complete an edible still life’’ symbolises the Whites’ wealth and opportunity to buy luxuries while the Blacks lacked basic needs such as food. The repetition of the pronoun ‘’they’’ groups the Black youngsters into one insignificant crowd to which all the Coloured people belonged to. Gordimer reflects the segregation in the Apartheid as the Coloureds were classified as inferiors to the White people despite the fact that there were differences among the Coloured people as well, which shows the ignorance from the Whites. Gordimer suddenly uses third person pronoun ‘’he’’ at the end of the extract without introducing the character properly to symbolise the loss of identity of the Black people. The detailed secretion of the white woman in comparison to the simple diction to describe the men suggests that the narrator might be from the white woman’s perspective, symbolising that the Whites had little knowledge of the Blacks’ situation. The clashing description of the woman and the black youngsters in effect makes the reader realise the enormous barriers that the Apartheid system has created between the Whites and the Coloureds.
