Nadine Gordimer

Time” by Nadine Gordimer, the successful use of symbolism potently gives the reader a deeper literary connection to the true meaning of apartheid and how it affected not only the people of Soweto, but the faulty government of Johannesburg as well. Gordimer relays symbolic understanding to the reader by cleverly using certain aspects and objects in the story to vividly connect the struggle of the two ethnic groups with expectations and reality. Along with Gordimer: Froelic, Halle, and Shurgot, are critics who have also written literary articles that illustrate symbolism as it relates to “Once Upon A Time” and the reality which is the oppressed people of Soweto and the trapped citizens of Johannesburg.…

Nadine Gordimer, an anti-apartheid activist and writer from South Africa, uses her short story, “Once Upon a Time,” to critique the racist political system. This critique is, however, cloaked within a children’s tale – a bedtime story of sorts. After all, as Thomas C. Foster points out in his book, How to Read Literature like a Professor, “Overtly political writing can be one-dimensional, simplistic, reductionist, preachy, dull” (117). Gordimer’s attack on apartheid is anything but dull. As the…

essential part of life. This theme of “Finding Common Ground” is represented in the texts, The Lord of the Flies by William Golding and Once Upon a Time by Nadine Gordimer in a variety of ways. In The Lord of the Flies Golding introduces to the story privileged boys that have crashed onto an island and must find common ground in to survive. Golding’s message is that everyone has an inner savage, and that civilization is forced onto us. One of the central themes is that these boys have inner…

In The Conservationist, men run the farm, head the general store, and harvest and tend to the crops. Apartheid galvanized gender roles and created a male-based economy. In the book, women are confined by tradition. Inside the home of the Indian family, the women existed to sate sex drives and birth children. The patriarch, after visiting his son, noted that, “The boy will be happy anywhere where he can be touching the first woman he has all to himself” (Gordimer 112). The only other women…

than fear that any minute you might lose it. During the time that Nadine Gordimer wrote, “Once Upon A Time” crime was rampant in South Africa as a result from the oppression and poverty caused by the horrors of Apartheid. Gordimer goes on to tell the story of a family living “happily ever-after” with their son and their domestic workers, but because of the social climate around them they are constantly under threat of violence and theft and their happy ending is ultimately destroyed when their…

In July’s People by Nadine Gordimer, Bam, Maureen and the Smales’ children are whites living in South Africa with their black servant July. Initially, Bam demands total respect because he is a white male adult in apartheid society. However, as black unrest threatens to disturb the balance of power, apartheid begins to disintegrate in the wake of black rebellion. Bam is left with a choice, stay in Johannesburg and have hima and his face the wrath of black rebels or join July’s village people. Bam…

Behind every story there is a greater meaning. In Nadine Gordimer “Once Upon a Time” and Anna Quindlen “A quilt of a Country”, symbolism plays an important role in going beyond the surface meaning of the meaning. Both the cat and the quilt symbolize something more than what they seem, the cat shows the irony between precautions and our safety, while the quilt shows that America is built from parts that do not match. In Nadine Gordimer’s “Once Upon a Time”, the cat has several deeper meanings.…

Houston Buehler Mr. Disney/7 English 1 Honors 13 October 2015 Collection 1 Essay Collection 1 portrays how individuals who have different views cannot make society better. In the articles “Once Upon a Time” by Nadine Gordimer, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and “A Quilt of a Country” by Anna Quindlen all show how when there is people butting heads nothing is fixed it only gets worse. In the story “Once Upon a Time” Nadine Gordimer describes how the family’s “trusted” housemaid is too…

Introducing students to literature that exposes them to global issues is an important aspect of the IB curriculum. Graffiti Knight by Karen Bass and Wanting Mor by Rukhsana Khan, both offer a great plot structure, characters and historical significance that would teach IB students about risk-taking. Graffiti Knight is about Wilm and his friends who rebel against the Soviets in Germany during the post WWII. Wanting Mor is about a girl named Jameela who her father abandoned and left in the…

Racial injustice has played a tremendous role in world history and still does to this day today in countries like the US, where systemic racism still is a big problem, even in the 21st century. This issue is also one of the main themes in the South African writer Nadine Gordimer’s short story “Comrades”, which was published in 1991. In the short story, contrasts play a big role. However, the main contrast portrayed in the short story is the contrast between black South Africans and white…