White South African Liberalism
There is strong irony in Maureen and Bam’s liberal anti-apartheid ideology, not only for the fact that they participated in apartheid by keeping black servants, but also the fact that in hiding, they are forced to hope for some form of white liberation to free them. Early in the novel, Maureen describes how, through the years of staying in Johannesburg despite their better judgment, they came to sympathize with the people who wanted them out. This liberal sympathy is itself ironic as their very white privilege is the object of their supposed resistance. Compounding this is the fact that they keep black servants, and by doing so, maintain the social order. Their position is ultimately challenged when they find themselves in hiding, hoping for an end to the violent revolution that is overthrowing apartheid.
Salvation
One of the strongest ironies in the novel is the deep ambivalence or even resent that Maureen and Bam feel for being saved. Maureen describes their three-day drive by saying, “It was a miracle; it was all a miracle: and one ought to have known from the sufferings of saints, that miracles are horror" (11). Their lives have been saved and simultaneously transformed. While Maureen recognizes their luck, she is consistently dismayed by it throughout the novel. This anguish and sense of purgatory is sustained to the point that Maureen breaks and runs toward an unknown helicopter and likely danger.
Power and Trust
When the Smales family comes to depend on July, Maureen’s trust in him begins to falter. Even though she has never doubted him for the 15 years that he’s worked for her and has left him in charge of her home and children, when their power roles are reversed and she must live in his home, she begins to doubt his character. The shift in power roles undermines her trust. When she was the one in the position of power, she felt close to July. Ironically, he expresses to her that he felt closer to Bam than her back then, as though he too doubted her benevolence when she had the power. Now that Maureen has come to depend on July for her ultimate protection, his character changes in her eyes; she looks at him more critically and mistrustfully than she ever did before.
The Chief’s Position
When Maureen and Bam go to see the chief and he asks them everything they know about the war, Bam tells him that his people (the black people) are finally liberating themselves. Bam expresses his support of this, explaining that Mozambique and Botswana are coming to the aid of black South Africans. Black liberation is coming, he says. But instead of being happy about this news, the chief asks Bam to teach him how to shoot his rifle. He doesn’t want those other tribal people coming onto his land. He wants to fight them off. He wants the whites to win and to maintain the system they’ve had. His rejection of black liberation is profoundly ironic, especially in the face of a white man who supports it. The chief and Bam have opposing views of black peoples’ best interest.
