In crafting her stories of the minority white domination of the black majority during the Apartheid era of South Africa history, the sympathies of the white Nadine Gordimer is always with her black characters. But such a perspective does not mean that she writes simplistically of the relationship existing between those representing the oppressors and those representing the oppressed. Just as there is a blurring in the distinction between those whites actively engaged in perpetuating an oppressive system and those who merely benefit and those who actively resist, so is there a blurring of the relationships crossing the racial divide. This blurring is further enhanced by Gordimer’s preferred narrative style which very often results in an ending charitably described as ambiguously open-ended.
A particularly illuminating example is the “The Catch” in which the non-white representative is actually Indian, but as the story proceeds to prove, that is hardly considered a distinction. Within a world in which Apartheid is able to thrive, any skin which isn’t detectable as “white” is suspect and toss onto the same pil of disposables. This is a story which features lines relating to the white couple at its center and their association with an Indian fisherman while on vacation like “They almost forgot he was an Indian” and “He was `their Indian.” In fact, the determinate description of the precise nature of the nature of the relationship is distinctly unambiguous: “When they went home they might remember the holiday by him as you might remember a particular holiday as the one when you used to play with a spaniel…of course, a nameless spaniel.”
The lack of vagueness as to how the white couple view the dark-skinned man is highly suggestive of the nature of those who make up a white minority occupying a land dominated by a majority black population who are nevertheless powerless to determine their own fate. It speaks to an inherent racism which, though learned, is nevertheless organic. As such, one would expect the tale to lead naturally to an equally forthright conclusion. But that is not the nature of Gordimer in her exploration of the extraordinarily complex relationship between whites and blacks. As the story unfurls, the Indian catches a huge fish—perhaps weighing in excess of 165 pounds—and the couple excitedly pose for photos with him and his catch. Attempts to sell his prize catch fail and he exits from the story. Then some white friends meet up with the white couple and the Indian—and his fish, still unsold—re-enters the story as they offer him a ride as they see him desperately sitting by the road with the fish in a sack, unable to sell it and incapable of lugging it home. As they drop him off, the white says to the others still in the car, “Shame! The poor thing! What on earth can he do with that great smelly fish now!” This stimulates contagious laughter among the white in the car which even affects her and as she continues laughing she also keeps inquiring as to what she said that was so funny.
There is something absolutely heartbreaking and also dreadful about the ending, but it is difficult to pin down exactly why it should create such a reaction. It is, perhaps, as difficult for the reader to understand their reaction as it is for the wife to understand the laughter around her, much less the laughter issuing from her. “The Catch” is but one small example of the many ways over the course of many stories that a statement is made about the relationship between whites and blacks in Gordimer’s world without actually making a definite statement. Another, much different example, occurs in the story “A Soldier’s Embrace.” The context of this story is significant because it demonstrates the hopes of white well-intentioned liberals like herself that the day would come when the black majority would take the controls of power. This hope is fed by the expectation, of course, that under black rule there would be something much closer to real equality.
Perhaps this stems from expectations that those who have been oppressed are less likely to become oppressors or maybe it is just a statement of the general oblivious cluelessness of those genuinely looking forward to utopian ideal or maybe it even a statement of absolute optimism that things always work out for the best. The story is an exercise in irony, but it is not ironic in the sense of a twist ending. There is no twist to the ending; it is one which is altogether easy to predict. The liberal white couple are good people, honest and decent and absolutely genuine in their desire to see an end to white minority rule. But when it comes, it does not bring the dream they had hoped. They are denied employment opportunities, ignored or forgotten by those for whom they fought and eventually forced to leave their home and homeland in search of a new life elsewhere that is going to be rough going at first.
It is ironic and yet it is not. It is ambiguous in the sense of there is no assurance of happy ending and it is precisely within that ambiguity that Gordimer’s mode of analysis is located. One cannot simply reverse the logistics of a power balance and expect that things will be better even when one has been hoping and dreaming and working toward that very reversal of fortunate. The realities of the complexities of the racial divide which informs so much of Gordimer’s writing looks a lot more—pardon the pun—like a simple black and white issue from the outside than it actually is on the inside. Not just her stories but her manner of writing them all work toward demonstrating the multiple levels of complexity existing there.
