Character analysis of Lillian Thurgood

The main character in Rayda Jacob’s story “The Guilt” is Lillian Thurgood. The story is about a confrontation between an old woman and a young black guy. Lillian is an elderly woman, who is living alone because her husband passed away. She is a wealthy woman and lives in a rather big house almost close to a small mansion. The reason why I assume that, is “the gate was locked, the wall round the property ten feet high” [The guilt, Contexts, p. 125]. This also tells us about the insecurity of a lonely old woman.

Over the years time has changed; the discrimination days are over, and she lives her life in fear for the blacks. She hides behind the big gate and two dogs, Tembi and Tor. They were “fierce and powerful dogs, they had been trained by her late husband to follow specific commands” [The guilt, Contexts, p. 125], Lillian feels that the dogs gives her reassurance and the protection she needs to feel safe in the world she lives in. However she has pent-up anger inside her because, in a way, she feels like an inmate on her own home.

People often took advantage of her and when William interacts with her inner emotions she reacts unexpectedly and sets the dogs on William and threatens him with a gun. Lillian wanted to show by her actions that he could trust her and that not all white people are the same: “she wouldn’t lock the door behind her, she told herself. She trusted him. She would show him that she did” [The guilt, Contexts, p. 128]. The story is dealing with a complex problem in South Africa. The whites and blacks are held against each other and they certainly do not trust each other.

The whites in South Africa have a guilt complex and the blacks hate toward the whites has led to an eager battle. ”In that moment she understood that it took very little to pull a trigger, and that the distance between rational