History and Love
Teresa Harris
Ashford University
ENG 125 Introduction to Literature
Instructor Maria Rasimas
10/20/2014

History and Love “All short stories begin with a point of view” (Moose,2000). The theme in ‘Country Lovers’ is how racial segregation and social differences affect people’s lives.
Country Lovers is a short story about a black girl and a white boy who grow up in the same town. The setting of the story is in South Africa. At the time this story happens, South Africa was under a strict apartheid regime. The girl works on the farm that belongs to the boy’s family. Her name is Thebedi, and His name is Paulus. Thebedi is a very good person, but she lives in very hard circumstances. Paulus is a generous rich boy, but he is also selfish and ruthless. The two kids were friends into adulthood. “They were not afraid of one another, they had known one another always (Gordimer,1975).” When it was time for Paulus to start school, they hardly seen each other. Only when Paulus returns for the holidays. When Paulus turned 15, he began meeting other girls. He met a girl at a wedding, they had slept together. Even though Paulus meets girls other than thebedi, he buys gifts for her. When Paulus returns home for the holidays, the two meet at the river where they once played as children. They sit on the river bed and talk about school and how it is to be away. One day during summer, while at the river, they both bathed, then made love. After that day, Paulus meets up with Thebedi often at the river for the rest of his summer break. When Paulus turned 18, he gets his drivers license, and his parents then allow him to start having more freedom, and taking care of the farm is a good start for him, when they are away on weekends. Thebedi and Paulus began staying in the house a lot together. When

History and Love

Thebedi turned 18, she got married to a man named Njabulo. Paulus is away at Veterinary school, when this took place, and doesn’t know what she had done. Two months after the marriage begins, she gives birth to a girl. The baby is not as black as other black babies in South Africa. When Paulus comes home for a visit, he finds out about the marriage, and infant girl. He was very angry, and he went to see the baby He wanted to commit suicide. Two weeks later, Paulus’ parents are away presumably for the weekend. Paulus goes to where the infant girl is, and puts poison in her milk. Thebedi later found the baby girl dead, and she went to the authorities, and told them what had happened. After a year had passed , the case is finally heard in court, but the court says there is not enough proof that says he is guilty. So the the verdict came back “not guilty”. This short story tells a lot about the situation in South Africa during the apartheid regime. Apartheid was a system of racial segregation in South Africa, led by the National Party government. The white population of South Africa was in charge of the country. In ‘Country Lovers’ , we see how distinct the differences between blacks and whites were. The fact that Paulus was found ‘not guilty’, even though there was enough evidence to find him guilty, shows how white people protected each other. The story also tells how white children get to go school, while black children barely got any education at all. You have to know a little about the apartheid in South Africa to fully understand the short story. The educational value is definitely present.

References

Clugston, R.W. (2014). Journey into literature (2nd ed.). San Diego, California: Bridgepoint Education, Inc Gordimer,N. (1975) Country Lovers. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/books/AUENG125.14.1/sections/navpoint-17?search=country%2Olovers#w19868
Moose, R. The Writer.113.10 ( Oct 2000): 17-19 Perrine, L. Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. 4th. Ed. NY: Harcourt, 1983.
Nadine Gordimer ( 1975) Country Lovers