Although the white woman understands the many nuances of the apartheid culture in that nation, it is clear she is attempting to bridge the gap placed between blacks and whites as they continue to pick up hitchhikers on their journey. The Englishman, as well, is trying to understand the order of things in South Africa. However, Gordimer explains that “although he doesn’t know it, being too much concerned with those names thrust into his hands like whips whose purpose is repugnant to him… [there is] a moment like that on a no-man’s-land bridge in which an accord between warring countries is signed,” (1412). When that mixture of colored, black and white people is driving together in the car, they exist peacefully without direct oppression from apartheid. However, the apartheid has changed the mentality of the blacks in the country, who thank the Englishman profusely and call him “master”, which affectively puts “whips” into the English man’s hands (Gordimer 1411-1412). Despite the man’s best efforts to objectively understand the nature of apartheid and its many consequences, the blacks make him his master because they have always been told that every white was their master. Gordimer shows how apartheid rule greatly distorts the relationship between blacks and whites and creates a cultural suppression that becomes intrinsically attached to the psyche of the people.
What Were You Dreaming? shows many more examples of cultural suppression. For example, the white woman is constantly explaining the nature of the law and the people in South Africa. She describes the laws as justifying “people as movable goods,” (Gordimer 1413). She continues, saying “we’re talking about loading up trucks and carting black people out of sight of whites,” (Gordimer 1414). This phenomenon, she says, is “an everyday affair,” and has clearly ingrained into the minds of those “moveable goods” their