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The Guilt

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The Guilt
The guilt is written by Rayda Jacobs, who was born in South Africa on the sixth of March 1947.
As very young she started writing, and already at the age of 12 years old, she had her first story published.
The short story is about a confrontation between a black guy, and a white woman named Lillian Thurgood. She is the main character, and it’s at her house the confrontation takes place.
Lillian is an elderly woman, and lives alone because her husband Jock had passed away. She has two dogs, Tembi and Tor.
A black guy named William Sidlayi asks for work, but instead Lillian just donates a five rand coin to him. He insists to work for the money, and somehow he persuades Lillian, to let him rake the leaves.
After finishing his work in the garden he claims that the five rand was a donation, and that Lillian owes him 10 rand for the work. Lillian refuses, and at that point she realizes that the only thing between her safety, and his will was the two dogs. She sets the dogs on him, and in the meantime she finds Jock’s revolver.
She forces William out of her premises and warns him that she will pull the trigger next time.
In the evening she places the revolver under Jock’s pillow, and cries herself to sleep.
The setting in the story is very dynamic, as it takes place in South Africa just after apartheid.
Apartheid was a time with racial segregation between blacks and whites. The whites lived rich and wealthy in big houses, while blacks lived poorly in townships. Besides that the apartheid regime ruled over a lot of strict laws. This caused a lot of crime, which still haven’t been solved.
As said before Lillian is an elderly wealthy woman, who lives in a house with her two dogs, Tembi and Tor.
Her house has a ten feet high wall around the whole property, which tells us that it’s a violent community. We assume that, there is a huge difference between

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