The short story “The Guilt” is written by Rayda Jacobs and it describes a confrontation between two people from different races. The story takes place in South Africa in a time which includes danger and ignorance. It is a story from the post-apartheid South Africa; the period has infected the story which was based on discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion and color. Apartheid was also a formal system of the racial segregation which divided its people; in this instance is it the white contra the black people who make its focus.
The themes in the story concern danger and guilt in a society which includes violence and crime of the inhabitants, especially the white people are in serious trouble if they are going outside or at the streets in Centrum. It is told in third-person narration which provides the greatest flexibility to the author and that is the reason why it is the most commonly used narrative mode in literature.
The main character in the short story is Lillian Thurgwood who is a widow and through the hole story gives us the impression of an old and lonely woman against the world around her through different incidents of her life. The writer, Rayda Jacobs, has sketched jock (her late husband) as having a big influence on her life in a way that the strength of her courage and the way she overcomes the challenges of her life to the readers very clear.
Lillian lives in security with her two dogs, Tembi, and Tor, who guard and give her the sense of being secured as if they were left by her late husband to protect her when he cannot be there physically. She lives in a house, which is surrounded by a ten feet high wall. The wall and the locked gate tell us about the insecurity of an old woman who lives all by her own, in a time with the need of protection and the feeling of being safe from the world outside.
The relationship between two spouses