Country lovers

Thesis Statement:

Racial prejudice against the black people was very rampant which caused apartheid and racial

inequality.

Supporting Arguments

1. Disparities experienced by people of colour.

2. Forbidden love between a black and white

3. The immoral killing of the innocent baby

Right at the beginning of the story we found out the drawback between the two races.

When they were still children, they were indifferent to their racial differences but soon as they

grew up, the sense of superiority creeps unto them and they stopped playing with the black

children, “the farm children play together, when they are small; but once the white children go

away to school they soon don’t play together anymore even in the holidays”. Now this tells us

how the society back then worked. Gordimer here is referring to the apartheid, more commonly

known as racial segregation. This was actually passed into a law in South Africa where it

legalized white supremacy over the non-whites, the blacks, the coloured, the natives and the

asians to maintain and establish strongly their dominance in the economic, political and social

sector or systems. Now in the story, we can safely say that the major cause of discrimination is

the difference of their colour; whether one is black, coloured or white. The fate of being black

back then was so pitiful. You (assuming you are black) are going to be treated as if you are a

disease that needed be separated from everyone else. Everything was almost separated, from

schools to basic facilities like comfort rooms and places to be standing on, places to visit, places

to eat, places to buy, places to shop, places to live, places to worship and places to hang out with.

Medical care was also separated and the general services provided for all the citizens were not

fair. If you are black, then you are going to have a service inferior to the whites. It was like you

are a second class citizen in your own land. (the fact that the whites in South Africa were just

British colonizers) Now what we meant when we said their superiority complex creeps unto

them is that they were influenced by how their society worked and so they developed this sense

of being superior over the colored individuals, especially over the blacks. At first, we assume

that the children were just being children. Children in their primordial state still do not have the

grasp of feeling hatred over racial differences. These are too deep for them as of the moment. It

is in the text that the children when they were small played together regardless of color, but once

they went to school where they get their “education”, they are now subject to influences that will

either make them a better person or not. Back then, racism was so huge; so huge that they passed

apartheid as a law. They were influenced of how the society view the blacks as slaves and not

par on their level. And we assume these are one of the reasons why they do not play with the

blacks anymore. They feel that the blacks are so inferior and that they must not be mingling with

them. The blacks were mostly labourers and slaves in the big farm houses of the white people. In

fact, Thebedi, the main character in the story, and her husband, Njabulo, were farm workers on

Paulus Eysendyck’s family farm and it was just a matter of time where they had to address their

childhood friends a missus and baasie meaning little masters.

Now the story gets to a point where back then it was considered a social taboo that made

people cringe when they catch something like this was going on – love between black and white

individuals or simply an interracial love.

Thebedi, a black young lady, and Paulus Eysendyck, son of her white masters, grew up

together and were childhood friends. As they were growing up and coping up with their own

lives –Paulus had to go to a boarding school and endure all the societal influences and pressures

while Thebedi had to work hard as one of their workers – a sense of intimate friendship grew

along with them too. Although they now lived very different lives but they still didn’t forget each

other. They exchanged presents for each other; “he brought home for Thebedi a painted box he

had made in his wood-work class” while she gave him a “a bracelet she had made of thin brass

wire and the grey-and-white beans of the castor-oil crop his father cultivated.”But their fondness

for each other had to be kept secret. They had to hide it within themselves because the society

was not in favor and it was illegal of having a relationship with different race. So, they needed

to lie and hide their growing relationship from the public. “They went to the river-bed often

through those summer holidays. They met just before the light went, as it does quite quickly and

each returned home with in the dark-she to her mother’s hut, he to the farmhouse – in time for

the evening meal”. In this statement it signifies no freedom, they both try to sneak and hide just

for them to see each other. They still need to find a time seeing each other, and look for a hiding

place which no one could see them. This tells us how hard it was for them to express themselves

for their love was forbidden just because they did not have the same color.

But love, no matter how steep a mountain is or how narrow a path is, always finds a way to

be expressed. Thebedi and Paulus were a young couple who were wild and daring. They did

what the society programmed them as wrong. Their love was forbidden so they really could not

do anything but to hide. “He told her, each time, when they would meet again” because they

cannot be seen in public together. Now their friendship developed into something more than that.

Something that led to led to intimacy that joined them into one. Their actions had to to have

consequences and so Thebedi eventually got pregnant.

Now, this brings us to our third supporting argument; The immoral killing of the baby is

an act of a propagation of hatred and ignorance. Paulus became paranoid upon knowing Thebedi

got a child. He knew that it was his baby. He actually got speechless the first few seconds when

he saw the baby because right from there he immediately knew it was his. “The infant was very

light and did not quickly grow darker as most African babies do” and so by this statement from

the text we assume that the baby must be brown or somewhere halfway black and white and it is

quite obvious why he got speechless was because his instinct was right, that it was his baby with

Thebedi when they did it by the riverbank. “He struggled for a moment with a grimace of tears,

anger and self-pity” and we think he got really nervous this time and panicky of realizing what

trouble they are now in. He was even reassuring by asking Thebedi “"You haven't been near the

house with it?" and then he even said statements that were obviously not properly thought of like

“don’t take it out. Stay inside. Can’t you take it away somewhere? You must give it to

someone.” His words tell us how he really got so nervous and panicked and could not think

properly. And then he finally said, "I'll see what I will do. I don't know." Then the next couple

of days he visited again and the very next day in the morning, the baby died. The baby was dug

up by the police, soon after the baby’s burial, to investigate the cause of its death. Murder charge

was brought against Paulus because Thebedi reported that Paulus murdered the baby by “pouring

liquid into the baby's mouth”. She could have done something but she was helpless and “he had

threatened to shoot her if she told anyone.” In our point of view, Paulus murdered the baby.

Paulus lied in front of the whole court that he had not murdered the baby therefore, he was

declared, “not guilty” by the law. This shows how biased their judicial system is towards the

white people and against the black people. Although there was really a strong suspicion that

Paulus did commit murder but we cannot also blame their judicial system entirely because in fact

it was Thebedi who drew back from what she said a year before she testified for her baby’s

death. There are a lot of issues and possibilities we can raise here why she pulled back her

statement, one is that maybe her life got threatened that if she continues to fight she will be

murdered. Another one is that, maybe she just felt so weak and helpless that it was of no use

fighting him because they are in control and they have power. Third is, maybe they paid her a

huge sum of money just to quit the charges up she brought. And another one is that maybe

Thebedi and along with Paulus, was afraid of being socially discriminated if the people and the

general public will know they got a baby. But among all the other possibilities, it was still

Thebedi who will suffer in the end for she committed perjury because her statements were

inconsistent, it was either she lied on the first trial or the very recent trial. It was so unfortunate

that no matter what move she would take, it would always be a lose-lose situation for her.