APPROPRIATION AND SUBVERSION DURING THE APARTHEID: A POSTCOLONIAL ANALYSIS OF NADINE GORDIMER’S SELECTED SHORT STORIES

Abstract

Nadine Gordimer’s “Six Feet of the Country”, and “City Lovers exposes the strains of racial oppression in the amidst of “apartheid” in South Africa. Gordimer shows the people of two communities, the black and the white, are estranged. The lands and resources of the black majority are captured by the white minority of Afrikaners but their own humanity is on stake. They cannot justify whatever they have got through the provision of laws. Their working conditions on farm give them a chance to interact but the white Afrikaners are asked to segregate from the black and remain at a distance. This research is qualitative in nature and uses the content analysis of the selected text, with an emphasis on the characteristics of “Appropriation” and “Subversion” projected in the theoretical framework of Postcolonialism. The study finds that the characters show dissatisfaction with this discriminatory practice but they do not find an opportunity to stand against it in ‘Six Feet of the Country’. The characters show appropriation to the standards of the colonial Afrikaners and the black are pushed to the wall. This paper traces the impact of apartheid in the lives of the South African people and explores how the characters appropriate or subvert the prescribed behavior.