extract 2(“she did have one book…discovered through imagination”-chapter five)

Maureen was not a member of July’s family. She was one of the whites who suffered a terrible torment during the period of black’s revolt in South Africa. It was July, a ‘decently-paid and contented male servant’, who gave Maureen and her family a shelter. He rescued them (the whites) from danger. The place given by the black was the only hope of their existence and it was not their own. Maureen felt uncomfortable breathing with blacks. She felt that she was living in a hostile environment. The setting was totally unknown to Maureen. She had hardly anything to do except living in those Rondavels. And another thing she could do. She could read. But only one book The Betrothed she had and she did not want to finish it because what would happen when she had read AlessandroManzoni’s I Promessi Sposi, Italian name of the novel, or finished.

In July’s People Gordimer has dropped the way of living of the whites. She introduces us with a shocking reversal. In extract 2 it is realized that as a white, Maureen became someone else. She was feeling strange. Her life style had been changed. Circumstances forced her to leave the familiar activities of white existence. She was not what she was. She was living in unfamiliar circumstances. Though she wanted to give up the black life style she could not because she knew that she was living between the explosions of the old before the birth of the new.  But she was still hoping and she kept a taboo that if she did not read the novel, her family would find a solution soon; if she read, they would still be here when it was finished. Using the taboo she stopped herself from reading The Betrothed but she broke the law getting the pleasure of reading and to survive in this mysterious state.

Then, let’s talk about some major themes of July’s People, ‘Fact and Fiction’, which deal with this extract. Actually, fact is more authentic than fiction.  The place was not Maureen’s own and she was passing a weird time. She had left all the trappings of the white middle class life. She had only one novel to read in her leisure. But no fiction could capture the moments of Maureen and Leopard Doesn't/Can't change its spots.Does/Can they? Sorry and it cannot bear the burden of light shadows. When she began to read she got hardly any awareness of being within another time, place and life. She could not mix up herself with the fictitious elements of the novel as we do. She did not get the pleasure of reading. Because she was experiencing the fiction, and what she was really experiencing was the fact. The fact was that she was isolated. As a white she was feeling alone. A sense of displacement was working on her mind. Actually, it was of time, of place, and as well as of life.