Country Lovers by Nadine Gordimer and the Welcome Table by Alice Walker - Essay Example

? Compare and Contrast Two Literary Works (Country Lovers by Nadine Gordimer and The Welcome Table by Alice Walker) Date of Submission Introduction There are various forms of literary works: novels, short stories, plays, poems and even novellas. All these are constructed by their authors in such a way that they bring out the desired theme and effectiveness. The particular form of literature may be a factor for study. For example, poems are constructed in a way that is quite different from the other literary works and the way that poems are studied may be quite different from the way other literary works are studied. However, other issues that are related to the study of literary works such as style are usually the same. The thematic concerns that are centered in literary works are also mostly the same. These are the various factors that are discussed when looking at literary works. This paper will be a discussion of two literary works Country Lovers by Nadine Gordimer and The Welcome Table by Alice Walker. Focus will be on content, form, style and setting of the two literary works. These features will be analyzed so as to ascertain the rationalization that they have towards developing the themes of race and ethnicity that are common in both works. All these aspects as pertains to the two stories will be compared and contrasted. Both literary works, Country Lovers and The Welcome Table are short stories. They can be found in a number of collected anthologies. However, despite the fact that they are both story stories, they are quite different. While Gordimer’s story is long and quite detailed, this is not the case in The Welcome Table. This story is quite brief but still manages to pass the message that it was intended to. Through descriptive words, the author has still managed to come up with a plot that is interesting to follow. Therefore, while both literary works are short stories, one is long and much more detailed than the other. This is what contrasts the two literary works of art in terms of form. It also makes them quite interesting to study. ?­ One aspect that is similar in both Country Lovers and The Welcome Table is the protest about racism; this is followed by the tragic human consequences that this practice comes with. Despite the fact that the stories are written based on the same thematic concerns, the context in which they are written is very different. Moreover, the way in which they are written and the emotional impact that they have on the readers are not the same. For example, whilst Gordimer’s story is written in South Africa when the apartheid regime was rampant, Walker’s story is set in the United States during the post civil war period. These were different historical times that occurred in places that are far apart and the experiences that the characters in this stories had may not have been the same. During the Apartheid system, the law, under the operation of the state was used to impose difficult living conditions on the non-whites in South Africa (Union of South Africa, 2012). This situation can be seen from the text, while Paulus went to school and lived in full comfort and sometimes even enjoying some luxuries, like movies, this was not the same case with Thebedi, she was supposed to do manual labor on the white man’s house with education being a secondary objective to her and the other black children (Gordimer, 1975). This was as per the law that ensured that there was a great disparity between the lives of the blacks and the whites. While this was the situation for the blacks, all wealth, economic and educational opportunities were privileges that were exclusively reserved for the whites in South Africa. On the other hand Walker focuses on the plight that the older rural based African Americans go through. This is through the life of complete slavery that they have been subjected to and they are still subjected to. Even though some reforms were made during the Civil Rights era, there is a lot of subjugation that the blacks continue to undergo in the United States. In different ways, these two stories try to expose the brutality and hypocrisy that is brought about by continual racism and ethnic inclination. However, this is done in very different ways and divergent emotions are elicited as a result. With relation to stylistic devices that are used in these stories, there are a number of different literary devices that are incorporated in the story to bring out the intended meaning and various thematic concerns. For example the use of parables is dominant in Walker’s The Welcome Table. There is a lot of allusion to the happenings that are in the bible. The use of the setting of a church in itself is quite unique. The lady being ejected from the church somehow symbolizes the same way that people eject Jesus from their lives. While in the bible it symbolized the continual of sin, in this case, it symbolizes the continuity of racism that is rampant in most societies of the world today. Scholl 2008 says, ‘in its many ironical reversals of social roles, expectations and event, this story uses the formal structure of parables’. Just the same way Jesus tries to save us from sin is the same way that the United States and other nations try to be saved from the deep rooted racism problem. Apart from the main thematic concern of racism that the two stories share, there are other concerns that are similar in these short stories. These include the themes of hypocrisy and fear. Still, the way that these themes are singled out is quite contrasting. In the story country lovers, the hypocrisy is set at a more personalized level. Despite having the support of the legal system and the advantages brought about by the dominance of the Apartheid system, the boy Paulus decides to disregard all these and follow the natural feelings of love towards the country girl Thebedi, this can be seen in the physical descriptions that he has of her, there is a sense of innocence in his physical descriptions of her. They meet up frequently by the river and give gifts to each other, he gave her earrings and she gave him a bracelet that he treasured (Gordimer, 1975). However, as Paulus grows much older, he becomes more conventional and socialized taking other girls to movies, to an extent an act of hypocrisy. In the end, he shows the highest deal of hypocrisy to the whole affair by killing the baby that they had. This was an act of extreme selfishness; he had to take the life of the innocent child just to save himself from the imminent prosecution under the immorality act. Under the Apartheid system in South Africa, there was the immorality act of 1950, this act made sexual relations between Europeans and non-Europeans illegal (Union of South Africa, 2012). Paulus wanted to escape from prosecution by this act. On the other hand, hypocrisy is brought out differently in Alice Walker’s The Welcome Table. In this case, hypocrisy is of a more generalized nature. It is based on the whole American society towards the Africans. The old lady in this case symbolizes the whole of the African-American society while the church symbolizes the hypocrisy that the whites have. They pretend to be doing away with racism but it is still part of their society, they eject the old lady from the church because they cannot stand her presence because of her origin. Klinkowitz, 2001 says that, if you are a sincere Christian, do you think Jesus was present in that hypocritical church? Fear and embarrassment are the other thematic concerns that are common in both stories, in Gordimer’s Country Lovers; we could say that it was fear that led to the murder of the innocent child. Paulus probably had the fear of the consequences that would arise when it would be discovered that he had had relations with a colored girl. When he visits Thebedi at her Kraal to see the baby, he asks her, “You haven’t been near the house with it? He further says, “Don’t take it out. Stay inside. Can’t you take it away somewhere? You must give it to someone” (Gordimer, 1975). This shows the fear that Paulus Eysendyk; he did not want anyone to realize that the baby was his, this was due to the complexion that the baby had. He might have also feared the embarrassment that he would face in front of his white peers when the realization that he had had relations with a colored girl emerged. Embarrassment led him to cover his face with his mothers coat upon leaving the court to avoid photographers. The same embarrassment is what his father felt, he tells the press, “I will try and carry on as best as I can to hold up my head in the district”, (Gordimer, 1975). The words ‘many of them (whites) saw jungle orgies in an evil place, while others were reminded of riots, anarchist groups and raping in the streets…’ by Walker 1994, show the fear that the whites had towards African Americans. Whites did not see the blacks to be human beings just like themselves; they did not have the natural feeling of compassion towards fellow human beings. There are a lot of economic disparities in the two stories, with the blacks being oppressed. The descriptions of the woman’s dressing signify poverty, her clothes are mildewed and missing some buttons. Walker says, ‘…the white congregations that look at the lady in church do not see a vulnerable lady but a cook, chauffer, maid or mistress,’ (Walker, 1994). This is due to the fact that these are the jobs that the Africans were associated with. In Country Lovers, the description that Thebedi gives upon visiting Paulus’ house shows a sense of economic endowment, servants, many rooms and other luxuries, this is the kind of life that the whites in South Africa had. This is opposed to the blacks who lived in Kraals and did menial jobs, with education being considered a secondary need. Thebedi did not attend school regularly and her parents did menial jobs in the white man’s farm (Gordimer, 1975). The literary style irony has been employed in The Welcome Table, it is ironical that the title of the story is the Welcome Table yet the woman who wonders absent mindedly in the church receives no welcome. This is the use of irony as a style. There is no welcome table for her in the house of God. Blacks and whites have their own churches. The use of vivid descriptions is present in both stories; there description of the ladies’ dress in the welcome table is that some buttons are missing at the front of her mildewed dress. The effectiveness of this description is that it shows us the poverty state that the woman is in. The women in the church are well dressed with gloves to cover their hands; they assert that their husbands would not let them sit with the lady (Walker, 1994). This shows that they are well of and the ethnicity that is rampant in the country. In Country Lovers, Gordimer uses vivid descriptions when Thebedi and Paulus meet by the stream, when Thebedi gets in the water to swim, her dress is described to have bunched modestly and tucked into the legs of her pants. Paulus thinks that the dazzling bellies of the girls’ she went for swimming with in school had never made him feel what he felt now (Gordimer, 1975). However, in this case, their effectiveness is quite different, it is used to emphasize on the love that Paulus felt for Thebedi. This is the extent to which works of art use different literary devices to achieve different effects in their literary works. The use of parables in The Welcome Table may have been influenced by Walkers church going childhood (Bloom, 2008). On the other hand, the theme of racism adopted in Country Lovers is probably influenced by Gordimer’s childhood and schooling in South Africa. Conclusion Nadine Gordimer’s Country Lovers is much more detailed and takes place over many years. This is from the time when the two youngsters meet; we see the love that they share grow, the changes that it goes through and finally its end, it is a love story that goes wrong. The characters in this story are much more personalized and even have names; this helps us to connect with them emotionally. On the other hand, Alice Walker’s story is unique in its brevity; however, the use of parables still delivers the message well. The characters do not have names but the lady that wanders in a white congregation is elevated to the status of any African woman and the African fraternity in the United States as a whole. Even though she dies at the end, we could say that she died happy, however, the readers are left with the question whether the church is a tool of social control or frustration. Despite both these literary works being short stories and having the same theme of racism and ethnicity, they are unique in their own ways, a factor that makes them seem very different, yet enjoyable and rich in literary structure. References Bloom, H. (2008). Alice Walker: the color purple. New York: Info base Publishing Group Gordimer, N. (1975). “Country Lovers,” from Soldiers Embrace: A Collection of Short Stories Klinkowitz, J. (2001). You’ve got to be carefully thought: learning and re-learning literature. New York: SIU Press Scholl, D. G. (2008). 'With Ears to Hear and Eyes to See: Alice Walker's Parable. Pages 113- 124. InfoBase Publishing Group. Union of South Africa. (2012). Immorality Amendment Act, Act No 21 of 1950. Retrieved on 28th March 2012 from http://www.disa.ukzn.ac.za/index.php?option=com_displaydc&recordID=leg19500512.0 28.020.021 Walker, A. (1994). The Complete Stories. London: The Women’s Press Read More