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A Study of the Development of the Structures and Themes in the Short Stories of Nadine Gordimer

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A Study of the Development of the Structures and Themes in the Short Stories of Nadine Gordimer A STUDY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE STRUCTURES AND THEMES IN THE SHORT STORIES OF NADINE GORDIMER MICHAEL KING University of Cape Town A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts University of Cape Tovn for the Degree of Master of Arts The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University of Cape Town ABSTRACT Most current studies of Gordimer concern themselves with her novels, and her short stories have not received significant critical attention as stories in their own right, worthy of study both for their structural and formal qualities, and for the contribution they make as social, political and historical comment on their time. This study begins with a general discussion of the artistic demands of the modern short story, and then proceeds to a close study of all Gordimer's published short stories, concentrating on the developments that occur in the characteristic structures and themes of her stories. Each of her collections is dealt with, chronologically, in a separate chapter. In the course of the study, it became clear that two critical approaches were needed in order to explain satisfactorily developments of structure on the one hand, and theme on the other. The basic approach has been close textual reading, which has been enhanced especially after her fifth collection by consideration of the stories' socio-historical dimensions as well. Gordimer's early stories deal with what are later seen to be characteristic themes, race and racial differences, self-deception, illusion, or the stripping away of illusions, turning points in childhood and marriage. Later stories show the developments in these thematic areas, most i notably in the field of race. Other stories reveal a growing interest in the role and position of women, and also a preoccupation with betrayal. Gordimer's stories are seen as occupying a position firmly within the tradition of the modern short story. Her character- istic treatment of her material results in what this study sees as a typical Gordimer short story structure. The story starts with an introductory passage which presents the necessary background and characterisation, or sets the atmosphere. It then moves into a high focus during which a number of insights or revelations occur, which interact with each other to produce, at a higher level of abstraction, the central or unifying revelation which is the essence of the story. In these early stories, she shows a self-aware and self-regarding concern for questions of form. After Friday's Footprint, she devotes less attention to the formal qualities of stories, and gives more attention to questions of social and political comment. However, she does attempt some stories that could be labelled experimental short fiction, and she constantly explores the limits of the traditional artistic demands of the modern short story. After Not For Publication, she seems to turn her attention more towards longer works in order to find a suitable genre for her material. Her consistent use of critical realism, her special ability to capture the nuances and minutiae of experience and character are well suited to the short story form. This study shows the ii extent to which the short story serves as a vehicle for the expression of her perceptions of and interaction with her society as she develops from the pre-liberal to the committed radical writer and commentator on her society and its people. iii CONTENTS Contents iv Acknowledgements V Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Face to Face and The Soft Voice of the Serpent 11 Chapter 3 Six Feet of the Country 57 Chapter 4 Friday's Footprint 97 Chapter 5 Not For Publication 136 Chapter 6 Livingstone's Companions 183 Chapter 7 A Soldier's Embrace 226 Chapter 8 Something Out The>:e 270 Chapter 9 Conclusion 299 Appendix 308 Bibliography 317 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Geof­ frey Haresnape, for all that he did to help me with this work, for his gentle and perceptive criticism and his friendship. I would also like to thank Dorothy Driver and Wendy Woodward. Each in her O'Wll way gave me encouragement and support. And special thanks to Fiona Adams who prepared the typescript. V CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Nadine Gordimer, internationally acclaimed as the pre­ eminent South African writer of her time, nevertheless is not accorded much popular recognition within South Africa. Her most prominent works have been her novels, for which she has won such international prizes as the 1971 James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for A Guest of Honour), and as joint winner, the 1974 Booker Prize (for The Conservationist). But it was as a short story writer in the 1950s and 1960s that she gained prominence, winning the 1961 W.H. Smith Prize for her third collection of short stories, Friday's Footprint. She has continued writing short stories, and has had seven collections of short stories pub- lished, along with the eight novels. Paradoxically, the short stories have received much less critical attention that her novels - and in general works on her, critics tend to concern themselves primarily with the novels, seeing the short stories as 1 trial runs, or early versions of the situations of her novels. Yet the short stories themselves constitute a fertile area for study, revealing as they do, both considerable virtuosity in the craft and techniques of the short story, and a large body of social and political comment on the times she has lived in. This study offers a systematic critical survey of these stories. 1 See, for example, Michael Wade, Nadine Gordimer (London: Evans, 1978). It will be one of the contentions of this study that Gordimer occupies a special place in the tradition of the modern short story. However, the modern short story has not yet been satisfactorily defined, despite many attempts. What seems to be a more worthwhile endeavour than striving for an exclusive definition is to consider the artistic demands that the short 2 story makes. The short story is a form that employs distinctive artistic methods to structure a particular kind of experience or perception. Not every experience is capable of adaptation to the artistic demands of the short story. However, to attempt to formulate the artistic demands of the short story is not the same as trying to find a definition which will cover the range and variety of the corpus of short stories in English. It is a form sui generis, even though attempts to define it have often tried to do so by contraposing it with the novel. The Kenyon Review ran a selection of articles which was entitled "An International Symposium on the Short Story" during issues 30 and 31 (1968 and 1969), in which a number of writers presented their views on the state of the short story. John Wain wrote of the short story, "it defines itself against the novel ••• the short story writer 113 d oes t h ose tingsh . tath t h e nove 1 ist does not d o. He goes on to explain this comment. 2 I would like to acknowledge my indebtedness for this approach to Michael Chapman's paper delivered to the 1984 AUETSA confer­ ence, which is entitled, "The Fiction-Maker: The Short Story in Literary Educatioi." 3 John Wain, "An International Symposium on the Short Story," The Kenyon Review, 31, (1969), p.82. 2 He (the short story writer) begins, as the novelist begins, by imagining people in a certain situation. But he need not go on until the situation is completely explored. It is enough for him to present the people and situation vividly, to indicate, deftly, some of the possible ways in which they might react to it ••• Because the possibilities are to be left undeveloped, because the characters are to be hit off rather than shown in depth, drawn rather than painted, the right economy and lucidity, the detail that reverberates with exactly the required 4 suggestion and no other, must be forthcoming. Nadine Gordimer, in the same collection of articles, takes a similar line. Both novel and story use the same material: human experience. Both have the same aim: to communicate it. Both use the same medium: the written word ••• If the short story is alive while the novel is dead, the reason 5 must lie in approach and method. A more recent study of the short story has a more detailed explanation of the difference. Whereas the novel may be seen as a succession of events, incorporating for purposes of verisimilitude, considerable descriptive residue (those apparently fill-in observations and conversations), the short story often aims at the single event with descriptive residue giving way, severely, to metaphor, symbol and the sharp contrasts of opposites. Discussion of the novel usually proceeds most fruitfully by way of a detailed consideration of surface structure (which is syntagmatic and governed by temporal and causal relations); shorter fiction with greater immediacy signals deep structure (paradigmatic and based upon elements 4 John Wain, p.84. 5 Nadine Gordimer, "An International Symposium on the Short Story ,"The Kenyon Review, 30 (1968), p.458. 3 binary oppositions and associatigns - which are not in themselves narrative). The following discussion suggests the common basis of criti- cal agreement of the artistic demands of the short story. It is neither exhaustive, nor prescriptive, but it does reflect the core of what is commonly referred to as the 'tradition of the modern short story'.
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