Nadine Gordimer July's People Gordimer, Research Proposal

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Maureen tries to purge herself of the old South Africa, going so far as to stand naked in the rain at night, in kind of a baptismal ritual. However, this fantasy of purity is untenable in a reality where both black and white viewpoints are tainted with old notions about sexuality and race. Maureen constantly sees July in sexual and sexualized terms. This becomes most stark when the two of them fight over who will hold the keys to the 'bakkie,' the car they drove to the village, and to wrest control over the keys Maureen brings up July's mistress. She seems partially motivated by jealousy, as well as a desire to win a power struggle in this exchange, and although July eventually hands over the keys, the victory feels hollow.

Maureen's use of a sexual threat shows that she has still evidently internalized the exotic image of black sexuality in the culture, and this stereotype bleeds over into her relationship with July. She first attacks his sexuality when she wants to control him rather than other aspects of his character, as if this is the only way the two of them can communicate. She can no longer call him 'boy,' a term that July brings up bitterly over and over again, but she uses white stereotypes to control him even in the village, stereotypes of a different kind -- the stereotype of the unleashed force black sexuality, now devoid of white laws and constraints, rather than a subservient stereotype. July cannot forget his past oppression, although he is now free -- he remembers the insult of being a 'boy' still, and that affects his relationships with whites.

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"Hay? What you can say? You tell everybody you trust your good boy. You are good madam, you got good boy," spits July, ironically (Gordimer 70).

Part of the difficulty the two of these characters have is the barrier of language. Maureen calls July her savior, not her boy after the overthrow, but she cannot really have a deep and meaningful conversation with him, given how white society has deprived him of an education: July's English as that which he has "learned in kitchens, factories and mines," and it is "based on orders and responses, not the exchange of ideas and feelings" (Gordimer 96). Maureen knows that July is capable of deeper feelings and thoughts he cannot express to her, but because he has only learned the functional aspects of her language, their exchanges can only take place in the language of crude sexuality and power, as in who will hold the keys.

Apartheid is more than politics, Gordimer's novel suggests -- it is also about a culture of oppression that is inescapable, and affects both blacks and whites. At the end of the novel, July and his people are evidently going to take the helm of the new nation. Ironically, Gortimer's vision of the end of the apartheid system is much bleaker than how the overturning of power to Nelson Mandela actually occurred, but July's People is still a powerful reminder that white colonial discourse is not erased from the minds of either blacks and whites as swiftly as a change of government......

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