Gordimer As A Social Commentator

For phase three, I continued with the works of Nadine Gordimer. I chose option two which asks for me to briefly discuss topics, organization and strategies in Gordimer’s early short stories and play. For this phase, I focused more on her play because many of the same themes kept showing up in her short stories.

One topic that kept appearing in one of Gordimer’s first published stories, “The Quest for Seen Gold” and her play “The First Circle” was the idea of people taking care of each other and sharing the good things in life. In “The Quest for Seen Gold” the sun convinces the little girl to stop chasing the sun because if she takes it then there will be no sunlight for everyone else. In the play, the rich woman is punished for not having a child and not spreading her wealth with other people who could have used it.

The biggest topic that is covered in the play is the idea that not doing anything is almost worse than doing something bad to someone else. Every person portrayed in the play didn’t help someone or blamed their misfortune on someone else. The scientist was even damned because he had the “answer to social problems” but he didn’t try to put a plan into place to make things better.

It’s clear throughout her play that Gordimer has an opinion when it comes to wealthy people because she has the rich woman shackled with jewels and makes her character very whiny and unlikeable. She also has a large chunk of the play devoted to the businessman who lost his son to a war that he was helping to keep funded by doing business with the enemy. His punishment is to have the blood of his son on his hands at all time. It seems that the richer people (who are also the most self centered) have the sadder punishments. She uses this as an opportunity for social commentary. These people had the ability to do a lot or make changes but they chose to only do what was good for them.

There is also mention in the play of the church and government. One character says, as he sees the clergyman and the politician together, “They are church and state. In hell, as in life, they stick together.” The clergyman is accused of never actually helping people but only giving out generic advice. He is also accused of not helping the black people in their country and he claims that is not the churches place. This idea of problems with race, also applies to the politician because he sat on the fence his entire time in office and never made a clear decision. I think this is an illusion to the politicians who never voted against the South African apartheid because they wanted to remain in office.

Gordimer uses her work to try to change people’s perceptions on economic and social inequalities. “The First Circle” is basically a picture of the social structure, as Gordimer saw it, in South Africa. She wants people to take away from it that not only are the rich people or government to blame for the problems in the country, but people who cannot see past the end of their noses and realize that they need to stand up and help somehow too.

For my final paper, I still have not fully decided which way I want to go. I know I want to center my question around Gordimer’s use of her writing as social commentary, probably her involvement with the moment against the South African apartheid. There is a lot in her collection but I know I will somehow use “The First Circle”. The other texts will depend on the focus of my question.