Is There Nowhere Else Where We Can Meet?

by Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordiner was born in in Springs, South Africa, 20/11/1923. Daughter of Isidore and Nan Gordimer. Has lived all her life, and continues to live, in South Africa. She was awarded The Nobel Prize in Literature 1991. And we are going to have a closer look at one of her novels which is called Is there nowhere else where we can meet Literary Analysis To begin with, it is a one-character story where all events are described through the main heroines perception, feelings and thoughts. The story takes place in a late fall somewhere between November and March in South Africa. We can trace it with the help of such hints: it was a cool grey morning, she was wearing a coat, strip of veld ( it is flat open land with grass and no trees that is typical for the particular part of Africa ). The story gets complicated with every minute, the heroine sees some red eyes, she does not know whether they belong to a dog or to a person. These red eyes evoke fear and some interest, her hurt starts beating faster and faster. At the end of the story she will get home safe and sound and the story is open-ended. The author on purpose did not give any names because she wanted to generalize that situation and foreground some oppositions: white and black ( racial context ), educated uneducated, civilization veld. Even one more opposition comes to surface at the end of the story it is girls final thoughts, why did she fight for, who is a victim and what would she do if she meets him again. Particular attention should be drawn to smells, they play vital role in this story. e.g. the strong smell of old sweat burned at her nostrils, a filthy rag, a dusty green scent, he was clean, unhuman, the smell of him choked her. The last but not least, the fence which she clawed at, plays a borderline between colonizers and colonized, secured and unsecured territory. The following

sequences are to be deduced: 1) the open air, calm, initial balance 2) she noticed a red dot, nervous, disruption, forest 3) the emotional climax, abstract fear 4) she approaches a safe place, new thoughts, moral values, her balances is destroyed. It is worth mentioning that fear, cold and sweat keep the text together.

Linguistic Analysis Epithets: muffled sky, platinum grass, dark-fringed pine, a red woolen cap, white splashed stones, half-turned heel, red hairy woollen cap, yellowish-red eyes, scuffling shoes, a ditch knee-high, Metaphor: clump of trees, powdery black of cold, a pang of guilt, Framing: it was a cool grey morning and the air was like smoke.. at the end we can read Yes, the wind was cold; she was suddenly cold, damp cold, all through Polysyndeton: and and Simile: air was like smoke, like an etching, as if he had not slept for a long time, beautiful as the figurehead of a ship, like pins responding to a magnet they fastened along her legs. Summary: Mrs Gordiner brought to the surface human cruelty and inequality. She depicted misery of some minorities and class problems that existed in South Africa. Probably, they exist even nowadays. In my view, we should be more careful and not to forget about the society that we live in.