Country Lovers Essay

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Country Lovers Jaime Martin ENG 125 Lesa Hadley July 22, 2013 Country Lovers Nadine Gordimer, an author who spent her entire life in South Africa, wrote Country Lovers. Her writing was influenced by the racial segregation that was going on, and was the theme throughout many of her writings. Separated by racial segregation and social differences a forbidden love is formed between a black girl and a white boy in this story. In the early 1900’s in South Africa racial segregation was a huge problem, interracial relationships were not accepted nor allowed. The characters in Country Lovers are Thebedi, a black girl who works on a white mans farm, and Paulus Esyendyck, the son of the farm owner. Thebedi and Paulus are young friends when the story begins who used to play together, and then they gradually get older and become more curious about each other. Because of the racial segregation being seen together was not allowed. They often snuck around to meet each other without anyone else knowing. Thebedi’s life was all about working on the farm while Paulus went away to school, and interacted with other girls doing what normal boys his age would do. When Paulus was home for the holidays they would meet each other often in their spot until one-day things between them were taken to another level. They experienced something between them that they had never done with each other before “he did with her what he had done that time in the storeroom at the wedding, and this time it was so lovely, so lovely, he was surprised . . . and she was surprised by it, too” (as cited in Clugston, 2010, section 3.1, para.5). When Thebedi reached the age of eighteen she was told she was going to marry a man named Njabulo, Thebedi did not tell Paulus of this nor did she tell him that she thought she was going to have a baby. While Paulus was home on holiday he found out that
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