Erica, Adela, Hilda, Emily, Sara

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Nadine Gordimer (1923 )

• Erica, Adela, Hilda, Emily, Sara
• Revised by Cecilia Liu

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Nadine Gordimer

• Above the lower section of the map shows
• the area still owned by Britain to this day.

• images taken from ltpowayusd.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/.
  ../pages/April_14.htmgt

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Nadine Gordimer (i)

• Born in 1923 in Springs, South Africa 
• Daughter of Isidore and Nan Gordimer (Jewish
  immigrant parents) 
• Has witnessed how the minority white people
  weakened the rights of the majority black people
  since she was a child.

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Nadine Gordimer (ii)

• Received education in a convent school and spent
  a year at Witwaterstrand University, Johannesburg
  without taking a degree.
• Has also taught in the USA in several
  universities during the 1960s and 1970s.
• Was awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991.
• Never considered going into exile even at the
  height of the apartheid regime
• Has lived in Johannesburg since 1948, and
  continues to live in South Africa.

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Nadine Gordimers Works (iii)

• Issue mostly about South African, apartheid, a
  racially divided home country, and post-apartheid
  
• her writing to give a number of different
  perspectives on a situation, in some cases most
  poignantly those of apartheid's supporters, and
  in this way to represent the broader anatomy of a
  diseased politics. Gordimer's subject, as she
  emphasizes, is much more than apartheid it is
  the human being in history. (Abrams 2572)

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The Moment before the Gun Went Off
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• Setting South African farming community in 1991
• Narrator The third person viewpoint
• Summary The story is about an accidental
  shooting of a black farm boy by a white farmer.

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Characters

• Marais Van der Vyver-- a farmer, who is smart but
  isnt very socially adept and has problems with
  intimacy.
• Lucas--a black farm boy, who is a good mechanic
  and likes to go hunting with Marais.
• Captain Beetge--a police, a tough guy, who cant
  stand to see a man crying.
• Alida Van der Vyver --Marais wife, who cares
  about gardening and having a high social status
• Willem Van der VyverMarais father

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An accident?

• Coincidences
• without checking rifle if it was loaded or not
• the fast driven car over a pot-hole
• the black boy sitting on the top of the truck

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Analysis

• In the story the White minority are the ones in
  charge. In this particular society, blacks are
  the blue collar workers while the whites take the
  higher positions.
• Tradition will give way to changes blacks will
  hold high social positions, and whites will marry
  blacks. One way or another this will be the
  eventual fate of the community no matter how hard
  the whites try to separate the black from the
  whites.

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• The Moment before the Gun Went Off delves
  beneath the surface of a not unfamiliar South
  African scene the fatal shooting of a black
  laborer by a white farmer. This particular
  incident is shown to have been accidental, but
  the sickening tragedy and horror of the episode
  is only revealed in the last sentence -- exposing
  further levels of human dependence and
  entanglement in an already complex situation.

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• The paternity of the dead boy in "The Moment
  before the Gun Went Off" is a secret only between
  his mother and father. That there is still a bond
  between them can perhaps be seen in the glance
  they exchange.
• Different level of understanding or comprehension
  of the incident
• the community as outsiders
• the people involvedthe bond Marais and
• Lucas mother the grief of Marais Van der
  
• Vyver over the death of his son

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Study Questions

• What is the moment before the gun went off?
• Do you think it is an accident? Why?
• What is the relationship between Marais and
  Lucas? How do you know?