Phase 3 Option 2

I looked at Box 4 folder 25 of Nadine Gordimer's early writings. The first story in the folder was an untitled story about WWII. This story was difficult for me to find anything that resembled her usual themes of social inequality and apartheid. However, in all of Gordimer's work she uses explicit metaphors, and lots of description. The story was of men who worked fixing the communication line during the war in Egypt. The men face a near death experience that eventually the come out of alive, however we get to witness first hand through Gordimer's writing what they were thinking and feeling and how they were preparing to die. Some of the men don't seem to care, others are concerned with strictly monetary things, and one said, "I am bitter, and I am afraid, because I know life, and i am loath to let it go" I thought that this was the most interesting statement of this short story. In my idea it breaks the norms of what Gordimer wrote about. She projects this unjust society in most of her work, but this main character seems to not want to let go of anything about it. He is constantly looking forward to getting out of the war and back to society, and wants to live his life.
The second short story I read was called "Babe". It had very obvious themes that related to apartheid. The story was of a young woman who was born from a black woman and a white Irish man in South Africa. Her mother died in childbirth and her white father raises her for awhile. The girl detests everything about her that is black. She dies her hair blond, powders her face, and paints her nails to hide their "blackness". She meets a man who treats her poorly but is none the less infatuated with her. While on vacation she catches him cheating on her with a white woman, and loses it for just a second. You hope that this is when she develops pride for herself, but she does not. The man sends her away calling her awful names. Eventually the girl finds another white man who has the same disgust/intrigue for her, and she tells herself in the mirror she isn't so bad. Gordimer uses the girl to show the horrible way some white people look upon the entire black population. They are intrigued. They need them to have a stable economy and do the work they do not wish to do--so they are intrigued by them. But a part of them despises them and believes they are all that is wrong with their society and put them down. It is an odd relationship that Gordimer has worked out perfectly between this woman and white men.