Compare and Contrast: Introduction to Literature, Essay Example

Introduction

Alice Walker’s “The Welcome Table” and Nadine Gordimer’s “Country Lovers” share the theme of social expectations and norms dictate- but do not wholly define- life with racial stratification.   In both stories, black women are the victims of blatant racism, which is deeply embedded within the cultures they inhabit. Gordimer’s children think nothing of calling their former playmates “missus”, and Paulus Eysendyck is victimized for upsetting the status quo. Thus, Gordimer’s account does not advocate for a particular racial group but suggests that the many components of this system are responsible for its perpetuation. There is also in each story, however, something beyond simple, racist victimizing going on.   At least one white person is a victim of racism as well, in Gordimer’s story, and it can be argued that Walker’s white people also suffer from the blindness they themselves embrace.  Then, the young girl of “Country Lovers”, as well as the elderly black woman of Walker’s tale, act in an independent way and defy what might be expected of her.   In each story, personal choice is still made, in spite of the extreme conditions in place by racial views and traditions.  In each story, an individual soul makes something of a stand.  Both women, and to an extent one white man, still somehow move in their own directions.

Because of this factor, both stories present hopelessness and hope- the yin and yang of race relations and the potential where the lines meet.  Neither story has what could be called a “happy ending”; both end, in fact, in death.  However, it is what occurs before this that defines the characters and the essences of the fiction.  In these two stories, oppression rules life as it is lived, and for white people as well as black.  Laws are social constructs which define what is allowed; social norms are informally punished just as heavily. The white farmer’s son essentially has to apologize for the affair to be redeemed by the courts, for the order of the hierarchy, the haves and have-nots, to be restored. Conformity is the great law of the land, be it Alice Walker’s rural Georgia or the South Africa of Nadine Gordimer.  Nonetheless, within these confines, there is both great sadness and the possibility of joy that comes from independent action.   The major element linking “The Welcome Table” and “Country Lovers” is how racism affects all life, but also how human beings find ways to move through and past it, even if doing so ultimately creates destruction.

Form and Style

Nadine Gordimer and Alice Walker utilize very similar approaches to writing, one deliberately not after flourishes or large expression.  Gordimer’s style of writing is unemotional and detached: “The narrative voice that takes over these outwardly neutral presentations of fact…often takes the form of a presumed biographer or researcher” (Davis, 1994, p. 53).   In reading “Country Lovers”, there is almost the sense of reading a lengthy newspaper account.  Her statements are that lacking in description and it seems as though she is determined to let the power of the story come through as plainly as it can.  It is, in fact, nearly presented as a modern fable.  The white boy and the black girl who fall in love have a fairy-tale quality, as they meet in secret in outdoor places away from the world.   Later, even when Paulus is confused and frightened by both the child she bears and his own conformity to the world order, only the bare facts are presented.  Gordimer leaves it to the reader to understand the emotions running through her characters, from start to finish, and this is an effective way of actually emphasizing the emotional power.

Similarly, Walker writes mood in music. From the songs of the church to the tonal melodies in the old woman’s head, the reader is filled with rich tones and undertones. On the surface, Alice Walker merely documents an episode in a Southern town.  Her style of writing is not quite as spare as Gordimer’s, and Walker adds touches of powerful description here and there:  “Under the old woman’s arms they raised their fists, flexed their muscular shoulders, and out she flew through the door, back under the cold blue sky” (Walker, 1970). She describes the fact that the one is alone and what it all comes out to be  Most of her descriptive writing, however, goes to the above example, in that it is in regard to action.  There are few glimpses into what the black woman is actually thinking, as there is nothing but external reaction from the white people who throw her out.   Like Gordimer, Walker lets the reader fill in the blanks of feeling and thought.

As both stories are direct and plain in their styles, the pacing and lengths are very much alike. Nonetheless, there is a speedy progression of time in “Country Lovers” and a sense of urgency in the limited years of Walker’s old woman.  There is in neither any deviation from a linear tale; in both, the stage is set and the action moves on from there in a clean, steady way.   This occurs despite the great difference in the time spans of the stories, as Gordimer’s tale covers years and Walker’s only a matter of hours.  The effect is the same.  By proceeding in this direct way, the writers simply take the reader through what the characters experience, step by step.   This produces an especially powerful impact because the calm momentum is in contrast to the tragedies at the end of each story.   In both stories, in fact, the reader can sense what is coming, but there is no choice but to go on.   Then, as noted earlier, there is also a sense that, despite what the racist environments of the stories are creating, something decent or hopeful will emerge.

Subjects and Themes

It is interesting to note that Gordimer’s world of apartheid and Walker’s realm of Southern American racism are essentially the same.  That is, although the conditions and history of South Africa were greatly different than those of the American South, the stories point to how racism fundamentally takes root in the same way and have the same effects on people’s lives.  The racism as presented in these stories is unimportant, in terms of whatever political or cultural situations permitted or encouraged  it.  All that matters is that it is an established fact of life, for Walker’s old woman and for Gordimer’s young lovers, but for the reader it is a wake-up call: America is not known for its injustices and more primitive ways of life.

This factor of the powerful and inevitable presence of racism provides the foundations for each story.  It is the land underneath all of the action, and in both stories.  For example, there are barriers in Walker’s “The Welcome Table” so present that it is unthinkable that anyone even try to get around them.   The white women in the church, who push their men to eject the old black lady, know very well that she once cared for their children.   It does not matter because the violation of the black woman in the white church is all that can be felt and known, and it is a desecration (White, 2004, p. 160).   These are people, white and black, who have never known another way.   As Walker presents it, the implication is not that the whites are outraged by a perceived ambition on the part of the black woman to defy the rules; it is more that what she is doing by entering their church is unnatural, and against the order of all decent living.

This is racism so strong and so historically based that it is never seen as such.  In “Country Lovers”, when the black Thebedi realizes that she can sleep with her white lover in his own home, there is no tracing of her plans or explanation of why the two choose a room of his sister’s to occupy:  “It was in one of these that she and the farmer’s son stayed together whole nights almost: she had to get away before the house servants, who knew her, came in at dawn” (Gordimer, 1975).  Neither of them would even think of actually sharing the boy’s room because they have the unspoken understanding from the start that secrecy must be observed.  It is not, to them, a racist condition; it is the entire world they live in.   Even as the story progresses, the racial barrier forcing the boy Paulus and Thebedi to conceal their love is so powerful that it interferes with even acknowledging their love for one another.  Like sleeping together, it is too unthinkable to be discussed, even as they cannot fight their feelings.

These foundations of implacable racism, then, highlight in each story the power of the human spirit.  It will rise up against the racism, not because it is fighting for a cause, but because human beings have needs which cannot be held in check by racist fixtures and ideologies.   As both stories sadly demonstrate, the spirit may not win.  In fact, it seems that both Walker and Gordimer do not believe the racism can be beaten.   That is not the point, however, for the beauty of the stories lies in the victories of only effort.   In “The Welcome Table”, the old woman thrown out of the church carries salvation within herself. She is aware of the ugliness, temporarily singing the blues, but is unfazed in a way which is difficult to understand purely from a rational standpoint. The actions of the white people seem to reveal that Christ is not in that building, and it is in her defiance and stubborn ignoring of their hatred that she finds her own way to God (Gibson, 1991, p. xiii).   This brings on her death, in a trance of delusion or religious rapture.

What matters, however, is that Walker never expresses racial outrage through her woman or asserts that she is delusional.  The old lady is treated rudely and she responds in abrupt ways to the rudeness, but she does not fight the white people to the extent that she could.   The racism is background because the story really centers on what compelled her to enter the church in the first place, for only a kind of spiritual fever would drive such a woman to blatantly violate the rules by which she herself has always lived.   Then, the Christ she sees is presented as are the other characters in the story.  He is on the road and he is beckoning to the old lady, as anyone might.  Moreover, no matter the basis for it, the woman’s joy is real. The spirit transcends the ugliness of the world, her own physical exhaustion, and her inability to come to God as she pleases. But Jesus comes to her with respect, not hauling her off as one of his little lost sheep.

Paulus and Thebedi, too, operate as individuals who are walking on “racist ground”, yet still choosing their own paths which inevitably lead to each other. There is no intent- just an attraction which draws them together as people first and lovers later.  It is only when the burdens and responsibilities of adulthood – Paulus’ inheritance and Thebedi’s arranged marriage – come into play that they lose their power to ignore the racist reality of their world.   They go as far as they can in honoring their love, but they cannot, in a sense, “fly”.   They are tied to the racist earth, and they know it—Paulus through the tractor and Thebedi through the laborers’ simple way of life.  This is why Thebedi can forgive the murder of their baby by the father, as she knows the price he will always pay for the action.  She knows, in a way, that he had no more choice than she did in being married, and this reflects “Gordimer’s skill at capturing the many nuances in human relationships – whether these be master-servant, husband-wife, or black-white…” (Cornwell, Klopper, MacKenzie, 2010,  p. 96).  However, like Walker’s old woman, Paulus and Thebedi break free for a time.  It is a doomed freedom, but that does not define it.

Conclusion

The beauty of both “The Welcome Table” and “Country Lovers” lies in what are essentially losing scenarios from the start, but there is an inherent dignity in fighting the good fight—even if there is no way to win. Life does not usually move that way, and Walker and Gordimer know this. While the characters wage a war against between values and environment, the reader is pulled into the psyche of the bigger picture and the dilemmas which are faced every day.  An old black woman cannot be allowed to sit in a white church, and a privileged white South African boy cannot entertain the idea of loving- or even being seen with- a black girl. These lessons transcend race and apply to other common divisions of gender, class, social status, etc.   An old woman will feel the pull to Jesus Christ as stronger than the confines of her actual world, and the hearts of very young boys and girls will reach out to each other because they are unconcerned with color or race.   Racism is undoubtedly a connecting theme in “The Welcome Table” and “Country Lovers” because, as demonstrated by the writers, racism affects all life.

The greater theme, however, is that human beings find ways to move through and past racism, even if doing so ultimately creates destruction. The benevolence is written off as foolishness, as the lapses in a youth’s judgment or as the final eccentricities of just another negro woman. As Gordimer wrote when the country lovers first began to meet, “They had not arranged this; it was an urge each followed independently”, echoing the famous star-crossed lovers of Romeo and Juliet. Was the baby’s murder a sweet release from the cares of this world? The real world- and its racism- was the end of innocence, explains Thebedi.  “God, mother, country, earth, church,” writes Walker. It is obvious that earth and its churches are a long way from God. Paulus’ father tries to live down his son’s affair as casually as the women return to their empty-headed acceptance of privilege. When Jesus comes to call, as He did in “The Welcome Table”, one would imagine that He sweeps up the old black woman in one arm and Thebedi’s baby, a victim of circumstance, in the other.

References

Cornwell, G., Klopper, D., & MacKenzie, C.  (2010.)  The Columbia Guide to South African Literature in English Since 1945.  New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Davis, G. V.  (1994.)  Southern African Writing: Voyages and Explorations, Issue 11. Atlanta, GA: Rodopi Press.

Gibson, M. E.  (1991.)  Homeplaces: Stories of the South by Women Writers.  Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.

Gordimer, N. (1975)   “Country Lovers.”. Place: Publisher.

Walker, A. (1970)  “The Welcome Table.” Place: Publisher.

White, E. C. (2004.)  Alice Walker: A Life. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.