'Country Lovers' short story analysis

Country lovers is a short story written by Nadine Gordimer in 1975. It is about Thebedi and Paulus two young people whose love is forbidden. The reason is that Life in South Africa under the apartheid was very difficult for the black and the colored people, because of oppression. The apartheid consisted of numerous laws that allowed the ruling white minority in South Africa to segregate, exploit and terrorize people with a non-white skin color. These laws meant that whites and non-whites wasn’t allowed to have a romantic relationship of any kind. The story follows the three main character’s, Thebedi, Paulus and Njabulo. Njabulo becomes Thebedi’s husband later on in the story. Country Lovers begins with the author telling us that all the kids were good friends, and that Thebedi and Paulus continues to be friends even when Paulus moves to boarding school. This gave Paulus a higher status and gave him the new title ‘’little master’’. Both Njabulo and Paulus are in love with Thebedi, but Thebedi loves Paulus the most. However, there is more difficulty connected to their relationship than one might think. The reason is, that Thebedi is black while Paulus is an upper-class white boy. Paulus is also the son of a white master, thus one can say that this is a story about both happy love but also sad and dreadful love. It is about love which in the beginning was nothing more than a simple childhood romance but then when they blossomed to adulthood, the harmless flirtation lead to sexual curiosity. As seen when they are first together, at the age of 18 and 19: “he did with her what he had done that time in the storeroom at the wedding “ (p.13). This lead to Thebedi getting pregnant with Paulus’ child. Thebedi gets married with Njabulo while Paulus is away on veterinary school. Njabulo accepts the child as his own, so he takes good care of it whit the limited resources he has. Paulus however did not know that Thebedi was carrying his child, until he arrived back home from veterinary school for the holidays. When he finds out about the child he is shocked because he sees that the child is partly white. Paulus fears for his own reputation and he therefore comes back a few days later to poison the child.