Reading Reflection - Essay Example

The unexpected bearing of a love child led to an importunate decision that eventually exposed their teenaged life trysts. The objective of the essay is to proffer a critical analysis of the discourse focusing on three literary criticism approaches: the reader-response approach, a formalist approach and the biographical, historical approach (Literary Criticism: A Brief Overview, n.d.). The literary work captured one’s interest due to the universal theme of the discourse: love with a forbidden twinge caused by racial prejudice.

The civil rights movement instigated by several famous African American activists, particularly Martin Luther King, who “led and influenced millions through his espousal of non-violent protest against segregation and racial discrimination… (where) their demonstrations and activism helped lead to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965” (Kelly, 2011, par. 4) proved that racial segregation was particularly eminent. The short story revealed “the socioeconomic system that oppressed the majority black population in South Africa (1949–1994)” (Gordimer, n.d., p. 44) and became the dominant theme in this discourse. . the onset by indicating that “the farm children play together when they are small, but once the white children go away to school they soon don’t play together any more, even in the holidays” (Gordimer, n.d., p. 44). The young love that blossomed between Paulus and Thebedi could therefore have been clearly understood as forbidden from the time he returned from boarding school.

As young children, they both secretly gave mementos: a painted box made from wood-work class, a bracelet made of “thin brass and the grey-and-white beans of the castor-oil crop” (Gordimer, n.d., p. 44), and “a red plastic belt and gilt hoop ear-rings” (Gordimer, n.d., p. 45) when they were already at their teens. The author was very effective in using a clearly structured narrative discourse with the use of simple vocabulary and language. She enticed the visual and emotional appeal from readers by providing vivid and descriptive details of the incidents: “he twisted and tugged at the roots of white stinkwood and Cape willow trees that looped out of the eroded earth around them; (and) down there hidden by the mesh of old, ant-eaten trees held in place by vigorous ones, wild asparagus bushing up between the trunks, and here and there prickly-pear cactus sunken-skinned and bristly, like an old man’s face, keeping alive sapless until the next rainy season” (Gordimer, n.d., p. 45), to name a few.

The ensuing events build up to effectively concoct the climax of the story: totally unexpected and solicits diverse reaction from the readers. The sullen and covert use of words to describe the initiation to lovemaking incidents were disclosed as “had let him do with her in a locked storeroom what people did when they made love” (Gordimer, n.d., p. 45) when Paulus met a girl at a