Racial segregation
Racial segregationSocieties have always had different classes, or subdivisions of economic and political standing. Ancient Greece was divided into the educated upper class, the middle working class, and slaves. Europe in the Middle Ages had an upper ruling class, and a poor working class. Africa in the past on hundred years had two classes, colonists and native Africans. Each class had a strict place in society and each person in that society was expected to conform to the behavior expected of their class. In these social structures, tension between classes start when a denomination of people believe that their niche in society is unjust. These racial tensions started in Africa between the two current classes; native Africans fought the Europeans colonists for control in every way that they could; literature being a widely used weapon. Two of these writings, Nadine Gordimere's Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants and Zoe Wicomb's You Can't Get Lost In Cape Town, are written to show how European colonists define an African's place in society. The characters lives and opinions are shaped and defined by racial segregation and the influence of European colonists.
South African culture is segregated by race, African tradition and way of life is looked down by English colonists because they consider it uncultured and barbaric. With English control came English law, and with English law came English prejudices. Native Africans are effectively forced to live in an English society where only second rate jobs are available, and where they are always considered inferior. Many native Africans are constantly reminded of this and cannot do anything about it.
The protagonist of You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town is a native South African women who has a child by a white man. The woman, who is only given the alias of Sally Smite, has a traditional western education which makes her rare among her people who have little if any formal education at all. She talks of her upcoming final examination (798) and her "educated voice" (800). Her lover, Michael, is white, highly educated, and "well brought up" (799). They have been seeing each other for two years when she finds out she is carrying his child. Although he offers to marry her, she denies him by saying that; "There are laws against that" (799). The relationship between them is illicit according to South African law. Although she loves the baby, she decides to have an abortion because the child would grow up in a segregated society with a white father and a black mother. It is not that simple for a black woman to have a child in a society that sees everything in color, with respect to one's race. Society doesn't permit her or rather racial segregation is prevalent, which forces her to abort her baby. The story starts with her on a public bus to meet Michael, who will...
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