Nadine Gordimer July\'s People Gordimer,

Nadine Gordimer July's People

Gordimer, Nadine. July's People. New York: Penguin, 1982.

Reading July's People with the eye of a contemporary reader is a surreal and unsettling experience at first -- Nadine Gordimer's novel is supposed to be a work of fantastical historical fiction about the end of apartheid in South Africa. Of course, this is a historical reality today -- so the novel is like reading the work of someone who 'imagined' what it would take to see an African-American rise to the presidency of the United States in say, 1982, when Gordimer's novel was written. However, the novel raises issues that are still relevant to black-white relations in South Africa, America, or nearly every nation affected by the legacy of colonialism. It asks the question -- how complicit is an individual to a system of oppression, even if he or she does not personally support that system? It is a novel seemingly designed to make white liberals uncomfortable with any sense of self-satisfaction they might have that their own supposedly blameless attitudes might excuse their perceived inability to change the nature of their government and society.

The central family of the novel is white, the Smales. After the white government is overthrown, the Smales flee the rioting in the capital of Johannesburg to stay at the village of their black servant, July. July has been working hard all of his life to support his family as a servant and before he was only allowed to visit his native village every other year. Now the Smales are totally dependant upon July. While before it was they who could enjoy being the 'compassionate ones' now they must live as blacks have lived for so many years and rely upon the good will of July. Their personal opposition to the apartheid system does not protect them from the looting in the capital city, the threat of violence, or having to sleep in a rude, mud hut, even though Bam Smales was a successful architect before the change of government. The novel's title has an ironic double meaning -- on one hand, it is about July's people, the blacks of South Africa, but it is also how Bam and Maureen Smales and their three children have become July's people -- he is no longer their 'boy,' they are his guests, and they belong to him because they are dependant upon him.

After arriving at the village after a grueling three-day journey, the novel focuses on the relationship of the Maureen and July, more so than her husband Bam or the couple's children. Maureen in particular has prided herself on her liberal beliefs. At the beginning of the novel, when July seems to be falling back into his old patterns of relating to the Smales, she urges July to not see her as 'one of them,' the 'bad whites,' by refusing to accept his service. Yet July wants to serve the Smales still -- and to be paid, "refusing to meet her on any but the lowest category of understanding" (Gordimer 71). Before the overthrow Maureen was confident about her relationship with July: "he and she understood each other well," but this attitude proves to be a fatal error (Gordimer 13).

Maureen tries to purge herself of the old South Africa, going so far as to stand naked in the rain at night, in kind of a baptismal ritual. However, this fantasy of purity is untenable in a reality where both black and white viewpoints are tainted with old notions about sexuality and race. Maureen constantly sees July in sexual and sexualized terms. This becomes most stark when the two of them fight over who will hold the keys to the 'bakkie,' the car they drove to the village, and to wrest control over the keys Maureen brings up July's mistress. She seems partially motivated by jealousy, as well as a desire to win a power struggle in this exchange, and although July eventually hands over the keys, the victory feels hollow.

Maureen's use of a sexual threat shows that she has still evidently internalized the exotic image of black sexuality in the culture, and this stereotype bleeds over into her relationship with July. She first attacks his sexuality when she wants to control him rather than other aspects of his character, as if this is the only way the two of them can communicate. She can no longer call him 'boy,' a term that July brings up bitterly over and over again, but she uses white stereotypes to control him even in the village, stereotypes of a different kind -- the stereotype of the unleashed force black sexuality, now devoid of white laws and constraints, rather than a subservient stereotype. July cannot forget his past oppression, although he is now free -- he remembers the insult of being a 'boy' still, and that affects his relationships with whites. "Hay? What you can say? You tell everybody you trust your good boy. You are good madam, you got good boy," spits July, ironically (Gordimer 70).