South Africa and Apartheid

¶ … Amnesty" and "Life in the Iron Mills"

I think it depends on how one views the role of the woman. One could say that the question or issue of independence and strength is viewed negatively when seen through the lens of how woman is dependent upon a man. An alternate view could be that the man is actually really quite dependent upon the woman. In each of these cases -- the stories "Amnesty" and "Life in the Iron Mills" -- the man is entirely reliant upon the achievements upon the woman who works in the iron mills or who raises his children while he fights for freedom. The reality is that the two are not really ever independent of one another but that the two are team. Men and women together make life what it is -- and sometimes that includes hardships and heartaches and sometimes it includes joys. Strength comes in many different forms and is sometimes hidden by weakness on the surface while underneath it exists in a quiet way. This is true in Deborah's case in "Life in the Iron Mills": "It was far, and she was weak, aching from standing twelve hours at the spools. Yet it was her almost nightly walk to take this man his supper, though at every square she sat down to rest, and she knew she should receive small word of thanks" (Davis 437). Were Deborah lacking in strength she would not even be able to accomplish this task -- and indeed it is she who keeps "this man" alive; so to say that she is dependent upon him is really to look at it from an angle that is not really accurate: the man's life depends upon her. Whatever problems he himself has may be, however, too deep for her to address given all the other duties and responsibilities she has.

The question of being in control of one's fate is another -- and one could say that no one is really in control of his or her own fate. Everyone makes decisions in life and assumes responsibility for his or her situation. Yet the events of life continue on without regard for any one individual. This is made evident in "Amnesty" in which a young mother and father find themselves going in two different directions -- she into parenthood and he into prison. These experiences change them as they would anyone, and when the two reunite, there is the sense that they are strangers to one another even though they may still be recognizable and their roles the same. The fact is that she is not supporting a man so much as she is nursing an idea -- an idea of a home, a family, a husband -- yet conditions in South Africa (apartheid) make this dream impossible. The issue is really out of her hands. When she partnered with the man, she entered into a relationship that altered her from being single and unattached to being a partner and a mother. Thus, the sense of being in control of one's own fate, even in this case, is somewhat narrow because it is not just her own life that is in question but also the question of her children and her partner. All of their fates are united and wrapped up in one another. Thinking about oneself only (as the man seems to do, concentrating on the issue of apartheid instead of on his family), is a selfish way to approach this unity of fates -- and it can hurt the others (as it does for the woman in the story who longs for the past and the man that used to be).