Graduate Course
Paper - VIII
Contemporary Literature
MY SON’S STORY
Nandine Gordimer
Prepared by:
R.M. Kala
SCHOOL OF OPEN LEARNING
(Campus of Open Learning)
UNIVERSITY OF DELHI
5, Cavalry Lane, Delhi-110007
Academic Session 2012-13 (800 copy)
© School of Open Schooling
Published by Executive Director, School of Open Learning, 5 Cavalry Lane, Delhi-110007
Printed at : DigiConv Technologies, C-240-41, Room No. 103, 1st Floor, Pandav Nagar, D-91, www.digiconv.com
MY SON'S STORY
Introduction
Perhaps more than the work of any other writer, the novels of Nadine Gordimer have given imaginative
and moral shape to the recent history of South Africa. Since the publication of her first book, The Lying
Days (1953), she has charted the changing patterns of response and resistance to apartheid with her
exploration of the place of the European in Africa, her selection of representative themes and governing
motifs for novels and short stories, and her accompanying shifts in ideological focus from a liberal to a
more radical position. It was in recognition of this achievement, of having borne untiring and lucid
narrative witness, that Gordimer was awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Born in 1923 to Jewish immigrant parents in the South African mining town of Springs, Gordimer began
writing early, from the beginning taking the pathologies and everyday realities of a radically divided
society as her subject. She still lives in South Africa, in Johannesburg. Her decision to remain in the
country through the years of political repression has reflected her commitment to her subject, to the
society to which she feels she belongs, and to her vision of a post apartheid future.
Often kept at home by a mother who imagined she had a weak heart, Gordimer began writing from the
age of nine and her first story, 'Come Again Tomorrow', appeared in the children's section of the
Johannesburg magazine Forum when she was only fourteen. By her twenties Gordimer had had stories
published in many of the local magazines and in 1951 the New Yorker accepted a story, publishing her
ever since.
Significant Influences
Gordimer’s formal education was limited. She attended private Catholic schools, where she was an
indifferent student, and spent only one year at the University of Witwatersrand. She credits books with
being the developing force in her life, for they provided her a view of the world her personal life did not
reveal. During adulthood she has traveled extensively in Africa, Europe, and North America, but has
continued to life in South Africa. Gordimer chose a non-traditional road to travel. She strongly opposed
segregation and was an ardent opponent of apartheid for nearly fifty years before its collapse in 1994. This
racial segregation system overwhelmingly favored all people of her race at the heavy expense of all
people of other races, especially blacks.
The Title of the Novel
The title of the novel is not as straightforward as it looks. As we begin to go through the narrative, a
question starts raising its head in our minds - Whose story is this? We sense that the title has a quizzical
nature. We are supposed to solve the quiz by getting involved deeply in the process of reading the whole
narrative till the very end of the novel where lies the key to solve the puzzle.
Thus, the reading process of My Son's Story is a unique experience in itself. The element of surprise keeps
the reading process alive and we wonder all the time what would be the answer to this quizzical question:
Whose story is this? Two pertinent questions for this key question: (A) Is it the story of the son told by the
father? (B) Is it the father's story told by the son? Another important question keeps on lurking behind the
action in the foreground in which the father, the son and the family are fatally entangled: Is it the story of
a race or a nation? The answers to these questions form the foundation of the novel's plot structure.
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The ambiguous nature of the narrative is caused by the frequent use of the first person narration and the
third person narration in a cleverly calculated manner by the novelist. Many voices are heard. But two
voices stand out- "I", the voice of the son and "he", the voice of both the son and the author. The artistic
intermingling of these predominant voices and the suggested voices enrich the texture of the novel. The
movement from "'I" to "he" and from "he" to "I" is at times jerky but mostly it is smooth and flowing.
Whose story is this? The answer to this most nagging question lies in the last lines of the novel: "What he
did-my father- made me a writer. Do I have to thank him for that? I am writer and this is my first book that I can never publish."
So the narrator in the story is the son. It is not the father who tells his story. It is the son who tells his
father's story and in doing so he actually tells his own story, the story of his becoming a writer for which
he feels he must thank his father. "Do I thank him for that?" He is not sure. There is deep irony imbedded
in the question. He must decide between "thank" and "blame". He also has to determine the moral stance
that he must take. Whether he thanks or blames his father is a moral question but the neutral fact stands
out - What his father did to him made him a writer. If becoming a writer is something he wanted, then he
must thank him "for that". If not, he must blame his father. The divide between "thank" and "blame" is too
wide.
So the narrator, for the time being, chooses between the two stances. The narrator ends the story on an
ambivalent note. He is not sure if he can ever publish his first book. But since he used the word "first",
implies that other books follow the first one. Thus we have the novel, his "first" book in our hands to read
and to try to reach the message that it intends to convey to us.
The Theme of the Novel
Broadly speaking the novel has two themes - political and personal. It is the story of the rise and fall of a
black family against the background of the political struggle for freedom in South Africa. Thus the two
tales are closely interwoven into the texture of the novel. The family of Sonny, the father, is inevitably
caught up in the turmoil caused by the war between the black freedom fighter and the white rulers. The
action in the novel lies historically between 1970's and 1990's when the infamous Apartheid was at its fag
end. The novel paints a racial backdrop comprising of 25 million blacks. This backdrop is spotted by five
million of the white demography of South Africa. These are European adventurers, mostly from Britain,
who have subjugated black tribal and ethnic groups. They are the White Gods who determine the destiny
of blacks of various shades. The dark spectrum ranges from the darkest to the grey. It is a cross-racial
society carefully segregated from the white demi-gods.
Thus, the personal passion and the political passion are intertwined inextricably. Sonny's wish to
successfully combine the two commitments brings about the breakup of his family. The political turmoil
goes on anyway. Sonny is first sucked into the center of the freedom struggle by socio-historical and
personal factors. Then, he makes a personal sexual commitment to Hannah, a plain looking white blonde.
This relationship causes havoc to his traditionally safe and secure family. He loses everything-his political
position, his wife and his beloved daughter, Baby. Since he is head of the family, his tragedy is closely
connected with the tragedy of his daughter. Baby, and the tragedy of his wife, Aila. The son Will plays a
role of an observer, a historian of his family. But he is not allowed the privilege of distance. Since he is a
part of the family, he wonders as a child, moves between love and hatred as a young man, suffers the
agonies of terrors of various kinds along with his father and mother. Only when he reaches the maturity of
middle age, he is able to look at himself as a child and a youth, at his father's blunders and his mother's
transformation from a traditional housewife into a political activist. He is able to understand the factors
that impelled his parents to make political and personal commitments. Yet, he holds his father totally
responsible for what happens to his happy, secure and closely-knit family. "What he did" changes
inexorably the lives of his wife, of his daughter and his son.
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The political theme of freedom struggle is dictated by Negritude - the attitude of the Negro to the White
race. The racial undertone remains present in the background throughout the narrative. And Negritude is
too strong to allow the non-white mind to think in any other way except as slaves. There is a striking
similarity between the Negro's attitude and the Red Indian's attitude in North America. For both the races,
the White man is a destroyer, a robber, a threat to their respective ethnic cultures, traditions and values.
But the end results differ in the two continents. In North America the Red Indian has become a creature.
In South Africa, the black community succeeded in producing Nelson Mandela who reinstated the black
community to its original free status.
Thus, the thematic structure of the novel is as complex as its formal structure. Gordimer has succeeded in
producing a saga, which interweaves various factors and elements, which form and rule humans. She has
presented humans not totally as puppets of destiny, but as creatures who can use their will to make or
unmake their destiny. Here she is more Shakespearean than Greek. She has successfully blended the two
views of tragedy.
Critical Analysis of the Novel
As said earlier, the actual action of the novel lies historically between 1970s and 1990. This was the
period in South African history when the Apartheid was in the process of crumbling under the continuous
pressure of world opinion. But the racial mixing of the white and the black was still a taboo, although in
North America this taboo had died out.
Now that we know who the narrator is, the reading of the novel becomes easier and things are sorted out
correctly. Will, the son, begins the story on a dramatic note. He looks back at himself as an adolescent
who has told a lie to his mother Aila, and has gone out to see a matinee show at a cinema hall. He waits
outside the cinema hall for the earlier show to end. As the show ends, the gates open and the viewers
throng out. Suddenly, he notices his father Sonny, coming out with a blonde, Hannah. The discovery of
his father's infidelity to his mother gives him a great shock. Then Sonny notices his son, Will, and the
moment stops for both of them. Sonny is supposed to be at work and Will is supposed to be at school.
Both of them have committed the sin of telling a lie to Aila, wife to Sonny and mother to Will.
The discovery of father's sin goes deep down in the memory of Will. It surfaces quite frequently at various
points as a refrain in a musical composition. But it is never heard. It is a nagging refrain, which rules
Will's life from that day onwards. Both the father and the son keep the dramatic scene in their memories
and both have the same motive - not to hurt Aila; a beautiful and faithful wife and a loving and caring
mother. Ironically, the conspiratorial silence of Sonny and Will establishes an uneasy bond between them.
Sonny is an attractive male and Hannah is a white blonde. As a male, Will understands his father's
infatuation with a blonde. Even as an adolescent he knows that blonde has always been a "wet dream" for
the black male of all ages. An element of admiration and jealousy are mixed up in Will's mind. The
novelist has cleverly chosen this dramatic opening for Will's narration. A kind of triangular relationship is
established between the father and the son and the other woman. Only the other woman in the triangle
happens to be a blonde - a creature from another race, a race supposed to be superior simply on the basis
of pigmentation of the skin. The under-pigmented race is superior to the over-pigmented race.
The white is always good, true and desirable. The black is always evil and therefore untouchable. Yet the
two races are attracted to each other as the two poles of a magnet. It is the politics of power and
supremacy that ordains that they remain apart. The biological factor transformed into a political and
cultural factor.
Sonny, a wise man, comes to his son and introduces him to Hannah Plowman, an activist working in the
International Human Rights Commission. Will knows her. She used to visit his home as a social worker
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when he was a child. Now he is an adolescent and she his father's mistress. Sonny does not ask his son
about his presence at the cinema hall. He knows that he has no moral right to do so. The same applies to
Will. Both are liars and sinners.
What happened between Will's childhood and adolescence? When and why and how do his father and
Hannah become lovers? These are the questions that crop up in the mind of the reader. They demand
truthful answers. The narrator does not know all the answers. He can only say what happened and when.
The answers to the other questions are supposed, partly or fully, by the novelist whose omnipresence
forms the third voice. For the novelist Sonny and Will both are referred to as "he". This creates a little bit
of confusion for the reader. But as he goes through the process of reading the novel, he is able to see
which "he" refers to whom. As for the "I", it is always Will. And when "I" refers to "he", it is always
Sonny, his father. Nadine Gordimer's style of narration is thus complex, moving both in time and space,
from herself to Will. This turns the sequential narration into a study of the art of story telling. Yet, she
does not use him as her puppet. She allows him space and freedom as an individual.
The story of the family flows out of the dramatic discovery. It is a short family chronicle, like that of any
black family of South Africa until the arrival of Sonny as a bright boy of the whole community. He took
to pen and pencil and went to school. And that made a difference - the first significant difference between
Sonny's family and other black families. Will goes a little further back and mentions a black and white
photograph in which his father's father appears as a bald old man with a toothless grin on his face standing
beside a white overseer wearing a hat. No name is given on the back of the photograph or anywhere. Will
has heard about the picture and fails to pinpoint any particular lineage of his family that goes beyond in
the past. His grandfather's photograph is the beginning of the history of the family.
So his father had a father (refer to Shakespeare's line from Sonnet XIV). Quite innocuously enmeshed in
the fabric of the texture, this photograph assumes metaphorical significance. It is a metaphor of the loss of
identity of a race - a nameless community. The toothless grin is a metaphor of the loss of capacity to bite the loss of fighting capacity. Will's grandfather was a nameless slave, working in the mines under the
whites. The family chronicle then mentions the maternal side of Sonny in Cape Town, working in
garages. And Sonny becomes a teacher of English in Johannesburg. Thus, the movement from the mines
to the garages and then to the school is a progressive one in terms of space and status. The nameless mine
worker's grandson becomes a teacher -a respectable man of education, who teaches the language of the
ruling class to black kids.
The same progressive element is seen in the marital settlement of Sonny with Aila. The settlement is
neither totally modern nor totally orthodox. It is a sort of agreeable compromise between the two social
tendencies. As a matter of fact. Sonny is allowed to meet and discuss marital matters with Aila before the
marriage, since he is the prodigal son of the whole community. His education and comparatively high
professional status earn him the right to see and meet individually the girl who is going to be his wife for
life.
Aila meets the challenging encounter with remarkable composure and confidence. Although sub-racially
superior, she exhibits her admirable attitude to consider Sonny on purely human and individualistic
grounds. She is a great beauty in non-white terms, with large bright eyes, long shiny hair with a small
smooth body. There is nothing cheap about Aila's personality. She knows quite-well how to enhance her
beauty. She is sober and respectable. And she displays quiet wisdom and intelligence in her eyes. Perhaps
it is the last quality that proves to be the most important one for Sonny. They marry each other on grounds
of mutual admiration. The marriage is a great success.
Apart from being a beautiful and intelligent wife, Aila is an efficient housekeeper. She creates a clean,
comfortable and elegant household out of their limited means and wins the respect of her husband which
is quite unthinkable in her community. Sonny's proficiency in his work area is matched equally by Aila's
proficiency in her household management. This brings them closer on the plane of equality. Aila also
fulfils another equally important expectation to justify her gender status. She becomes a mother as
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smoothly and meticulously as she moved into the roles of a wife and a householder. First Baby comes, a
charming girl as beautiful as her mother. She is followed by Will. It is peculiar that the Baby remains a
baby as she grows. The name sticks to her. And the son is named after Shakespeare, greatly admired by
Sonny. A closely-knit family is created by Aila, a family whose center she holds silently and firmly, a
family with normal middle class aspirations.
Baby has a talent for dancing. "My son will become a writer," says Sonny in great humour. Yet we do not
fail to notice the dramatic irony in his statement. As time passes expenses increase. Aila joins a
correspondence course to get matriculation certificate. Sonny helps her in her studies and that establishes
another bond between them. The silent, sober and dignified Aila gets a job in a doctor's clinic. Aila's
message is clear -She will do am thing for the welfare of the family. Her maternal instinct inspires her to
work in order to get educated and be a part of the social strata that gets them good and respectable jobs.
Her aspiration is quite normal and understandable. Her husband and children look upon her as the center
of their lives. She performs admirably both in her home and in her clinic. Aila's commitment to her family
is firm and total.
Thus far the story of Will's family sounds plain - an uneventful narrative in larger terms but an eventful
tale of a typically middle class family in any society in any country. The only indications of the narrative
taking a violent turn are Hannah Plowman's visits to the family in the capacity of a social worker doing
her job under the International Human Rights Commission. At first, there is a non-violent protest by the
school children against the new education policy imposed by the White authorities. Sonny is able to
contain the demonstration. But the second protest is by the angry youth who use stones to pelt the vehicles
of the authorities. The result is violence and bloodshed, which Sonny fails to contain, because it is too
violent and partly because he feels sympathy for the protestors. He is charged with instigating the youth
against the authorities. He is arrested and sent to police custody. A model black family is unwillingly
caught in the currents of political and historical forces. It is at this point of the narrative that the political
circumstances appear as prominent character in themselves.
The safe and secure world of Aila's is thrust forward against the political backdrop to fight the beginnings
of disintegration. The individuals appear small against the large looming, faceless enemy-the political
struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed. The new situation demands a new and larger
commitment, which is going to change their lives forever. Nadine Gordimer chooses Sonny's family to
demonstrate that political turmoil of any intensity and kind tends to bring out radical and tragic changes in
families and individuals.
The arrest and detention of Sonny brings Hannah Plowman to the centrestage. As a human rights social
worker she takes up the case of Sonny as a challenging assignment. Aila helps her efficiently in this task.
Visits to the lawyer and then to the courts leave an impact on Sonny. The new experience of helplessness
and fear bring the members of Sonny's family closer. There is going to be a fight between then and the
faceless enemy – the white authorities. Hannah tries to prove Sonny "not guilty." She fails but succeeds in
getting the jail term reduced to two years.
The imprisonment of Sonny causes quite a few problems for the family. He looses his job as teacher
resulting in a substantial cut in the family income. But the faithful and silent Aila never complains. She
somehow manages the house with her own meager income. She stands as a pillar of strength for her
family. She regularly visits Sonny and apprises him of the welfare of the family. Sonny, the provider of
the family has now become the cause for the family's economic crises. But Aila again never complains.
On the contrary she keeps to herself matters that might cause her husband to worry. She realises that
Sonny is not in a position to do anything as long as he is behind bars. She reveals herself as a woman
having great commonsense and a practical attitude while dealing with problems that are new and
unfamiliar. Thus, the centripetal forces of the political turmoil drag Sonny along with his family to a point
where he and his family do not know what to do except wait patiently for Sonny's release.
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The release and return of Sonny is a moment of relief and joy for the family after a patient and tense wait.
Of course, Sonny cannot get back his previous job of a teacher. But then other openings present
themselves. The earlier hopes and aspirations of the family get revived. It is a grand moment for
celebration. A party is thrown attended by the kith and kin of Sonny. He is now their hero - a new identity
symbolizing the hopes and aspirations of the black community. The party is a grand success. Baby has
grown up into a beautiful and attractive young lady. She dances with great abandon at the party,
displaying the fullest range of her talent.
One would expect the return of peace and security to Sonny's family after his return. Sonny takes up a
new job in the business sphere. Aila retains her earlier job. But a new event brings the family to realize
that things cannot be the same as before. The fortunes of the 'family have tilted and taken a new turn. The
dramatically violent attempt by Baby to commit suicide by cutting her wrists send shock waves
throughout the black community. Although Baby survives, she is never the same again. The true meaning
behind Baby's violent act is not apparent to the youngest member of the family - Will. It is also not
understood by the head of the family - Sonny. It is grim irony that the male members of the family fail to
see the truth. Will fails because he is young while Sonny fails because he has gotten involved with the
other woman, Hannah. With his typical male psychology, he turns a blind eye to his act of betrayal. He
thinks his clandestine affair can be kept secret. But he does not realise the sharpness of the female instinct.
Being a wife, Aila knew about it all along. She kept quiet because she did not want to bring disaster to her
family by confronting Sonny. Baby, Sonny's pet child, could not take it that way. The betrayal was too
much for her to swallow. She reacted violently and Aila realises this fact. But yet again she keeps quiet to
keep her family together. The political turmoil causes the stirring of an emotional turmoil in Sonny's
family, reminding him that there is no going back for him. Consciously or unconsciously, he has
committed himself to the cause of the blacks - to wrench back their stolen freedom from the whites. In his
role as a freedom fighter, he has to go on fighting for a cause that is larger and far more important than the
cause of his family. Ironically, Sonny can betray his wife but finds it impossible to betray the greater
cause -freedom for the blacks.
The clandestine affair between Sonny and Hannah is a logical conclusion of Hannah's attempt to save him
from a stiffer jail term. After his-release from the jail, a close camaraderie develops between the two as
fighters for human rights. This kind of friendship between a black man and a white woman is still a taboo
for both races. Perhaps Baby would have not reacted so violently if her father had taken another black
woman as his mistress. This kind of relationship is common in her community. What she could not
tolerate was the fact that the other woman in her father's case was a white - representative of the
oppressor. We note here the racial and political factors dominating the destiny of individuals. Sonny is
sucked into the affair with Hannah as unconsciously as he was sucked into the political turmoil. But he
finds his clandestine affair more beautiful than his political commitment. The affair with Hannah is more
concrete and within reach as Hannah is equally willing. The political commitment is abstract and not
easily achievable. Hannah offers a ready and willing proposition that promises pleasurable possibilities.
The political struggle promises something that may or may not be achieved. And if achieved, it definitely
will take a long time. This explains Sonny's choice for Hannah's bed.
To repeat, "commitment means danger." It is a truth that Gordimer seems to impress on the mind of the
reader. But she does not mean to suggest that man must not commit himself to anything that he considers
right. As a matter of fact this choice - to commit or not to commit is indicative of man's use of his freewill.
It was this freedom of choice that Adam and Eve enjoyed as they chose to commit themselves to the
Forbidden Fruit. Although they had to pay heavily for their act of commitment against God's orders, they
succeeded in achieving their identities as Adam and Eve-the First Man and First Woman in the long
history of the human race. If they had followed God's restrictions strictly, they would have been lost in
oblivion. Then there would have been no human race and no human history to be remembered and
recorded by the human mind. And some other kind of intelligence would not have cared to glorify the
story of the "most obedient" Adam and Eve.
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If we apply the similar parameter of moral standard to Gordimer’s characters, we realize that they would
not have been what they are if they had not committed themselves to some idea, some passion or some
action. In a way, the novel glorifies man's power of Free Will and man's willingness to pay for his choice
at any cost. More often than not, the cost is heavy, painful and unbearable. Yet man cannot help tinkering
with the universe through the application of his Free Will. The theme of commitment is thus, closely
intertwined with the theme of personal and political passion, since all passions are reached only through
the conscious or unconscious act of commitment. No passion is realized without the act of commitment.
Sonny seems to suffer from constant pulls from all directions - the family, the political movement and
Hannah. He hopes to manage the demands of all the three, but very soon realises the truth that one cannot
satisfy everybody for all times. So he finally commits himself to his private heaven, knowing fully well
that the political movement promises a doubtful heaven with diffused light. His private heaven is lighted
intensely with Hannah's presence in her down-to-earth bed.
The bed, a very private place where man and woman committ hemselves in the most intimate and
primeval manner, reaches the height of metaphorical level as the narrative moves onward. When we are
introduced to the most lop-sided bedroom of Hannah, we cannot help recalling the carefully organised
bedroom of Aila. The two beds signify a large number of things, not all of them directly associated with
purely physical passion, which can be achieved at any place at any time. Nothing is casual about Aila's
bed. And both beds provide great satisfaction to Sonny. Yet the two beds come with their different
primary conditions, which are determined by individualistic, social, historical and racial terms.
Looked from this point of view, Aila's bed is first Africa, then South Africa to be followed by the black
community with its deeply rooted traditions and conventions and rituals. Aila's bed is well defined by the
laws and rules of matrimony. It is supported by the equally well-defined moral code of conduct. Aila's bed
is a matrimonial contract properly sanctioned by the society. Her bed does not demand a clandestine
approach. On the contrary, it offers a socio-legal right of approach to Sonny. It is the Wife's bed, the safest
and the most intimate place for a husband to enjoy physical and emotional passions. Individualistically,
Aila's bed is a perfect reflection of her most intimate personality. Her bed is the center of her family. So is
Aila, the center that holds the family lovingly yet firmly. Her bed is a most beautiful and powerful symbol
of excellent household management, health and hygiene. Painted in dark shades with muted lights of
socially sanctioned passions, Aila's bed is on another level symbolizing an ancient civilization which has
not been broken down by the attacks of modernity. In her bed South Africa lies, the South Africa of 20
million indigenous black South Africans, the real owners of South Africa, now living as slaves to 5
million white Europeans who have no legal right to rule the destiny of the blacks.
This racial symbol is clearly underlined by juxtaposing Aila's bed with Hannah's bed.
Hannah's bed is an out-of-the world place, a place which is neither black nor white, a place which
deserves only rejection both by the black civilization and the white civilization. It is as difficult to define
Hannah's bed as it is easy to define Aila's bed. Aila's bed has a whole range of accepted and acceptable
norms of socio-cultural as well as personal relations. It is easy to paint Aila's bed as it is real and concrete.
It is very difficult to do that with Hannah's bed with any semblance of justice. It is as abstract as the
abstract painting which hangs by the mattress lying on the floor. The reality is that Hannah's bedroom is
represented in a most bizarre manner by her under things - the most private of female dress - lying openly
to be dried up upon a radiator along side the mattress which forms the bed. Hannah's bed needs humanly
manufactured supports to rig it up as a beautiful emblem of man-woman relationship. In contrast to Aila's
bed, Hannah's bed has no point of socio-cultural reference. Her bed is not Europe. If she is "the wet
dream" of the black male, as is observed by Will in the opening scene of the narrative, it is a pure chance.
In truth, Hannah's bed is Hannah only. Her bed is an apt metaphor of her human attitude and human value.
Her bed is also a metaphor of free man-woman relationship. It is a relationship which acknowledges no
traditional, historical, racial boundaries. It acknowledges only one condition - the primitive condition of
mutual commitment between a male and a female of any race, society or country.
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Yet, this kind of relationship has no future, no promise, nothing to hold on to. Like all other things, this
kind of relationship may appear more beautiful and attractive than the traditional marital relationship, but
it has only the personal passion to thrive upon. And personal passions, like all other passions, have a
shorter span of life than the life of the marital passion which grows as time passes and transforms itself to
different roles as man and woman grow up from husband and wife into father and mother. The most
painful irony of Hannah's bed is that it is also a metaphor of infertile passions and emotions. Yet, perhaps
that is exactly the reason it may appear more attractive to a married male.
As the narrative progresses, Sonny finds himself caught up among three pulls-marital, political and
personal passions. As far as moving from one bed to another is concerned, he hopes to manage his affairs
successfully. It is a traditional situation - one man and two women. But politics has its own compulsions.
Politics does not acknowledge any kind of personal commitment. It demands total commitment. Sonny
feels that the pressures of the Movement are far too much for him. And the Movement feels that Sonny
has a limited role to play. As long as he is required to play the role of an articulate orator, he is welcome
and his personal passion is overlooked. His comrades know about his clandestine affair with Hannah, but
they choose to overlook it as long as it does not interfere with the basic ideology of the Movement. As
long as it subscribes directly or indirectly to the furthering of the cause, it is permitted to flower to the
satisfaction of Sonny and Hannah. The clandestine affair passes through the usual Saturday meetings in
the bedroom of Hannah's to out-station visits. The process has a familiar route, as he moves away from
Aila. Aila's strong female instincts tell her what is happening, but like the Movement, she too has her
compulsions to overlook the fact. The strongest compulsion of hers is to hold the family together, to save
at least Will from the dark fact of his father's infidelity. The elder child, Baby has already revolted against
her father's infidelity. Failing to die after her attempt to kill herself, Baby leaves her home and later her
country with her lover whom she marries abroad. Like her mother, Baby too tries to save her young
brother from the onslaughts of unbearable attacks on the fortress of the family. It is really ironic that the
boy whom they wanted to protect knew about the affair all the time and chose to keep quiet about for the
same reason - to protect his mother and sister. It is much later in the narrative when she comes to know
that his attempts were for nothing. By that time, much damage occurs to the family. Aila and Will - the
two protectors of the family - fail in their painful attempts in the most ironic manner, from the internal
onslaughts of destiny. The mutual silence between Aila and Sonny and the silence between Sonny and
Will only expedites the widening of the internal cracks in the family fortress.
The internal cracks are helped by the external cracks caused by the Cause of the Freedom Movement.
First Sonny then Aila fall victims to the political passions. But there is qualitative difference, both in kind
and degree in their political passions. When Sonny is sent to jail for his political activities, Aila behaves
like a comrade-in-arms throughout his trial and finally his punishment for two years. But for her it is not
the political cause which prompts her to act so bravely. It is her personal cause to protect her family which
is the prompting pull all the time. And when she commits herself to the political cause, she, once again,
does so to protect the family of Baby, her elder child.
The turning point in Aila's life comes when she goes to visit Baby who is expecting and needs maternal
care at this juncture. Aila does not know what is going to happen to her on her visit abroad. And Sonny
and Will are left behind to look after the centre of their life - the family. But the house is not the family,
Aila is the family. And the family goes wherever she goes. Ironically, this is not realized either by Aila or
Sonny or Will. At this point in their lives the external pressures attack the already weakened walls of the
family fortress.
In the world of politics nobody is indispensable. A person has only a role to play a role not chosen by
himself or herself but by the political cause. When Sonny reaches the height of his political career as a
great mover of political passions through the skills of his public oratory, he has done his assigned task for
the Movement. He does not have political management skills to hold a party together. The hero is slowly
pushed from the centre to periphery towards personal world of passion in Hannah's bedroom. It is at this
point that Aila is slowly sucked in by the turbulent political forces. In contrast to Sonny, Aila is assigned
8
the task of a silent activist - a far more dangerous and incriminating role. Aila is the perfect choice - a
dignified silent lady known for her graceful personality and her strong binding attitude to the family.
The Movement makes her home a hiding place for its arms, knowing very well that her home is the safest
place. One may wonder why Aila agrees to commit herself and her family to the political movement. It is
really intriguing but not impossible if we look deep into her motive. Unlike her husband, Aila's motive is
not political but purely personal - to protect Baby's family, a branch of her family. Ironically, she
sacrifices the trunk - her own family - for the branch - her daughter's family. It is really an intriguing
situation - a mother agreeing to offer her own family to the Movement for the sake of her daughter's
family. At least, one thing becomes clear. Aila's motive has not changed it colour. It is as personal now as
it was in the past. What has really changed is the place of the family. It is quite impossible to believe that
Aila does not know what has happened to her own family and why and who is or are responsible for it.
She is intelligent and sharp enough to see the cracks in her fortress and can imagine its ultimate fall. Her
home has already fallen in emotional terms. What will now fall is its material structure, a house, not a
home. This attitude defines the basic difference in the attitudes of Sonny and Aila towards the political
passion. Sonny's attitude is superficial and purely circumstantial. It does not have the intensity of Aila's
commitment. Aila commits herself to politics because she feels intensely for her family, which is actually
Baby's family. But for Aila, Baby's family is now her own family, since it is her child's family. For Aila
the centre of her life has now moved from her own family to Baby's family.
Why it happens is obvious. When Sonny was captured by the White Enemy, Aila had a family to protect,
a place which contained her children. Aila is a classical mother figure. When Sonny commits himself to
Hannah, Aila's family is gone. And when Baby leaves the country Aila has only one person to protect Will, her only son, an introvert who needs practical guidance to make a sensible career for himself. The
area of Aila's familial concern slowly shrinks down to Will. Sonny is out of it. He has used his will and
chosen a path for himself deliberately. He is an adult and does not need Aila's assistance. Baby is abroad.
She, too, has used her own free will. Now only Will remains who really needs Aila's assistance. Or, at
least, Aila believes so.
But when the White man's thunder - the bomb- nearly touches Baby's baby, things change abruptly and
entirely for Aila, at least for the time being. Her focus suddenly moves from Will to Baby's child, causing
an abrupt shift from her own family to Baby's family. Baby's house is bombed. Only their good fortune is
responsible for their survival since on that night, they were out to attend a party. But the Enemy is still
there and they may not have a good luck chance again and again. Also the power of the Enemy is seen by
Aila as the power of Evil which does not recognize geographical boundaries. Aila's abrupt commitment is
symbolized in a dramatic manner in her new hairstyle which she acquires on one of her visits to Baby. Her
new appearance is as much a shock to Sonny and Will as it is to the reader. One obvious reason for her act
of partial transformation may be her attempt to get her husband back from the other woman - Hannah. But
there is no evidence in the text to support this view. As a matter of fact, the narrative does not offer any
clear reason, directly or indirectly, for the abrupt transformation. It is left to the reader to draw his own
conclusion. There could be a host of reasons jostling together in Aila's mind to form a formidable will to
break off - To stage a dramatic revolt against the infidelity of her husband; To impress upon the world the
disappearance of a tradition-bound Aila and the appearance of a new Aila in her new center as an
individual; to acquire a quite different appearance as a political activist and so on. Whatever her
predominating reason, one fact stands; It results in a painful act, for cutting off is an act which implies
inevitable pain.
Yet, Aila's act is only a half measure act. She does not make an attempt to cut off the very source of her
life as her daughter tried to do and was fortunately saved from death. Aila is far too strong to give up her
natural and instinctive approach to life in general and to her brood in particular. Baby must be saved;
Baby's baby must be saved; and Will must be saved and installed honourably as business manager. He
must follow the course in business management. Aila has far too much at stake to give in to the idea of
9
suicide. She still has a role to play as far as her children are concerned, As for her husband, she leaves it to
him to accept or reject her in her newly acquired hairstyle.
This point in the narrative is significant in a particular sense - It is a point of disintegration. During one of
her visits, Hannah too leaves for England for a holiday before taking up a new and much more important
assignment in Northern parts of Africa under the International Human Rights Organisation. Being a
professional, she has no choice. She cannot afford to give up her new position for Sonny. She cannot
afford to spend all her life in a futureless relationship. She realises it painfully that the time for a
breakaway has arrived and that she must accept this painful truth of law of change. She has had a painful
past with her husband. She broke off the relationship. She had had the best and most meaningful time of
her life with Sonny. But Sonny is not the ultimate goal of her career. He cannot promise anything to her
accept himself. These ideas show up in her mind demanding attention from her during her holidays.
At this juncture of the narrative we find Sonny and Will, father and son, living under the same roof as two
individuals thrown into an uneasy but necessary companionship. There have been changes in the
leadership of the political struggle. New leaders have come up. They feel that Sonny has done his job for
the Movement. He is slowly pushed away and out of it. Although he still has a few friends who visit him
in his house, he knows very well that' his political career is over. And since Hannah is away, he has no
personal place to go to for solace. Apart from all this, he has a fatherly responsibility towards Will. Will
on his part feels equally responsible towards his father. His father may still look upon him as a lad only,
but we know that- Will has grown up into a young man of experience. What he lacks is the power to assert
his free will. He has a girl friend and he has bitten the Forbidden Fruit. But the experience has not
succeeded in giving him a sweet taste of man-woman relationship. It is a mutually agreed upon
arrangement between him and his girlfriend. Both the parties demand no bindings of any kind. Will is the
new young man belonging to a new generation, a generation totally cut off from traditions and
convention.
The absence of Aila and Hannah provides a welcome opportunity for Sonny to review his life. He feels
that he has failed both of them. He has the similar feelings for his children. He can now only salvage
whatever he can from the destruction of his life. This process starts when Aila returns only to be arrested
by the police. The charges on her are serious and dangerous. Without knowing Aila seems to have
allowed herself to be used by the political movement for violent and dangerous purposes. Hannah is no
more there to take up her case. Now Sonny, take over the charge of saving her from total destruction He is
no more a young man, but still a person to reckon with. He knows that she cannot be saved from
imprisonment. Here we note a reversal of roles. When Sonny was arrested, tried and sent to jail, Aila was
in charge. She presented a calm and bold face to the world and offered protection, comfort and hope to her
little ones. Now the little ones are grown up individuals needing no protection. Aila is still calm and bold,
but the in-charge of affairs is Sonny Hannah assisted Aila. Sonny has no such comfortable assistance. And
charges against Aila are a great dea more serious. Political activism is much more serious than political
oratory. The lawyer too is not much or a comfort.
There are visits to the court and these visits give a new vision of his racial identity to Will. Family
disintegration is followed by social disintegration. The White members of the neighbourhood do not brand
the dignified Aila as the Black Witch. Social and racial rejection precedes the legal process of prosecution
and punishment. The black family cannot be allowed to live in the neighbourhood. The house is burnt
down That is the end of the mess created by Sonny.
There are two sentences in this part of the narrative. One sentence offers a bitter comment on the
deplorable situation of the blacks at the mercy of the whites: "There is no air here." The other sentence is "
"I need air.' Both the sentences are Will's utterances to himself. That latter sentence is a pithy statement of
the irrepressible desire of the black race for freedom. Although Will speaks these words to himself in the
crowded and suffocating atmosphere in the courts, he hint at his talent for symbolising material facts. Air
is a symbol of freedom. Air promises freedom of movement, purity of thought and limitlessness of human
desire. It is significant that Aila. Sonny and the black leaders feel similarly repressed under the White
10
race, but only Will, the representative of the new generation, succeeds in expressing through direct words.
This is a talent usually associated with a writer. Aila's plan to see him as a management graduate never
materialises. He grows up into a writer as planned by his father much earlier in the narrative. The father's
action make the son a sensitive writer: "What he did, what my father did, made me a writer."
As Will observes at the end of the novel, "My Son's Story" is his first literary production. We have
already discussed in the critical analysis the peculiar nature of the title of the novel. Any story is some
kind of biography or autobiography. If we go by the title, the novel should be the biography of the son,
Will. As the narrative unfolds itself, we realize that the novel is both a biography of the father and the
autobiography of the son. The son owes his growth as a writer to the actions of his father. The biography
of the father is the cause of the son's autobiography. The close cause -and -effect relationship between the
lives of father and son generates a relationship with ambiguous link. Whether Will approves of the actions
of his father or not is a moot question. But he does accept them as facts and presents them in the narrative
with sincerity. If he has any judgmental attitude, it is kept well under control.
The novel has an open ending. Gordimer does not care to collect all the threads to wind up the narrative to
the fullest satisfaction of the reader. On the contrary she leaves all the threads free to move by the logic of
their own momentum. And she does so with a definite purpose. She seems to imply that the reader is as
much a party to the narrative as a crossroad. The reader must share the writer's moral- responsibility to
draw his or her own conclusions. The moral experience of writing the story must be matched by the moral
experience of reading it. It is for the reader to decide whenther he or she has a moral sright to pass
judgements on Sonny, Alia, Hanna and Will. As for Gordimer, she seems to suggest that nobody
possesses such a moral right.
Reading My Son's Story
It is important to note the title, although the ?My" seems ambiguous. It is the son's story. That is, Will tells
the story of his family and apartheid South Africa from two narrative points of view. He speaks in the first
person as a youth and young man. He writes in third person as an adult looking back over the whole
experience. The narrative alternates between the two voices and perspectives. The novel does not
explicitly reveal this until the end: "what he did—my father—made me a writer. Do I have to thank him
for that? Why couldn't I have been something else?" Discovering this is part of the adventure of reading
the novel, but knowing ahead of time makes the reading less difficult.
The novel is set in South Africa and begins, in a chronological sense, with Sonny's and Aila's marriage
(around 1970?) and ends at the threshold of the collapse of apartheid and the transition to majority
government (1989-90). The actual narrative, however, begins in-the-middle, so to speak, with Will's
discovery that his father is having an affair with a white woman. The family is coloured—Will's "the
people like us" references call attention to that. Many of the race-based apartheid laws apply to them. At
first, they do not identify with Blacks (they live as law and culture prescribed apart from other "races"),
but as the political conflicts increase and the repression becomes more severe, Sonny and many others
join with the Blacks in the resistance "Movement."
The story focuses on family matters and political affairs and portrays the incredibly complex ways these
two "worlds" are intertwined. The novel turns on Sonny's "illusion" that he could have it all—"dedication
to liberation, maintenance of family, and private passion." It tells the story of change and discovery in him
and change and discovery in Aila, Will, and Baby. It tells, as well, the story of South African politics.
11
Questions for Reading
1.
What are the early years of Sonny's and Aila's marriage like ?
2.
In what ways does their relationship change ?
3.
What events turn Sonny into a political activist ?
4.
Why is Sonny so attracted to Hannah—"Needing Hannah" ?
5.
Why does Will feel guilty and complicitous in Sonny's affair ?
6.
Why does he so resent his father ?
7.
Does Aila know about the affair ? How does she react ?
8.
What do you learn about Baby in the early parts of the novel ?
9.
Why don't we learn more? Why are we surprised (perhaps) by her political activism ?
10.
What changes occur in each of the four (five?) main characters—Will, Sonny, Aila, and Baby
(Hannah, also?) in the course of the book ?
11.
Why do these changes happen ?
12.
What does Will lose in the course of the novel ? Why does he say, "she was gone for good: my
mother" ? (168)
13.
What does each character lose ? gain ?
14.
What do you learn about the political and social circumstances—about apartheid—in South Africa ?
15.
In what specific ways are race and class involved in the novel ?
16.
What are the effects of Gordimer's narrative technique—the two points of view, the masking of
events and information, the slow revelations, and the reversals ?
12
Issues for Reflection
Narrator and Narrative: Consider the purpose and effect of the dual point of view. What does Gordimer
achieve that she couldn't by writing a chronological account from a single, third person point of view?
Early on, Sonny says "My son's going to be a writer." This when Will is perhaps 11 years old. There are
hints throughout the narrative, but Will (or Gordimer) does not come clean until the end. "It's an old story
—ours. My father's and mine." In the last chapter, he also suggests why "he" told the story this way.
"Sometimes memory has opened a trapdoor and dropped me back into the experience as if I were living it
again just at the stage I was when I lived it, so I've told it that way, in the present tense ..." (275). The
technique enables Gordimer to portray the intensity of the son's experience in-the-moment and in his
youthful words. Will becomes a character in his own narrative. It also allows for a more comprehensive,
reflective account of how and why people acted as they did. It seems, as well, she can narrate discovery
and change rather interestingly by giving some of the story to a young man whose understanding is so
limited. The technique lets her, moreover, write a move that is partly about writing novels.
Family Matters and Political Affairs: Once Sonny loses his teaching job and moves his family from the
township to the city, he begins to separate these worlds more and more sharply. As a teacher and a reader
of Shakespeare, his life was centered in his family and the school. As a political activist, he tries, first, to
live in two separate worlds and then in three. Both he and Will repeatedly associate Aila with family
matters and think of her only as a beautiful, caring wife and mother who cannot understand political
affairs. "Poor Aila" is a phrase used several times later in the novel. When she is arrested, Sonny can only
imagine it as being about him. In Gordimer’s South Africa, the personal and political are deeply
intertwined.
Political Passion and Sexual Passion: The connection of the two is an important theme and human
reality for Gordimer. The commitment, danger, and thrill of clandestine love and underground politics are
virtually one. Sex and ideas. An extra frisson. The narrator says it explicitly at several points: "Sexual
happiness and political commitment were one" (125). "The subterfuges of an illicit love made the
frankness of its emotions possible; the subterfuges of resistance made frankness in a lying society
possible" (112). "The cause was the lover, the lover the cause" (223). The narrator emphasizes Aila's
beauty and Hannah's plainness and whiteness. Race and politics seem to be part of the passion.
Private Lives and Politics: The link between the political action and sex is one important way Gordimer
portrays this relationship, but not the only. The power of apartheid and the way it controls, defines, and
disrupts (even destroys) lives stands at the center of the novel. The narrative begins to describe the
circumstances on pages 9, 10, 11. Like the Security Police, who are "the third presence in the lover's
privacy," Apartheid is a constant presence—a main character, so to speak, as well as force—in the lives of
Coloured, Black. White, and Asian. It categorizes, defines, and controls everything. Sonny's students join
the resistance. They react to the killings of young people by staying out of school. "WE DON'T WANT
THIS RUBBISH EDUCATION APARTHIED SLAVERY POLICE GET OUT OUR SCHOOLS." He
chooses to assist them, because they are his students and because he wants to bring them back to school.
Sonny then becomes more active, loses his job, and moves his family. That act leads to the events which
become so disruptive. Apartheid is the force; resistance the reaction. In a more basic sense, apartheid
forces people into certain locations, relationships, jobs, roles, and identitites. It not only limits and
restricts, it tyrannizes. It subjugates people and condemns millions and millions to poverty and ignorance.
The two "arenas" are virtually indistinguishable.
The Power of Cultural, Political, and Legal Definitions of Identity: Politics determine in large measure
private lives. Culture does, as well—both by (my provisional) definition and by the conditions Gordimer
portrays.
13
The concept [culture] implies both constraint and mobility. That is, culture, on the one hand, defines and
(perhaps) even enforces certain notions about behavior, values, and beliefs. It sets boundaries . . .
"The basis for personal identity is nothing other than social identity . . . Each of us begins his/her self
constitution on the basis of a series of social categories which are the result of attribution, not experience,
and which locate us in one or more social hierarchies." (Patrick Colm.) And in both South Africa and the
United States, "social hierarchies" entail race and class.
At first, Sonny does not identify with the Black cause. They and their culture seem so different. He thinks
of himself as Coloured, not Black, certainly not White. But then in the name of politics, in the face of
growing repression and violence, the Coloured began to think of themselves as Black. In the face of laws
which imposed an identity on peoples and a dominant culture on the nation. The movement brought
people together in a culture of resistance.
Since 1994 and majority government, questions of identity have opened up again. Many Coloured, e.g.,
no longer identify with the Black majority. They seek their own separate identity and culture.
Race: Racial differences and consciousness pervade the novel. The definitions and divisions are legal,
social, and cultural. We're aware of race almost from the first page: "And this in spite of the fact that he
had turned out darker-rather than lighter-skinned than the rest of his family." (6) "He enterprisingly
approached the Rotary Club and the Lion's Club in the white town with respectful requests that they might
graciusly send ..." (9) "During the week, the throng vanished, obediently banished back to the areas set
aside for them outside the town ... In the town, the lawyer and estate agents and municipal officials moved
unjostled about the streets expanded, spacious, swept of the detritus of Saturdays common usage. A white
town." (11) Will makes a great deal of Hannah's whiteness. "Of course, she is blonde. The wet dreams I
have, a schoolboy who's never slept with a woman, are blonde. It's an infection brought to us by the laws
that have decided what we are, and what they are—the blonde ones." (14)
Criticism
Laurel Graeber
In My Son's Story, a bold, unnerving tour de force, she offers a story centred around the other side of both
the racial and the railroad tracks - yet the dilemmas that confront her characters are at heart very much like
the those that plague affluent whites, insofar as they allow themselves to oppose the entrenched authority
of the south African government: how to measure up in one's daily, personal life to one's avowed ethical
and political principles, ones' activist sentiments and commitments.
...Much of the novel's power and interest derive from her almost uncanny ability to portray each of the
novel's characters with sympathy and subtlety...."The book is really about the problems the ordinary forms
of love bring within a particular context," said Ms. Gordimer, "in which love of country is inextricably
bound up with these other types of love. And by love of country, I don't mean gung-ho patriotism, but
involvement with the time."
From Publisher's Weekly
Highly praised as a literate goad to South Africa's conscience under apartheid, Gordimer in My Son's
Story delivers her most perceptive and powerful novel in years. The story of a man's evolution as a
political activist and the toll it takes on his family and on him, it is also a picture of a marriage and of an
extramarital affair, set against a backdrop of daily life in segregated South Africa, even as the winds of
14
change begin to blow. An exemplary husband and father, a pillar of rectitude in the black community,
Sonny is dismissed from his teaching job after he leads a political protest. On his release from his
imprisonment, he becomes a leader in the revolutionary underground; at the same time he is swept into an
affair with a white woman, a worker in a human rights organization. The intertwined events that lead to
the breakup of Sonny's family and the tragic end of his high hopes and ideals are partially narrated by his
teenage son Will, bitter and cynical over his father's marital betrayal. The novel is eloquent in its
understated prose and anguished understanding of moral complexities in a land where blacks keep
"rags...on their persons as protection against tear-gas as white people carry credit cards." Tightly focused
and controlled, expertly plotted, the narrative is replete with ironies; the tension increases almost
invisibly, until the unexpected, jolting denouement. In the end, Will resolves to record '"what it really was
like to live a life determined by the struggle to be free." Which is exactly what this book does, honestly
and memorably.
Elise Chase
Gordimer's novel, about a colored South African family ravaged by the father's affair with a white human
rights advocate, probes with breathtaking power and precision the complexities of "love, love/hate," and
the interplay of public and private reality. First-person narration shows son Will's struggle to deal with
confusion and bitterness after discovering father Sonny's infidelity; alternating third-person sequences
depict Sonny's evolution from a committed schoolteacher and devoted husband/father into a resistance
worker for whom the movement itself ultimately becomes a second family—one his loyal wife Aila
cannot share with him, though his lover Hannah does. The book's richness of sensation and consciousness
is such that Gordimer's eloquence is, at times, almost unbearable. Always, though, she retains perfect
control over her material, rendering her characters' shifting perspectives with truly extraordinary empathy
and discernment.
Rob Nixon - Voice Literary Supplement
Behind the immense success of My Son's Story — her most impassioned fiction yet, and her most
compelling since...Burger's Daughter — lies Gordimer's recognition of deceit as the subject for someone
as fascinated by stirrings in the loin as by the stirrings of history. Sexual deceits are clandestine, they flee
the light, head underground. In South Africa, they share this condition with outlawed political activity,
which obliges people to tunnel out double lives, mixing the exhilaration of illicit solidarity with the dread
of exposure. On the fulcrum of the lie, which may tilt lives toward selfish narcissism or selfless idealism,
Gordimer balances her profound inquiry into the character of sexual, emotional, and political
commitments—what it means, in short, to be contedon.
15
Notes
16