Six Feet of the Country

Fiction | Short Story | Adult

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Background

Socio-Historical Context: Social Constructs in South African Apartheid

Apartheid was introduced in South Africa by the National Party in 1948, operating on the idea that Black and white populations could exist in separate spaces while cultivating their own cultures and economies freely. However, because racist ideologies restricted cultural freedom, indigenous populations were subjected to new societal formations that placed them under the authority of the white population. In “Six Feet of the Country,” this dynamic of one group’s authority over the other is slowly reconstructed to emulate apartheid mindsets, despite the rural setting where the protagonist initially believes these social tensions don’t exist.

The story first presents what the protagonist believes is a relatively equitable, peaceful environment on the idyllic farm so far removed from the city’s racial discord, with himself and Lerice running the farm and taking care of their Black employees. However, the apartheid’s toxic societal ethos catches up with both white characters when the employees wish to bury the young man themselves. As the employees have no power and the protagonist must step in, the narrative events resemble the gradual ascension of white authority in an apartheid society: As a white man, only the protagonist has the power to negotiate for the body’s retrieval—and even he, ultimately, is powerless against the city’s apartheid bureaucracy. The story thus illustrates how the apartheid idea of a “separate space” manifests in one group’s domination over the other, even in the rural setting that the protagonist naively considered immune to such “tension.”

Cultural Context: Burial Rites Within Cultural Colonization

There are several indigenous South African communities, each with its own burial and mourning ritual; however, Gordimer introduces a burial setting inhabited by white influence and colonization as part of apartheid society. Not only does the white authority forcibly colonize the indigenous people by relegating them to a “separate space,” but it also takes away their cultural freedom to mourn. The employees must make do with what they have, and they must rely on the protagonist for the burial to even take place. The narrative never clarifies his employees’ specific heritage, nor does it explicitly mention specific burial rites, but the authorities’ apathy toward the employees’ grief (as well as toward their deceased) shows disregard for their culture and dignity generally. Though he shows some empathy throughout the narrative, even the protagonist demonstrates a thoughtless insensitivity toward his employees and their way of life. For example, when the young man’s funeral is held on a Saturday, the protagonist thinks this is a convenient day for the funeral because “[t]he farm hands don't work on Saturday afternoon anyway” (15).

There is also a cultural colonization wherein white ideals take over the cultural traditions of indigenous groups. The story renders this dynamic through the plot twist of the misplaced body, which reflects how white authority influences the funeral as a whole: White apathy and racism impinges on the Black characters’ freedom to properly mourn. When it becomes clear that the body is missing, the health and police authorities don’t take steps to resolve the issue, seemingly because they can’t take such steps: “I had the feeling that they were shocked, in a laconic fashion, by their own mistake, but that in the confusion of their anonymous dead they were helpless to put it right” (18). The apartheid officials are so indifferent to Black life, and attribute to the Black individuals so little personhood or dignity, that all of them are as anonymous in death as they are in life. By extension, the officials’ apathy indicates that indigenous ritual means nothing to them because, as they believe, it belongs to someone “lesser.”