The central conflict begins when Petrus, one of the farm’s trusted workers, informs Lerice that his brother is very sick. The brother had traveled illegally from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) without a pass to find work in South Africa. By the time the narrator and Lerice go to check on him in the crowded workers' quarters, the young man has already died of pneumonia. Bureaucratic Indifference
The story begins by introducing the unnamed narrator and his wife, Lerice. Tired of their strained marriage and the racial tensions of Johannesburg, they have purchased a small farm ten miles outside the city. The narrator, a partner in a travel agency, believes they have escaped the city’s discord and established a peaceful, almost feudal, existence where their black workers “have nothing much to fear.” Lerice, a former actress, has thrown herself into the running of the farm, creating a domestic and professional distance between them.
The title, , refers to the common phrase "six feet of earth" needed for a person's burial, symbolizing the minimal space allocated to a person's life. The story highlights the disparities in how different social classes are treated, even in death.
The narrator realizes with a jolt that the government has charged the family for the "six feet of the country"—the patch of earth needed for the grave. Even in death, the Black body is a commodity; the state extracts rent for the very ground in which the poor are laid to rest.
The narrator is not a violent white supremacist; he is a liberal, comfortable, and polite farm owner. Yet, his politeness masks a deep indifference. He treats the death of his employee’s brother as an inconvenience. Lerice, the wife, shows more emotion but is still complicit in the system of power. six feet of the country by nadine gordimer summary
The story pits Western bureaucracy (death certificates, permits, numbered plots) against African spirituality (burial with ancestors, community mourning). The cold, bureaucratic system wins, but only by committing a form of spiritual violence. The family is left unable to complete their mourning ritual.
The title, “Six Feet of the Country,” is bitterly ironic. The narrator owns six miles of the country—land he uses for profit. Petrus’s family asks for only six feet of it—a grave. The state denies even that. In a deeper sense, the country does not belong to Johannes or Petrus. Their real home is the “reserves,” the impoverished, overcrowded Bantustans to which the apartheid state confined black people. The story argues that for a black South African, the entire country is a foreign land, except for the six feet of ancestral soil in which one hopes to be buried.
The narrator, driven by a sense of duty and mild guilt, goes to the city morgue to claim the body so it can be buried properly by Petrus and the family. But he is met with an impenetrable bureaucracy. The officials refuse to release the body without a permit from the pass office. He travels from office to office, facing indifference, rudeness, and paperwork. The pass office officials, who are white, care only about the legal status of Lucas’s pass, not about his death or the family’s grief.
If you are interested, another powerful example of Gordimer’s masterful storytelling is “Once Upon a Time,” a story that also explores the devastating consequences of fear and the building of physical and psychological barriers. The central conflict begins when Petrus, one of
The couple lives in a small cottage attached to the store. They are outsiders: white, English-speaking, and Jewish in a predominantly Afrikaner rural district. They feel a sense of superiority over their Afrikaner neighbors, whom they consider crude, and a sense of frustrated benevolence toward the black people, whom they see as childlike and in need of firm management.
After struggling to get the body back for a traditional burial, Petrus is forced to pay exorbitant costs to return his brother's remains. Ultimately, the story ends with the stark realization that the bureaucracy has made it nearly impossible for a black worker to bury his family member on the farm, highlighting that for a Black man, even the promised "six feet of the country" is unattainable in a state that denies them full human rights. 2. Character Analysis
After weeks of fruitless effort, the narrator is told he can have the body exhumed for a fee of 20 pounds. He reluctantly goes to the undertaker, pays the money, and arranges for the coffin to be delivered to the farm. The employees, led by Petrus, have painstakingly collected the exorbitant sum—months' worth of their meager wages—to pay for the exhumation and a proper funeral. When the coffin arrives, the Black employees open it and find the body of an old, white man inside. The mortuary staff has made a mistake, sending a completely wrong corpse. The narrator goes back to the authorities in protest, but he is met with a wall of indifference. The officials are helpless, and the undertaker has already done his job and been paid. The wrong body is taken away, and Petrus's brother is never recovered.
Nadine Gordimer ’s short story (1956) is a poignant exploration of racial division, systemic inequality, and the dehumanizing effects of apartheid in South Africa. Quick Summary The title, , refers to the common phrase
The narrator returns to Petrus with the bad news. He tries to explain the medical officer’s reasoning. Petrus listens silently, his face expressionless. Then he says, quietly, “He said he would come back. He said he would not stay here.” Petrus is referring to a promise Johannes made before he died—a promise to return home.
, first published in 1956. Set in South Africa during the apartheid era, it explores themes of racial inequality, bureaucratic indifference, and the failure of human empathy. SuperSummary Plot Summary
, move from Johannesburg to a farm ten miles outside the city, hoping the rural lifestyle will repair their strained marriage. The Incident : One night, their farmhand reveals that his brother—an illegal immigrant from
The story is narrated by a white, liberal South African couple who run a small trading store and transport business near a rural "location" (a segregated settlement for Black Africans). They live on a small piece of land they bought from the government, but they feel disconnected from the landscape and the people.