The Moment Before the Gun Went Off

The Moment Before the Gun Went Off (1991) by Nadine Gordimer The Moment Before the Gun Went Off” is a short story by the South African Novel Prize-winning author Nadine Gordimer. Gordimer’s writing often addresses the evils of systematized racism in South Africa. This short story was published in 1988, toward the end of what is known as South Africa’s apartheid period. The word apartheid, which means “separation” in Afrikaans, refers to the government policy in South Africa that strictly enforced segregation among Black citizens, people of color, and white people descended from Dutch and British colonists. Under apartheid, it was illegal for different racial groups to live in the same neighborhoods, share public spaces, and have sexual relations. Apartheid officially began in 1948 and didn’t end until 1994.

Quotes

• Afrikaner farmer—a regional Party leader and Commandant of the local security commando”
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• He [the victim] was my friend, I always took him hunting with me
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• city and overseas people
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• Bad enough to have killed a man,” he believes they will say to themselves, “without helping the Party’s, the government’s, the country’s enemies, as well
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• a moment of high excitement shared through the roof of the cab
  • Paragraph 14
• big, calm, clever son of Willem Van der Vyver
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• He knows that the story of the Afrikaner farmer—regional Party leader and Commandant of the local security commando—shooting a black man who worked for him will fit exactly their version of South Africa.
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• People in the farming community understand how he must feel. Bad enough to have killed a man, without helping the Party’s, the government’s, the country’s enemies, as well.
  • Paragraph 3

External links

• super summary