A short story by Nadine Gordimer

This short story, by Nadine Gordimer, overall, speaks on the deep-seethed racial tension that influenced the individuals in this story. In essence it is about a presumptively white charr existence mugged by an equally presumable dour male (Gordimer is from South Africa and frequently wrote about racial tension). The tension in this story is so saturating that it even worldages to conquer the language, imagery, and actions of the two sight involved. The initiative paragraph reads, It was a cool grey morning and the air was alike(p) smoke.In that reversal of the elements that sometimes takes place, the grey, soft, muffled sky come upond like the ocean on a silent day. In the in truth first fourth dimension it is established that there is a smoggy, perhaps suffocating quality in the air. Smoke is a hazardous, cancer causing gas that is also an gene of concealment these attributes can also apply to the effects of apartheid. Like cancer, racial tension spread rampantly throug h South Africa and concealed a persons character by his skin color. Even in the morning the air was like smoke as if to almost say, no matter how early you wake up racial tension is prevalent.In the very next sentence, it is stated that a reversal of elements has taken place which foreshadows a reversal of sorts in the later part of the story in which the womilitary personnel becomes a victim. As she walks by the man her concentration is directed towards the cause to be perceived of pine needles that were formerly held in her hand. A thudding is heard and the man appears unexpectedly panting in her face. This sequence of events inspires another theme in the storyfear. A fear of the unk outrightn is evident early in the story, if only subtly, and evolves into an overwhelming sense of dread.As the woman first notices the passing-capped mannikin in the distance, she inexplicably switches her bag and parcel from one arm to the other. This is a jet defense mechanism for women fearin g a mugging from a perceived character or to simply add a sense of security. Later, as she nears the figure on the path, she grabs a little sheath of pine needlesand as she walked she ran them against her thumb. An right action that seems to hold her attention until the visage of the man steals it away.After passing the now weary, raggedy man, she realizes that the pine needles were no longer in her hand (she doesnt hold up when this happened which would lead to the conclusion that she was transfixed on the man when the needles were dropped). The woman because decides to sniff her hand in order to remember what the needles smelled like in order to compare them to a similar scent from her childhood. The pine needles, which word of farewell a residue on her fingers, leaves the woman with a need to lave them for, Unless her hands were quite clean, she could not lose consciousness of them, they obtruded upon her.By being keen on washing her hands, she would no longer be suspiciou s of the figure in which she passed and therefore relinquish her caution. This sets up the next convulsion as just when the woman decides to let her mind linger on her hands, the man makes his move. and then he was there in front of her, so startling, so utterly unexpected, panting right into her face. He stood dead noneffervescent and she stood dead still. Every vestige of control, of sense, of thought, went out of her as a board plunges into dark at the failure of power and she found herself whimpering like an doofus or a child. Animal sounds came out of her throat.She gibbered. For a moment it was venerate itself that had her by the arms, the legs, the throat not fear of the man, of any single imperil he might sit, but misgiving, absolute, abstract. If the earth had opened up in fire at her feet, if a wild beast had opened its abominable mouth to receive her, she could not have been reduced to less than she was now. It is expressly stated that she did not fear the man, so why does Fear present itself only when he bounds to her? Such terror is realized when conceptualise notions of class barriers are shattered unexpectedly and whats to come next remains a mystery.The language changes to reflect the horror that the woman experiences in this moment. She does not simply stand still but dead still, a simile is used to express the fleeting feelings of control, and animal (inhuman) sounds are produced from her throat. Fear also becomes personified by being made a proper noun and entangling her in its grip. Throughout the story the man is made to seem opposite of the woman. As the woman in the story is traveling along a path, she espy a figure (a native) with a red cap.Upon reaching the man, by following the path, it is expressed that his trouser leg is torn off, revealing the interrogatively dead, powdery black of cold (the effects of the weather on his change skin) his eyes are also red and he smells of sweat. When the confrontation occurs, his dep iction of something different from her becomes more pronounced. His foot is stated to be cracked from picture show until it looked like broken wood, his face is sullen, voice is deep and hoarse, and he has a pink injury on his skin. Such a hard-hitting contrast with the woman is made to emphasize the cause of the tension.After the woman escapes, she urgently runs from the scene in order to get back on the passageway. The language that follows touchs a sense of one escaping a foreign world, And she was out. She was on the road. She could hear a faint hum, as of life Her once embrace fear has now eased slightly and the cause seems to be her pip from the velds and brush. The setting of where the native resided and where the woman wants to go are also contrasts that contrive the difference between the two and only add to the foreignness of the encounter.The come through two paragraphs of the story are most interesting in that later on the tussle, the woman decides, after some de liberation, that she would not tell anyone of what just happened. why did I fight, she thought suddenly. What did I fight for? Why didnt I give him the money and let him go? Perhaps she felt pity for the man? He was obviously poor and tired with severe exposure to the elements His red eyes, and the smell and those cracks in his feet, fissures, erosion.Perhaps her story would appear shady to the pack she told, She thought of the woman coming to the door, of the explanations, of the womans face, and the police. It is evident from her antecedent behavior that a mugging was in the realm of possibility, and from the mans appearance it was also evident that such(prenominal) an action was not infra him. The woman doesnt tell anyone of her encounter because of the social difference between the two. At the end of the day, the woman can most likely replenish her disconnected items but, from the description of the man, his survival could have been at stake if he didnt fix assets or fund s.The is described walking down the road, like an invalid, because she was robbed and such an occurrence leaves a hollow feeling but she realizes that she must move on, signified by her picking the blackjacks from her stockings. Is There Nowhere Else Where We Can playact? is a unique title, firstly in its use of nowhere sort of of anywhere and secondly, that the meeting between the two characters in the story is an hateful one because of the racial tension in South Africa. Had these two people met in a different country things might have been different.