The Defeated (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Nadine Gordimer
- First Published: 1952
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Time of Work: The 1920's to 1940's
- Setting: Cape Town, South Africa
- Principal Characters: The narrator, Miriam Saiyetovitz, Mr. and Mrs. Saiyetovitz
- Genres: Social realism, Short fiction
- Subjects: Suffering, Friendship, Jews or Jewish life, Mines, miners, or mining, South Africa or South Africans, Wealth, Students or student life, Parties, Shopping
- Locales: Cape Town, South Africa
The Story
As the narrator recalls her student years in Cape Town, South Africa, near which her parents owned a mine, she remembers her long friendship with her schoolmate Miriam Saiyetovitz and Miriam's parents, who owned a concession store.
Against her mother's initial objections, the narrator finds herself drawn into the exotic world of the concession stores where Africans shop. She is enticed by the sights, smells, sounds, and activities of the shopkeepers and the Africans. Though she is careful to keep her physical distance, because she is repulsed by some of the...
[The entire page is 1344 words long]
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