July’s People (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Nadine Gordimer
- First Published: 1981
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: The 1980’s
- Setting: A small settlement in rural South Africa
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: Family or family life, Politics, Blacks, Race, Revolutions, Future, Yards or backyards, 1980’s, Violence, South Africa or South Africans, Architecture or architects
- Locales: South Africa
Characters Discussed
Bamford (Bam) Smales, a white South African architect, married with three children. A social and political liberal, Bam must confront his own buried fears of a true shift in the balance of black and white power when he finds himself dependent on his black houseboy, July, after the Smaleses take refuge in July’s village. Cut adrift from white society, Bam sees his wife’s respect for him eroding and his children assimilating easily into village life, while he himself flounders like a fish out of water in his new surroundings.
Maureen Hetherington...
[The entire page is 970 words long]
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