The Smell of Death and Flowers (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Nadine Gordimer
- First Published: 1956
- Type of Plot: Psychological
- Time of Work: The early 1950's
- Setting: Johannesburg, South Africa
- Principal Characters: Joyce McCoy, Jessica Malherbe, Eddie Ntwala, Derek Ross, Rajati, Matt Shabalala, Malcolm Barker
- Genres: Psychological fiction, Short fiction
- Subjects: Politics, Blacks, Emotions, South Africa or South Africans, Apartheid
- Locales: Johannesburg, South Africa
The Story
The story is told by an omniscient narrator in the third person. Although the narrator occasionally looks inside the mind of another character, the story is told chiefly from the point of view of the female protagonist, Joyce McCoy.
Joyce McCoy, a pretty and somewhat shallow young white woman of twenty-two, returns to South Africa from England, where she has lived for five years. As the story begins, Joyce, accompanied by her brother-in-law Malcolm Barker, is attending a party in Johannesburg. Because members of all races are present, this social affair is most...
[The entire page is 1524 words long]
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