Gordimer's "The Defeated" is a vivid contrast study, with the narrator coming from a "static" upper-class white home. At the same time, her mother looks down upon the Concession stores where Miriam and the Saiyetovitzes live.

Miriam and the narrator go to the same school, but their outlooks on life differ. The narrator is drawn to the bustling Concession stores, which offer "the signs of life that I craved." While that area of town is "dirty" and populated by native Africans, of whom the narrator is slightly afraid, it holds more appeal than the empty upper-class house in which she is often left alone with only the tick of the clock for company.

Gordimer's depiction of the busy marketplace is very evocative. She focuses on smells, the air "thicker with [the natives'] incense-like body smell, and the sudden rank shock of their stronger sweat." She also identifies sounds, such as "the clamor of . . . voices" and "the size of [the natives'] laughter." These sensory details allow the reader to fully experience the scene and explain why the narrator is drawn to this lively place, even while much of it is repellant to her. Her own home has no life to it at all.

On the other hand, Miriam grows up in this place but does not seem to appreciate it. She takes for granted the endless hard work of her mother and father, stating that they will "find the money" to send her to University without ever really considering how. As Miriam grows, she becomes more and more distinct from her parents, a "powerful young Jewess" while they are ugly peasants. She does not recognize, as the narrator does, the "generosity" in the Saiyetovitzes, which is even more remarkable than their ugliness.

Miriam and the narrator both yearn for things they do not experience at home. However, it is transgressive for the narrator to want to experience the lower-class world of the Concession stores. For Miriam, it is what her parents want for her to become educated, attend University, and mix with wealthy young Jewish men. However, as Miriam's disinterest in her family grows, it becomes clear that the Saiyetovitzes expect more from their daughter. They expected her, perhaps, to recognize the sacrifice they have made for her:

It doesn't come out like you think, he said, it doesn't come out like you think.

In the end, the Saiyetovitzes have not benefited at all from the years of hard labor they have put into improving their daughter. They have remained in the same place, yet they have lost her company and regard. Just as the white upper classes benefit from the labor of the poor native Africans, taking it for granted and looking down on them as an underclass, Miriam has done the same thing to her parents.

While the narrator has rarely passed judgment throughout the story, in the end, there is undoubtedly an implied judgment of Miriam as she stands there "in Miriam's guilt," recognizing what Miriam has done. As she watches Mr. Saiyetovitz, "defeated," taking out his rage on a native man, she realizes that the complex class system of South Africa is a trap of which few people are even aware.