20th Century English Literature

“The Moment before the Gun Went Off ”

Summary

Marais Van der Vyver shot one of his farm labourers－Lucas by accident while they are out culling a kudu on his farm. He knows the news that the story of the white farmer shooting a black man who worked for him will fit exactly the black’s version of South Africa.

The white people know he will look after the wife and children of Lucas. They know none of those people, who want to destroy the white man’s power, will believe him. And how they will sneer when he even says of the farm boy, “He was my friend. I always took him with me.”

On that day, he also had gone hunting with the black boy who had jumped onto the back of the trunk as he always did. He liked to travel standing up there. He would lean forward, braced against the cab below him. Van der Vyver drove rather fast over a pot-hole. The jolt fired the rifle by his throat.

Van der Vyver has provided money for the funeral. An elaborate funeral means a great deal to blacks. The dead man’s mother, whose parents were already working for old Van der Vyver when Marais, like their daughter, was a child, is in her last thirties. She stares at the grave. He, too, stares at the grave.

How will they ever know, when they file newspaper clippings, evidence, proof, when they look at the photographs and see his face – guilty! guilty! They are right! – how will they know? How could they know that they do not know anything? The young black callously shot through the negligence of the white man was not the farmer’s boy; he was his son.

Text

Gordimer, Nadine. “The Moment before the Gun Went Off.” The Norton Anthology
of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams, et al. 7th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 2000. 2573-76.

Commentary

“An accident,… the cities where guns are domestics objects, ” (2573, par 1)
-- Guns problem in the society; also reveals the chaos in the cities.

“the story of the Afrikaner farmer…, it’s made for them.” (2573, par 1)
-- “them” means people who are against the apartheid. Those people will use the accident as an evidence to restrain the apartheid policy.

“ he, whom they will…call ‘a leading member’ of the ruling party.” (2573, the end of par 1)
-- This suggests Marais Van der Vyver’s status in the farming community.

“they see the truth of that” (2573, par 2)
-- “they” refers to supporters of apartheid.

“…he is ‘terribly shocked’… will ‘look after the wife and children’ … ‘He was my friend… always took him hunting with me’” (2573, par 2)
---People don’t believe what Van der Vyver says about his true feeling about the accident. They will sneer him because he shows his grace to blacks.

“they think all blacks are like the big-mouth agitators in town.” (2573, par 2)
-- They express their prejudice against blacks, who destroy the order in the society.

“It has gone on record,… as long as Van der Vyver lives,” (2574, par 3)
-- This suggests white men‘s privileges; the accident won’t leave any record to Van der Vyver unless the black mobs spread to the rural areas.

“… a high barbed security fence round his farmhouse… It has already happened that infiltrators … killing white farmers… ” (2574, par 7)
-- Van der Vyver was worried about his family’s safety, and he developed the security system. Some white farmers and their families were killed before.

“…And an elaborate funeral means a great deal to blacks… Blacks expose small children to everything, they don’t protect them from the sight of fear and pain…” (2575, par 8)
-- Van spent a lot of money for the funeral, which means a great deal to blacks. Blacks usually save money to avoid leaving this world in “boxwood to an unmarked grave.” Blacks begin to face the rough side of life since they were young, so that they can confront any suffering--“fear and pain”--in life later on.

“The dead man’s mother…stares at the grave. … The dead man’s mother and Van stare at the grave in communication like that between the black man outside and the white man inside the cab the moment before the gun went off.” (2575, par 9)
-- The dead man’s mother was only at her late thirties, and her parents were working for old Van der Vyver when they were kids. The dead man’s mother doesn't look at Van der Vyver, but stares at the grave. Van’s wife is beside him, showing the proper respect, as for any white funeral. That ‘[t]he dead man’s mother and Van stare at the grave in communication’ suggests a certain understanding exists between Van and the dead man’s mother.
“The moment before the gun went off was a moment of high excitement shared … between the …black man outside and the white farmer inside the vehicle.” (2575, par 10)
-- This suggests the unusual harmonious relationship between the white master and his black farm labourer. When the bullet went off, Van saw the black man fall out of the vehicle. Van was almost laughing with relief, ready to tease, as he opened the door, it seemed that the bullet couldn’t have done harm to the young black man.

“The farmer … was sure…he could not be dead. … blood was all over… “ (2576, par 11)
--The black man didn't laugh, and Van was sure that he could not be dead though his blood was all over Van’s clothes. This suggests that Van in his heart wishes the young man isn’t killed.

“How could they know that they do not know.” (2576, par 12)
-- People only knew from his face that Van felt guilt, but they would never know that the black man was his son. Men usually believe they know the truth from “newspaper” reports, but Gordimer suggests: far from knowing the truth, people oftentimes ‘do not know’ that they ‘do not know.’

STUDY QUESTIONS

1.Since Gordimer gives a lengthy account of people’s reactions after the accident, why she entitles “The Moment before the Gun Went Off” instead of “The Moment after the Gun Went Off”?
2. How does apartheid work in this story?
3. We have a slave, whose father is a white master, in Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself; and in this story, we have a dead black man, whose father is a white man. Contrast these two stories in terms of the characters and the events they have gone through.