Short story: What Were You Dreaming? (Nadine Gordimer) – Tasks

The time off school gives you a big chance to improve and practice your reading comprehension skills. That is why I decided to have you read the attached short story (apart from the fact that it perfectly fits our topic). Admittedly, it will be a big challenge for many of you to read and comprehend the story, but – as I said – now we have the time to practice. All you need is some patience and endurance, i.e. you will have to read the story several times over the next couple of days to “crack the nut”. And remember: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO UNDERSTAND EVERY DETAIL OF THE STORY!!! JUST DON’T GIVE UP!!!

Below you will find some guiding questions, which will help you to understand and work through the text. Bring your – WRITTEN – answers in the first lesson when we are all back at school, so that we can discuss them in class!

Besides, you can always use a dictionary to look up unknown vocabulary. Here again my recommendations:

bilingual: www.dict.cc

monolingual: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/

Guiding questions/tasks: In your answers always give the numbers of the lines where you found the relevant information in the text (= quoting)!

A. Comprehension

1. Divide the story into parts/sections and give headings to the different parts. Î tip: paragraphs give you an orientation (but they do not always mark the

beginning of a new part of the text)!

2. What do the following expressions mean? Paraphrase them in English (tip: use the monolingual dictionary I recommended above!)

a. skolly (l. 6 + 11) b. Ekskuus (l. 29) c. suss (l. 54) d. doing time (ll. 60-61) e. now it's like in a supermarket (ll. 100-101) f. gap of gum between the canines (ll. 139-140)

3. What do we learn about the hitchhiker’s life, family and working circumstances including his past?

4. What is the reason why the hitchhiker – even if he does not quite lie – “bends the truth” a little when he talks with the two whites about his life and family?

5. Remember what you know about the apartheid system and the cruel things the white minority government did. Which of these are dealt with in the text?

6. Language in the story: what different kinds of English spoken in South Africa are dealt with in the short story? What was, so to speak, an “extra” function of language in apartheid South Africa?

7. Why does the hitchhiker speak badly about black people (e.g. line 11 ff.)? To answer the question maybe first think about who is meant with “us” in line 13-16? (Remember the different groups into which people were categorized under the apartheid system!)

B. Analysis

1. Do exercise p. 90 / 1 in your 9th grade school book. Then correct yourself with the key below. Don’t cheat!!!

2. Apply the literary terms to the short story What Were You Dreaming? AND do the extra tasks described below:

a. example: author = Nadine Gordimer

Æ extra task: Find out and write down three important/interesting facts about her life on https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadine_Gordimer:

- South African writer Æ Nobel Prize in Literature 1991

-

-

b. characters =

Æ extra task: With which character in the story do you identify most? Why?

c. setting =

d. exposition = line 1 till line _____

e. climax AND/OR turning point (NOT ALWAYS THE SAME!!!) =

f. conclusion = line ______ till the ending

g. narrator + perspective/point of view (always analysed together) =

Î extra task: to answer this question you have to read S6 on p. 92 in your 10th-

grade school book!!! (also try to remember what you have already learned in German class)

Î tip: the type of narrator/perspective changes at one point in the story. Where? (If you have difficulties to find the spot, have a close look at the style of the language and where it changes!)

h. theme =

Î tip: try to summarize the short story in one single sentence. Then you have a good chance to capture the main idea (“message”) of the story. Always remember: the question is NOT “What message does the author want to get across?”, but “What did I take away/understand/learn/etc. from the story?” !!!

i. plot = a summary of the story

Î tip: take the headings from A. 1 and “glue” them together to create a coherent text. The result will be a decent summary of the plot, i.e. the main events/actions of the story.

3. Read S7 on p. 93 in your 10th-grade school book. Analyse the following points:

a. In which tense are stories usually told? What is the main tense in the story? What is the effect of that?

b. What does direct speech usually “look like” in texts (think of punctuation, etc.)? Then look for three examples of direct speech in the text. What is special about the way Nadine Gordimer uses direct speech? What is the effect of that?

c. Analyse the woman’s comments (cf. direct speech) in the short story. What do these comments reveal about her political attitude, i.e. her attitude towards the political system in South Africa at the time the short story is set?

d. Analyse the chronology of the short story. Are there any special features (back story, flashback, etc.)? If so, what is their effect?

4. Look at the title and interpret it in the context of the story. Who might be meant with “you”?

5. What did you like and what did you not like about the story? Give reasons! And what have you learned from the story you did not know before reading it?

Text

What Were You Dreaming?

I'm standing here by the road long time, yesterday, day before, today. 1

Not the same road but it's the same — hot, hot like today. When they 2

turn off to where they're going, I must get out again, wait again. Some of 3

them they just pretend there's nobody there, they don't want to see 4

nobody. Even go a bit faster, ja. Then they past, and I'm waiting. I 5

combed my hair; I don't want to look like a skolly. Don't smile because 6

they think you being too friendly, you think you good as them. They go 7

and they go. Some's got the baby's napkin hanging over the back 8

window to keep out this sun. Some's not going on holiday with their kids 9

but is alone; all alone in a big car. But they'll never stop, the whites, if 10

they alone. Never. Because these skollies and that kind've spoilt it all for 11

us, sticking a gun in the driver's neck, stealing his money, beating him 12

up and taking the car. Even killing him. So it's buggered up for us. No 13

white wants some guy sitting behind his head. And the blacks — when 14

they stop for you, they ask for money. They want you must pay, like for a 15

taxi! The blacks! 16

But then these whites: they're stopping; I'm surprised, because it's 17

only two — empty in the back — and the car it's a beautiful one. The 18

windows are that special glass, you can't see in if you outside, but the 19

woman has hers down and she's calling me over with her finger. She ask 20

me where I'm going and I say the next place because they don't like to 21

have you for too far, so she say get in and lean into the back to move 22

along her stuff that's on the back seat to make room. Then she say, lock 23

the door, just push that button down, we don't want you to fall out, and 24

it's like she's joking with someone she know. The man driving smiles 25

over his shoulder and say something — I can't hear it very well, it's the 26

way he talk English. So anyway I say what's all right to say, yes master, 27

thank you master, I'm going to Warmbad. He ask again, but man, I 28

don't get it — Ekskuus? Please? And she chips in — she's a lady with grey 29

hair and he's a young chap — My friend's from England, he's asking if 30

you've been waiting a long time for a lift. So I tell them — A long time? 31

Madam! And because they white, I tell them about the blacks, how when 32

they stop they ask you to pay. This time I understand what the young 33

man's saying, he say, And most whites don't stop? And I'm careful what 34

I say, I tell them about the blacks, how too many people spoil it for us, 35

they robbing and killing, you can't blame white people. Then he ask 36

where I'm from. And she laugh and look round where I'm behind her. I 37

see she know I'm from the Cape, although she ask me. I tell her I'm from 38

the Cape Flats and she say she suppose I'm not born there, though, and 39

she's right, I'm born in Wynberg, right there in Cape Town. So she say, 40

And they moved you out? 41

Then I catch on what kind of white she is; so I tell her, yes, the govern- 42

ment kicked us out from our place, and she say to the young man. You 43

see? 44

He want to know why I'm not in the place in the Cape Flats, why I'm 45

so far away here. I tell them I'm working in Pietersburg. And he keep on, 46

why? Why? What's my job, everything, and if I don't understand the 47

way he speak, she chips in again all the time and ask me for him. So I tell 48

him, panel beater. And I tell him, the pay is very low in the Cape. And 49

then I begin to tell them lots of things, some things is real and some 50

things I just think of, things that are going to make them like me, maybe 51

they'll take me all the way there to Pietersburg. 52

I tell them I'm six days on the road1. I not going to say I'm sick as well, 53

I been home because I was sick — because she's not from overseas, I suss 54

that, she know that old story. I tell them I had to take leave because my 55

mother's got trouble with my brothers and sisters, we seven in the family 56

1 here: travelling to get to work

and no father. And s'true's God, it seem like what I'm saying. When do 57

you ever see him except he's drunk. And my brother is trouble, trouble, 58

he hangs around with bad people and my other brother doesn't help my 59

mother. And that's no lie, neither, how can he help when he's doing 60

time; but they don't need to know that, they only get scared I'm the same 61

kind like him, if I tell about him, assault and intent to do bodily harm. 62

The sisters are in school and my mother's only got the pension. Ja. I'm 63

working there in Pietersburg and every week, madam, I swear to you, I 64

send my pay for my mother and sisters. So then he say. Why get off here? 65

Don't you want us to take you to Pietersburg? And she say, of course, 66

they going that way. 67

And I tell them some more. They listening to me so nice, and I'm 68

talking, talking. I talk about the government, because I hear she keep 69

saying to him, telling about this law and that law. I say how it's not fair 70

we had to leave Wynberg and go to the Flats. I tell her we got sicknesses 71

— she say what kind, is it unhealthy here? And I don't have to think 72

what, I just say it's bad, bad, and she say to the man, As I told you. I tell 73

about the house we had in Wynberg, but it's not my grannie's old house 74

where we was all living together so long, the house I'm telling them about 75

is more the kind of house they'll know, they wouldn't like to go away 76

from, with a tiled bathroom, electric stove, everything. I tell them we 77

spend three thousand rands fixing up that house — my uncle give us the 78

money, that's how we got it. He give us his savings, three thousand 79

rands. (I don't know why I say three; old Uncle Jimmy never have three 80

or two or one in his life. I just say it.) And then we just kicked out. And 81

panel beaters getting low pay there; it's better in Pietersburg. 82

He say, but I'm far from my home? And I tell her again, because she's 83

white but she's a woman too, with that grey hair she's got grown-up kids 84

— Madam, I send my pay home every week, s'true's God, so's they can 85

eat, there in the Flats. I'm saying, six days on the road. While I'm saying it, 86

I'm thinking; then I say, look at me, I got only these clothes, I sold my 87

things on the way, to have something to eat. Six days on the road. He's from 88

overseas and she isn't one of those who say you're a liar, doesn't trust 89

you — right away when I got in the car, I notice she doesn't take her stuff 90

over to the front like they usually do in case you pinch something of 91

theirs. Six days on the road, and am I tired, tired! When I get to Pieters- 92

burg I must try borrow me a rand to get a taxi there to where I live. He 93

say, Where do you live? Not in town? And she laugh, because he don't 94

know nothing about this place, where whites live and where we must go 95

— but I know they both thinking and I know what they thinking; I know 96

I'm going to get something when I get out, don't need to worry about 97

that. They feeling bad about me, now. Bad. Anyhow it's God's truth that 98

I'm tired, tired, that's true. 99

They've put up her window and he's pushed a few buttons, now it's 100

like in a supermarket, cool air blowing, and the windows like sunglasses: 101

that sun can't get me here. 102

The Englishman glances over his shoulder as he drives. 103

'Taking a nap.' 104

'I'm sure it's needed.' 105

All through the trip he stops for everyone he sees at the roadside. Some 106

are not hitching at all, never expecting to be given a lift anywhere, just 107

walking in the heat outside with an empty plastic can to be filled with 108

water or paraffin or whatever it is they buy in some country store, or 109

standing at some point between departure and destination, small 110

children and bundles linked on either side, baby on back. She hasn't said 111

anything to him. He would only misunderstand if she explained why one 112

doesn't give lifts in this country; and if she pointed out that in spite of 113

this, she doesn't mind him breaking the sensible if unfortunate rule, he 114

might misunderstand that, as well — think she was boasting of her 115

disregard for personal safety weighed in the balance against decent 116

concern for fellow beings. 117

He persists in making polite conversation with these passengers 118

because he doesn't want to be patronizing2; picking them up like so many 119

objects and dropping them off again, silent, smelling of smoke from open 120

cooking fires, sun and sweat, there behind his head. They don't under- 121

stand his Englishman's English and if he gets an answer at all it's a deaf 122

man's guess at what's called for. Some grin with pleasure, and embarrass 123

him by showing it the way they've been taught is acceptable, invoking 124

him as baas and master when they get out and give thanks. But although he 125

doesn't know it, being too much concerned with those names thrust into 126

his hands like whips whose purpose is repugnant3 to him, has nothing to 127

do with him, she knows each time that there is a moment of annealment4 128

in the air-conditioned hired car belonging to nobody — a moment like 129

that on a no-man's-land bridge in which an accord between warring 130

countries is signed — when there is no calling of names, and all belong in 131

each other's presence. He doesn't feel it because he has no wounds, nor 132

has inflicted, nor will inflict any. 133

This one standing at the roadside with his transistor radio in a plastic 134

bag was actually thumbing a lift like a townee; his expectation marked 135

him out. And when her companion to whom she was showing the country 136

inevitably pulled up, she read the face at the roadside immediately: the 137

lively, cajoling5, performer's eyes, the salmon-pinkish cheeks and nostrils, 138

and as he jogged over smiling, the unselfconscious gap of gum between 139

the canines6. 140

2 to treat somebody in a way that seems friendly, but which shows that you think that they are not very intelligent, experienced, etc. 3 making you feel strong dislike 4 Ausglühen beim Schmieden von Metall 5 to make somebody do something by talking to them and being very nice to them 6 Eckzahn

A sleeper is always absent; although present, there on the back seat. 141

'The way he spoke about black people, wasn't it surprising? I mean — 142

he's black himself.' 143

'Oh no he's not. Couldn't you see the difference? He's a Cape 144

Coloured. From the way he speaks English — couldn't you hear he's not 145

like the Africans you've talked to?' 146

But of course he hasn't seen, hasn't heard: the fellow is dark enough, 147

to those who don't know the signs by which you're classified, and the 148

melodramatic, long-vowelled English is as difficult to follow if more 149

fluent than the terse7, halting responses of blacker people. 150

'Would he have a white grandmother or even a white father, then?' 151

She gives him another of the little history lessons she has been 152

supplying along the way. The malay slaves brought by the Dutch East 153

India Company to their supply station, on the route to India, at the Cape 154

in the seventeenth century; the Hottentots who were the indigenous 155

inhabitants of that part of Africa; add Dutch, French, English, German 156

settlers whose backyard progeniture8 with these and other blacks began a 157

people who are all the people in the country mingled in one bloodstream. 158

But encounters along the road teach him more than her history lessons, 159

or the political analyses in which they share the same ideological 160

approach although he does not share responsibility for the experience to 161

which the ideology is being applied. She has explained Acts, Proclama- 162

tions, Amendments. The Group Areas Act, Resettlement Act, Orderly 163

Movement and Settlement of Black Persons Act. She has translated these 164

statute book euphemisms: people as movable goods. People packed onto 165

trucks along with their stoves and beds while front-end loaders scoop 166

away their homes into rubble. People dumped somewhere else. Always 167

somewhere else. People as the figures, decimal points and multiplying 168

7 using few words and often not seeming polite or friendly 8 hier in etwa: Fortpflanzung

zero-zero-zeros into which individual lives — Black Persons Orderly- 169

Moved, -Effluxed, -Grouped — coagulate and compute. Now he has 170

here in the car the intimate weary odour of a young man to whom these 171

things happen. 172

'Half his family sick ... it must be pretty unhealthy, where they've 173

been made to go.' 174

She smiles. 'Well, I'm not too sure about that. I had the feeling, some 175

of what he said ... they're theatrical by nature. You must take it with a 176

pinch of salt.' 177

'You mean about the mother and sisters and so on?' 178

She's still smiling, she doesn't answer. 179

'But he couldn't have made up about taking a job so far from home — 180

and the business of sending his wages to his mother? That too?' 181

He glances at her. 182

Beside him, she's withdrawn as the other one, sleeping behind him. 183

While he turns his attention back to the road, she is looking at him 184

secretly, as if somewhere in his blue eye registering the approaching road 185

but fixed on the black faces he is trying to read, somewhere in the lie of 186

his inflamed hand and arm that on their travels have been plunged in the 187

sun as if in boiling water, there is the place through which the worm he 188

needs to be infected with can find a way into him, so that he may host it 189

and become its survivor, himself surviving through being fed on. Become 190

like her. Complicity is the only understanding. 191

'Oh it's true, it's all true ... not in the way he's told about it. Truer 192

than the way he told it. All these things happen to them. And other 193

things. Worse. But why burden us? Why try to explain to us? Things so 194

far from what we know, how will they ever explain? How will we react? 195

Stop our ears? Or cover our faces? Open the door and throw him out? 196

They don't know. But sick mothers and brothers gone to the bad — these 197

are the staples9 of misery, mmh? Think of the function of charity in the 198

class struggles in your own country in the nineteenth century; it's all 199

there in your literature. The lord-of-the-manor's compassionate 200

daughter carrying hot soup to the dying cottager on her father's estate. 201

The 'advanced' upper-class woman comforting her cook when the honest 202

drudge's daughter takes to whoring for a living. Shame, we say here. 203

Shame. You must've heard it? We think it means, what a pity; we think 204

we are expressing sympathy — for them. Shame. I don't know what we're 205

saying about ourselves.' She laughs. 206

'So you think it would at least be true that his family were kicked out of 207

their home, sent away?' 208

'Why would anyone of them need to make that up? It's an everyday 209

affair.' 210

'What kind of place would they get, where they were moved?' 211

'Depends. A tent, to begin with. And maybe basic materials to build 212

themselves a shack. Perhaps a one-room prefab. Always a tin toilet set 213

down in the veld, if nothing else. Some industrialist must be making a 214

fortune out of government contracts for those toilets. You build your new 215

life round that toilet. His people are Coloured, so it could be they were 216

sent where there were houses of some sort already built for them; 217

Coloureds usually get something a bit better than blacks are given.' 218

'And the house would be more or less as good as the one they had? 219

People as poor as that — and they'd spent what must seem a fortune to 220

them, fixing it up.' 221

'I don't know what kind of house they had. We're not talking about 222

slum clearance, my dear; we're talking about destroying communities 223

because they're black, and white people want to build houses or factories 224

for whites where blacks live. I told you. We're talking about loading up 225

9 a large or important part of something

trucks and carting black people out of sight of whites.' 226

'And even where he's come to work — Pietersburg, whatever-it's- 227

called — he doesn't live in the town.' 228

'Out of sight.' She has lost the thought for a moment, watching to 229

make sure the car takes the correct turning. 'Out of sight. Like those 230

mothers and grannies and brothers and sisters far away on the Cape 231

Flats.' 232

'I don't think it's possible he actually sends all his pay. I mean how 233

would one eat?' 234

'Maybe what's left doesn't buy anything he really wants.' 235

Not a sound, not a sigh in sleep, behind them. They can go on talking 236

about him as he always has been discussed, there and yet not there. 237

Her companion is alert to the risk of gullibility10. He verifies the facts, 238

smiling, just as he converts, mentally, into pounds and pence any sum 239

spent in foreign coinage. 'He didn't sell the radio. When he said he'd 240

sold all his things on the road, he forgot about that.' 241

'When did he say he'd last eaten?' 242

'Yesterday. He said.' 243

She repeats what she has just been told: 'Yesterday.' She is looking 244

through the glass that takes the shine of heat off the landscape passing as 245

yesterday passed, time measured by the ticking second-hand of moving 246

trees, rows of crops, country-store stoeps, filling stations, spiny crook'd 247

fingers of giant euphorbia. Only the figures by the roadside waiting, 248

standing still. 249

Personal remarks can't offend someone dead-beat in the back. 'How 250

d'you think such a young man comes to be without front teeth?' 251

She giggles whisperingly and keeps her voice low, anyway. 'Well, you 252

may not believe me if I tell you...' 253

10 the fact of being too willing to believe or accept what other people tell you, and therefore of being easily tricked

'Seems odd ... I suppose he can't afford to have them replaced.' 254

'It's — how shall I say — a sexual preference. Most usually you see it 255

in their young girls, though. They have their front teeth pulled when 256

they're about seventeen.' 257

She feels his uncertainty, his not wanting to let comprehension lead 258

him to a conclusion embarrassing to an older woman. For her part, she is 259

wondering whether he won't find it distasteful if — at her de-sexed age — 260

she should come out with it: for cock-sucking. 'No-one thinks the gap 261

spoils a girl's looks, apparently. It's simply a sign she knows how to 262

please. Same significance between men, I suppose... A form of beauty. 263

So everyone says. We've always been given to understand that's the 264

reason.' 265

'Maybe it's just another sexual myth. There are so many.' 266

She's in agreement. 'Black girls. Chinese girls. Jewish girls.' 267

'And black men?' 268

'Oh my goodness, you bet. But we white ladies don't talk about that, 269

we only dream, you know! Or have nightmares.' 270

They're laughing. When they are quiet, she flexes her shoulders 271

against the seat-back and settles again. The streets of a town are flicker- 272

ing their text across her eyes. 'He might have had a car accident. They 273

might have been knocked out in a fight.' 274

The confident dextrous hand is moving quickly down in the straw bag 275

bought from a local market somewhere along the route. She brings up a 276

pale blue note (the Englishman recognizes the two-rand denomination of 277

this currency that he has memorized by colour) and turns to pass it, a 278

surreptitious11 message, through the open door behind her. Goodbye master 279

madam. The note disappears delicately as a titbit finger-fed. He closes the 280

door, he's keeping up the patter, goodbye master, goodbye madam, and she 281

11 done secretly or quickly, in the hope that other people will not notice

instructs — 'No, bang it. Harder. That's it.' Goodbye master, goodbye 282

madam — but they don't look back at him now, they don't have to see him 283

thinking he must keep waving, keep smiling, in case they should look 284

back. 285

She is the guide and mentor; she's the one who knows the country. 286

She's the one — she knows that too — who is accountable. She must be 287

the first to speak again. 'At least if he's hungry he'll be able to buy a bun 288

or something. And the bars are closed on Sunday.' 289

Nadine Gordimer