logo

53 pages 1 hour read

Nadine Gordimer

Jump and Other Stories

Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 1991

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Stories 15-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Story 15 Summary: “Keeping Fit”

A White man goes for a run early in the morning. He focuses on his breathing. He makes his way through his neighborhood and reaches the edges of impoverished Black neighborhoods. A fence has been erected around a squatter encampment to keep it out of sight, and the man runs around the perimeter. He heads home, but men burst out of the fenced enclosure. They’re chasing someone, and the man flees to avoid the scuffle. In the commotion, he gets lost, sprinting through the squatter encampment. He sees intense poverty—decaying cars, naked children. He grows frantic, but a Black woman beckons him inside her hut. She tells him the men will kill anyone; they’re sent by the police to deal with the squatters. The man has heard differently, but he doesn’t feel he has the authority or perspective to question her: “He could not say to this woman, That’s not what I read” (234). The woman worries her elderly husband, or her son, a political activist, will be killed any day. She makes the White man tea, and he discovers seven people live in the small hut. The family’s behavior remains stiff and distrustful because he is White. Once it’s safe to leave, the man thanks the woman and her family and goes.

The man runs the rest of the way home, euphoric, happy to be alive. Back home, he tries to find information on the violent men. He doesn’t want to believe they’re being employed by the police. He can’t find anything to prove his theory and decides he should believe the Black woman. He wonders why she took him in given her family’s distrust of White people. He debates going back to give her money but isn’t confident he can find her home again. When his wife wakes up, the man recounts his story. His wife is slightly amused but also indifferent, finding his early morning runs to be excessive. The man goes to the bedroom and tries to sleep, but he hears a strange sound. A bird is trapped in the storm drain by his window. The wife claims there’s nothing to do. They just need to wait for the bird to die. The man becomes frantic again. He’s desperate for the bird to be freed and for the noise to stop. Coldly, the wife tells her husband to take care of the problem himself. He is, after all, athletic.

Story 16 Summary: “Amnesty”

On a farm, a woman learns her lover is being released from prison. She’s ecstatic. He’s been away for nine years, and she reflects on all the time he’s been away. First, he went to a city to find work and send money back to their families. Over three years, he became involved in a union, protested, and was later arrested. During his trial, she gives birth to their daughter, although they never officially married. The man is sentenced to six years imprisonment on an island, where he’s allowed one monthly letter. The woman writes on behalf of his family because his parents can’t write. His family prays for him and tell him so in their letters. He confesses to his lover that praying isn’t the solution: “That’s the trouble—our people on the farms, they’re told God will decide what’s good for them so that they won’t find the force to do anything to change their lives” (249).

After the man has spent two years in prison, the woman and the man’s parents have enough money to visit him. They take a train to the coast and board a ferry to reach the island. Before they’re let on, a policeman demands a permit, which they don’t have. They have no choice but to turn around, although they manage to send him the sweets and biscuits they brought. He writes an angry letter, critical of their ignorance. The family never visits the man throughout the rest of his sentence. His father dies, but the woman supports the man’s mother. In another letter, the man declares that someday they’ll have their own land, food, and access to better education.

The man is released one year early. He arrives home and embraces his family. His comrades are there, too. Everyone is happy, except his daughter. She approaches her father shyly. She states that he isn’t her father. Everyone laughs it off—he’s just been away for a long time. The man doesn’t stay home long before preparing to leave again. There is a revolution to fight. The man and his comrades have meetings at the farm and make plans to organize and mobilize more farmers and working-class people. He promises the woman one day they’ll own their own farm. One day, they’ll have a home of their own. He departs. They still haven’t married, and the woman senses she’s pregnant again. On a Sunday, she takes a walk to the nearby hills and admires the sky and the clouds. Some of the clouds appear like a giant rat eating the sky. She waits for the man again. She waits for the sensation of feeling at home.

Stories 15-16 Analysis

Tonally, stories 15 and 16 end the collection with bittersweet hope. Earlier stories featured White characters unable to sympathize or relate to Black characters. In “Keeping Fit,” the runner becomes the greatest sign of progress for race relations. In his everyday experience as a privileged White man, the runner absorbs what he reads in the newspapers written for his demographic. He believes the violence in the squatter encampments stems from infighting revolutionaries. After being saved by the Black woman and hearing the validity in her voice, the runner begins to question his own views. He steadily comes to see the woman’s story as the truth and wants to help her. His awakening into a more sympathetic person is further heightened when a bird gets trapped in his storm drain. His wife is content to let the bird die. She thinks it’d be too cumbersome to save it. The runner, conversely, is maddened by the innocent animal’s suffering. The incident at his home mirrors the incident at the squatter encampment. Another living creature suffers. Doing nothing is easier, but hard work will save a life. The story ends before revealing if the man frees the bird, or if he finds the woman again, but he’s capable, and now he’s driven to help. The ending of “Keeping Fit” shows the man’s transformation into a more caring version of himself, creating a hopeful tone as the collection nears its end.

The final story, “Amnesty,” contains hope as well, but it avoids being idyllic. Structurally, the story bounces back and forth between moments of good and bad luck. The man is arrested for protesting, but he is released a year early from prison. When he arrives back home, he’s stronger than before: “It’s strange to get stronger in prison; I thought he wouldn’t have enough to eat and would come out weak” (253). As the man and his comrades resume organizing, the woman’s father fears the landowner will learn of their plans and thwart their revolution. The landowner never learns, however, and their mobilization is growing by the end of the story.

Gordimer builds the story with moments prime for failure and collapse, creating a steady tension, but allows hope to prevail. Unlike many of the revolutionaries in earlier stories, who often conclude their stories dead or in prison, “Amnesty” ends with them becoming stronger. The woman is happy to see her lover and to see their movement grow, but it comes at a price. She’s barely able to get used to seeing her lover again before he prepares to leave. He cares for her, but he’s too ambitious to stay in their quaint village. Furthermore, she supports the revolution but is not treated equally because she’s a woman. During meetings, she’s never asked for her opinion: “The men don’t speak to me and I don’t speak” (255). In the end, her lover leaves to fight for a better future for their family, but in the interim she’s left with a deep longing. The story concludes with people fighting for a more equitable and just world, but that future is not yet realized and comes at a price.

“Keeping Fit” and “Amnesty” feature many of the same narrative elements Gordimer has employed throughout Jump and Other Stories. “Keeping Fit” utilizes fences as a physical representation of security and segregation. Rather than find a permanent solution to the squatter camp, the government erects a fence: “Someone—the municipality—had put up a high corrugated metal fence to shield passing traffic from the sight” (230). Keeping the encampment out of sight lets it be out of mind, at least for the people privileged enough to live in wealthier communities. “Amnesty” centers on another strong female character and more revolutionaries, archetypes Gordimer has used repeatedly. Humans’ need for a place to call home, and the sadness that comes from not having a home, is integral to the conflict in “Amnesty,” as it has been in many other stories. The familiar structures and devices join the stories together, helping them feel in the same world. The final two stories share many similarities to the others, and the tone of their endings tell the reader Gordimer believes the world can change for the better. It will just take a lot of hard work.

blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text