The Moment Before the Gun Went Off

“People in the farming community understand how he must feel. Bad enough to have killed a man, without helping the Party’s, the government’s, the country’s enemies, as well.”

Unlike the anti-apartheid agitators that Van der Vyver imagines, other white Afrikaners in his farming community align with Van der Vyver’s priorities. It is a shame that he killed a man. But arguably of greater concern is that the death, which was a simple accident, has given the anti-apartheid movement fodder for its cause. As white South Africans who largely benefit from the apartheid system, these community members view anti-apartheid activists as “enemies” of not only their party but also of their government and country, which they also feel entitled to hold power over.

“It just goes to show what shock can do; when you look at the newspaper photographs you feel like apologizing, as if you had started in on some room where you should not be.”

In his newspaper photo after the crime, Van der Vyver does not look like his normal reserved self. Rather, his face is profoundly expressive and distressed. The discomfort that readers might get looking at the photograph—as if they had “started in on some room” where they should not be—reflects the sensation of finally looking on the reality of South Africa. The symbol of the photo relates to the theme of The Importance of Perception, emphasizing how power prefers to go unseen, which allows unjust systems to stay normalized.

“Beetge will not tell anyone that after the brandy Van der Vyver wept. He sobbed, snot running onto his hands, like a dirty kid. The Captain was ashamed, for him, and walked out to give him a chance to recover himself.”

Caption Beetge’s second-hand embarrassment over Van der Vyver’s grief suggests that he does not value the life of the dead Black farm laborer the way he might that of a white man. The captain, as an authority figure, represents the justice system at large. His indulgence of Van der Vyver, who has literally arrived with a dead body in his truck and no witnesses to support his story, reflects the privileges that Caption Beetge’s second-hand embarrassment over Van der Vyver’s grief suggests that he does not value the life of the dead Black farm laborer the way he might that of a white man. The captain, as an authority figure, represents the justice system at large. His indulgence of Van der Vyver, who has literally arrived with a dead body in his truck and no witnesses to support his story, reflects the privileges that white men enjoy in this society.white men enjoy in this society.

“His father had never allowed a loaded gun in the house; he himself had been taught since childhood never to ride with a loaded weapon in a vehicle. But this gun was loaded.”

The sequence of events in the shooting accident serve as a metaphor for the burgeoning anti-apartheid movement, hinting at the Impending Change to Power Structures. By turning a blind eye to the evils of apartheid, South Africa became responsible for a great human tragedy. Here, the symbol of the rifle helps pull into the larger metaphor the role of Van der Vyver’s inherited wealth and power.

“It has gone on record, and will be there in the archive of the local police station as long as Van der Vyver lives, and beyond that, through the lives of his children, Magnus, Helena and Karel—unless things in the country get worse, the example of black mobs in the towns spreads to rural areas and the place is burned down as many urban police stations have been.”

Van der Vyver contends with the knowledge that his crime will be in the local records for generations to come—he can’t pretend the crime did not happen. At the same time, he wonders about the possibility of further violence in the town as anti-apartheid agitators commit violent acts of opposition. The irony is that if they burn down the police station to oppose apartheid, evidence of his apartheid-enabled crime will actually vanish.

“Nothing satisfies them, in the cities: blacks can sit and drink in white hotels, now, the Immorality Act has gone, blacks can sleep with whites… It’s not even a crime any more.”

In this example of foreshadowing, Van der Vyver reflects on the fact that it’s no longer illegal for Black and white South Africans to have sexual relationships. At first, it seems that he is reflecting on this fact merely because he is opposed to the new liberal policy. By the end of the story, it becomes clear that this fact relates to his guilt on another level: despite his judgmental attitude toward the Black women at Lucas’s funeral, he was responsible for the pregnancy of Lucas’s mother at a time when interracial relationships were still illegal.

“Van der Vyver has a high barbed wire security fence round his farmhouse and garden which his wife, Alida, thinks spoils completely the effect of her artificial stream with its tree-ferns beneath the jacarandas.”

Because of the violence apartheid is causing, Van der Vyver has installed a security fence. Van der Vyver’s wife, Alida, represents the efforts of white people, perhaps white women in particular, to cover up the ugliness of the situation. She would rather ignore the realities of apartheid and pretend that the beauty of her garden, with its “artificial” stream, is all there is.

"And an elaborate funeral means a great deal to blacks; look how they will deprive themselves of the little they have, in their lifetime, keeping up payments to a burial society so they won’t go in boxwood to an unmarked grave.”

Under apartheid, one way in which the racist systems of power perpetuated The Dehumanizing Nature of Racism was to keep Black South Africans impoverished. The prospect of an elaborate funeral is comforting to them, because it means they can at least depart the world with dignity, even if such dignity was denied to them in life. Van der Vyver interprets this as “a burial society,” indicating further his inability or unwillingness to grasp the role of apartheid in harming Black people.

“Blacks expose small children to everything, they don’t protect them from the sight of fear and pain the way the whites do theirs.”

By drawing distinctions between Black and white families, Van der Vyver is furthering racial stereotypes based on his incomplete understanding of Black life in South Africa, where the oppressed often had no choice but to expose their children to brutality. The irony of his perception is that Lucas was Van der Vyver’s child, yet Lucas was not spared fear nor pain.

“The dead man’s mother is a woman who can’t be more than in her late thirties (they start bearing children at puberty) but she is heavily mature in a black dress between her own parents, who were already working for old Van der Vyver when Marais, like their daughter, was a child.”

The Dehumanizing Nature of Racism is evident in Van der Vyver’s aside; the use of the word “they” implies his easy racism, and his observation generalizes Black people without context. Moreover, the description of Lucas’s mother, viewed in light of the story’s ironic ending, makes her an especially compelling figure. The fact that Lucas’s mother bore Lucas at puberty, a fact for which Van der Vyver takes no responsibility, provides a stark juxtaposition. While she is now “heavily mature” despite her young age, standing among laborers and silenced by social pressure, Van der Vyver faced no consequences or responsibilities for his role in her pregnancy.

“Nothing will make her look up; there need be no fear that she will look up; at him.”

Van der Vyver tries to comfort himself against the possibility that Lucas’s mother—his former sexual partner—will not only look up, but will specifically look up at him. Van der Vyver’s anxiety relates to the Impending Change to Power Structures. Even now, he fears most of all that his power might be disrupted. On one level, this disruption could come by the truth of Lucas’s real parentage. However, on another level, his anxiety also stems from a deeper fear that the truth about apartheid may soon be revealed.

“The dead man’s mother and he 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 goes off.”

This quotation foreshadows the ending of the story. By bringing Lucas’s mother and Van der Vyver together in a single sentence, Gordimer prepares readers for more information about the relationship that exists between these characters. It is especially meaningful that the quotation starts with these characters and ends on Lucas: their son.

“The moment before the gun went off was a moment of high excitement shared through the roof of the cab, as the bullet was about to pass, between the young black man outside and the white farmer inside the vehicle. There were such moments, without explanation, between them, although often around the farm the farmer would pass the young man without returning a greeting, as if he did not recognize him.”

The parallel of the short story between the fraught moment in history and the accident described in the story is made more explicit more. It is a moment of “high excitement,” with the white man holding the power and the black man clinging on outside, all the while with an explosion impending. Van der Vyver’s refusal to acknowledge Lucas in public provides a stark foundation for how those moments, “without explanation,” sometimes emerged.