30 pages • 1 hour read
Nadine GordimerThe Moment Before the Gun Went Off
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1991A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a narrative technique where the author hints at events that will happen later in the story, creating suspense and anticipation in the reader. In Nadine Gordimer’s “The Moment Before the Gun Went Off,” foreshadowing is used throughout the story to create a sense of unease and impending tragedy. The title itself is a form of foreshadowing, suggesting that a gun will be fired at some point in the story. (Anton Chekhov famously said that if a writer hangs a pistol on the way in the first act of a play, then the pistol should be fired in the following act; in this story, Gordimer puts the gun in the title.)
Gordimer also uses foreshadowing to hint at the father-son relationship between Van der Vyver and Lucas. The story reveals that Lucas was Van der Vyver’s favorite on the farm, that Van der Vyver liked to take Lucas with him to hunt, and that he had recognized the young worker’s mechanical capacity. These details, along with lines about interracial relationships—“blacks can sleep with whites… It’s not even a crime anymore” (Paragraph 10)—are breadcrumbs that lead the reader to the story’s conclusion: Lucas was Van der Vyver’s son, the product of an illegal, interracial relationship.
Perspective
The story is mainly told from Marais Van der Vyver’s perspective. Most of the commentary about the newspaper coverage of Lucas’s death comes from Van der Vyver’s point of view; it is Van der Vyver’s inner voice complaining that the tragedy will “fit exactly their version of South Africa” (Paragraph 2). His thoughts and emotions blend seamlessly into the narrative fabric of the story.
Gordimer also increases readers’ understanding of apartheid-era prejudices by momentarily dipping into Captain Beetge’s and Alida’s perspectives. By letting readers hear that Captain Beetge is ashamed at Van der Vyver’s tears, and that Alida is sorry he won’t ever be a parliamentary candidate, Gordimer broadens the number of reactions to Lucas’s death. Gordimer’s omniscient approach helps readers see how apartheid messages seeped into many white Afrikaner’s worldviews.
Repetition
Gordimer uses repetition to build tension and create a sense of connection between past and present. For example, the repetition of the titular phrase “before the gun went off” (Paragraphs 13-14) plays with the repetition of Van der Vyver’s anxiety that Lucas’s mother might “look up” (Paragraph 13), drawing a connection between the loaded rifle and the silent woman. Repetition also occurs within the structure of the story, as Van der Vyver’s thoughts shift forward and backward, layering his memories of Lucas’s death overtop the present; the implication is, in part, that these two are inextricable, meaning that white people cannot dismiss Black people’s pain today as a simple series of “accidents.” Repetition returns in the final paragraph of the story, with the variations of, “How will they ever know” and “How could they know” (Paragraph 12), begging the question: Know what, exactly? The repetition builds suspense and anticipation before the revelation that Lucas is Van der Vyver’s son.
Irony
Irony is key to the story’s impact. By juxtaposing what appears to be the case on the surface—an accidental death of a farmhand—with what is actually the case in the end, the story expresses the depth of Van der Vyver’s racism. This ironic ending also serves to illuminate Gordimer’s broader assessment of apartheid and the suffering of Black people within this system. Van der Vyver views Black people’s circumstances as self-imposed and generalized: “an elaborate funeral means a great deal to blacks” (Paragraph 12); “they start bearing children at puberty” (Paragraph 13); “Blacks expose small children to everything” (Paragraph 12). It is all an “accident” in his view. The story’s ironic ending, however, suggests how the broader systems of power in South Africa in fact actively orchestrate this suffering.
Related Titles
By Nadine Gordimer
