Shades

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Victor visits Grahamstown for a day yet his short time with Frances is uneasy, especially when he discovers she has pawned the engagement ring.

The story then takes us through his brief period of military action till he is laid low with a fever. In the meantime, Crispin searches for Tom and Reuben and eventually finds them.

Slavery was outlawed by the western world midway through the 19th century. It would soon arise once more in South Africa, however, but in ways that looked perfectly legal.

Labouring on the gold mines was such a form of neo-slavery. So was prostitution.

Gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand in the Transvaal Republic in 1886. Although the Transvaal was a Boer Republic, the mines quickly fell into the hands of British capitalists.

In the days before machines, the work had to be done by hand. Because labourers were always in short supply and the death rate on the mines was high, cunning methods had to be employed to recruit a never-ending supply.

One such method was to recruit the amaXhosa of the Eastern Cape who were poverty stricken as a result of constant drought and the rinderpest.

Labourers were offered lucrative rewards and pleasant working conditions. Once on the mines, however, they were trapped.

Barbaric practices were then employed and wages were poor. Inhumane conditions, however, were winked at by the authorities in the face of lucrative rewards for the capitalists and the governments.

At the same time, of course, the Black people tended to be regarded by those capitalists as only slightly better than animals.

Yet it was not only Black people who were trapped by the neo-slavery. Poor Whites — especially unprotected women — were also enticed through false promises of wealth and a better life.

The most common means — still in practice today — was to offer lucrative wages under fictitious promises of good jobs. The women then found themselves trapped into prostitution from which their poor situation made it impossible to escape.

It can be argued therefore that the prostitutes at the brothel frequented by Victor and his friends were also slaves. They were working class women — like the wheelwright's daughter — who were enticed to Johannesburg by the offer of attractive work but, once there, wages were never enough to enable them to buy their freedom.

Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?

Read the notes in the left column before answering the questions below:

It is clear that Frances does not love Victor, but rather that she loves her memory of Victor.

• Explain carefully. (5)

[Need help?]

One has to remember that Frances was only about four years old when Victor arrived at the mission. She therefore grew up with him as a big brother. Such memories of an older brother were dear to her but she could not love him as a fiancé. She was happy to kiss him as a sister would kiss a brother but found his demand that she kiss him as a lover was something which unsettled her. The idea of being married to him and giving her body to him sexually was therefore completely abhorrent.

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Is Francis merely playing another game with Victor by her offensive attitude?

• In answering this, you must explore the emotional pressures which surround her during Victor's stay in Grahamstown. (6)

[Need help?]

It would seem that Frances is not playing a game. She has indeed at last matured and sees Victor for what he is — and she doesn't like what she sees. She is already nettled by her overlong sojourn in Grahamstown. She finds her Aunt Alice oppressive, dislikes the constant tea parties and having to dress up in her finery. She finds the house a mausoleum for Victor's dead father, and knows very well that these baubles of death will become her home in Johannesburg. Furthermore, she also knows that Aunt Alice will probably follow them to Johannesburg once the wedding has taken place. When Victor arrives in Grahamstown, all these niggles come to a head. Her irritation with him reaches crisis proportions. She is already on the verge of calling off the wedding when she receives the letter from Walter — and that pushes her over the threshold, causing her to call off the engagement.

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The death of Charlie Fraser is Victor's first realisation of his own failure. Explain. (5)

[Need help?]

Victor had never been forced to face his own failures. He wished to be an empire builder and a hero. The Boer War, therefore, was his perfect opportunity to show his true mettle. When his friend Charlie was hit by a bullet, Victor was confronted with an option of being a hero or comforting his best friend. He chose the former and only afterwards did he realise that, in the greater tapestry, he had failed because he had deserted a friend in need.

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Examine Crispin's efforts to find Tom and Reuben. (5)

[Need help?]

This question is not a difficult one. It merely needs a careful reading of the chapter and jotting down a useful summary.

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