Both 'veronica' and 'country Lovers' Look at Failed Relationships, Family and Community. How Do Personal and Cultural Forces Lead to the Characters Failed Relationships
Autor: ms.wk • March 10, 2012 • Essay • 404 Words (2 Pages) • 2,257 Views
Both 'Veronica' and 'Country Lovers' look at failed relationships, family and community. How do personal and cultural forces lead to the characters failed relationships? Refer closely to the text Relationships fail all the time and for many different reasons. Both 'Country Lovers' and 'Veronica' look at relationships in different cultures. "We had grown up together in my native village," this is the opening sentence in 'Veronica' describing the culture, the setting and the history between Veronica and the narrator Okeke; it shows their relationship and its beginning. Both of the stories are set in different cultures. 'Veronica' is set in Nigeria in the 1960s and 'Country Lovers' during the time of Apartheid in South Africa. Both of these periods of times affect the story and the culture of the characters in that story 'Country lovers' is based during Apartheid; the white colonists set up laws against the blacks who they thought were inferior. White children had better education than the black children. The whites went to boarding schools and they end up discarding the childish vocabulary that they learnt from the Blacks. When they were older only certain jobs were allowed for the Blacks, they were forced to serve the whites. Black children became used to servitude at an early age transiting into adult forms of address, "Missus and Baasie," the Afrikaans corruption of Miss and Boss. The apartheid laws made it a crime for blacks and whites to have any relationships, this was passed under the immorality act so the two main characters in 'Country lovers', Thebedi and Paulus had to keep their meetings secret, for if they get caught the consequences would have been severe. This secrecy can put a huge strain on their relationship, knowing that if they get caught they could go to jail. This could cause their relationship to fail. 'Veronica' is set in Nigeria
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