Nadine Gordimer’s fiction is widely admired for laying bare how hierarchical structures of social power operate in everyday life. Through her character’s interactions, motivations, attitudes, and assumptions, Gordimer sketches a social landscape bounded by inequality and haunted by the active presence of injustice. In Gordimer’s South Africa, the segregation and oppression of the majority black…
Tag: Good Climate Friendly Inhabitants
Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants – Setting
‘‘Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants’’ first appeared in 1965 during a period of sweeping historical change in Africa. In the decades after World War II, the European powers that had dominated the continent gradually withdrew their colonial administrations as they faced increased opposition from armed liberation movements. In the year 1960 alone, seventeen African nations gained…
Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants – Literary Devices
Narration ‘‘Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants’’ is written in first-person as one individual’s account of her experiences. Because there is no objective or omniscient viewpoint, the narrator is the reader’s only source of information—the reader knows only what the narrator knows or chooses to tell. This narrative device enhances the sense of mystery surrounding the character…
Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants – Themes
Loneliness and Isolation The narrator of ‘‘Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants’’ is a middle-aged, working-class white woman who lacks a strong social network. She complains, with some justification, that her work in the petrol station does not afford her opportunities to develop friendships. She is prevented from befriending her co-workers as a result of being the…
Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants – Characters
Mrs. Douglas Mrs. Douglas is the proprietress of the New Park Hotel in Johannesburg, around the corner from the narrator’s home. The narrator mentions the hotel to the drifter when he is looking for a place to stay in town, and she goes with him to ask Mrs. Douglas for a room. Later, the narrator…
Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants – Summary
‘‘Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants’’ is written in the first person in everyday, colloquial language. The narrator appears to be telling a story, either directly to the reader or perhaps to an unknown third party. In the story’s opening paragraphs, the narrator, whose name is never mentioned, introduces herself as a bookkeeper of a petrol (gas)…