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Hospitality Versus Artificiality: Apartheid Social Barriers in Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People

Joseph Kamanda Kamanda Omoy

University of Our Lady of Lomami/The Democratic Republic of the Congo

Abstract: Almost 30 years after the end of Apartheid system in South Africa, one can wonder about this articles. Apartheid in South Africa erected several social barriers to separate the different races living in the same country. The novel July’s People written by Nadine Gordimer in 1981 depicts the struggle of the protagonist July . By offering his hospitality to a white wondering family, July shows that it is only by the non-violent way apartheid erected social barriers can be suppressed even if it can take time. As a matter of fact, hospitality helps to restore both mental and social behaviour of the characters to stop the fear experienced as a reminiscence of past events like a pass and racial discrimination. The article is addressed to a twofold audience: the African public opinion as well as a Western readership. The intolerance towards other African people joining South Africa for economic reasons pushes to recall the collective memory during Apartheid time. The same message is current to European who still discriminate immigrants. In the present article, I show that hospitality is necessary and sufficient on its own to create relaxation and interpersonal relationship. July’s People provides textual references to illustrate the topic. Two main strategies about the topic can be distinguished: a documentary mode and historical mode.

Keywords: apartheid, artificiality, barrier, hospitality, pass, racism

Received December 20, 2023; Revised January 24, 2024; Accepted February 01, 2024

Citation: Joseph Kamanda Kamanda Omoy, Hospitality Versus Artificiality: Apartheid Social Barriers in Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People. World Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 10 (1). 1-7. January 2024. doi:10.12691/wjssh-10-1-1

1. Introduction

At the time social barriers seem to come back all over the world: President Trump refusing to welcome Latino-American immigrants and projected to build a wall to separate The United States of America from Mexico, Hungary built a fence to stop Syrian immigrant. Many Europeans states do not want to welcome immigrants rescued by humanitarian activist’s boards. South African people killing immigrants from Africa. The situation of black immigrants in the Maghreb. It is appropriate to question hospitality as a liberal reception of guests or strangers. Published by Nadine Gordimer in 1981, July’s People is a novel which depicts the protagonist July, a black servant who adopts hospitality to correct the traumas created by the white establishment during apartheid regime. July also resorts the banality of apartheid erected social barriers. Allegorically, July denounces the absurdity of all sophisticated modern barriers erected all over the world. The novel presents metaphorically, a revolutionary approach by mixing white and black characters as a prelude to the after apartheid in South African society or any integrated society. Nadine Gordimer writes in reaction against inequality, social discrimination and oppression in the South African society during apartheid regime. This study is an attempt to determine the effectiveness of her contribution to the intellectual liberation movement of 1994. Chiwengo states that, Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People is not a self-born in the South African anti-apartheid writings; she has been greatly influenced by the authors such as Alan Paton, Alex Laguma, and Peter Abrahams. [2]

In the novel July’s People, July the protagonist shows in his behaviour that it is through hospitality that people who are classified phenomenological can interact. Threefold questions rise on our side. First, why does the main character suggest hospitality as an emancipation principle? Second, do the other characters (white ones) accept heart faithfully hospitality? Last, how does hospitality corrects the pervasive moral panic?

Historical and documentary approaches serve as mythological base to the article. Historical approach helps to understanding the social milieu and the artist’s response towards race. Documentary approach stresses the fact that a text is a self-contained unit, enough to make sense by itself. It also helps to clear the ideas and the message in further depth. The textual approach here is sustained by the psychoanalytical approach to address the human Unconscious commending the behaviours.

The article is entitled Hospitality versus artificiality: Apartheid social barriers in Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People. It turns around four points: the first is the definition of some key terms, such as hospitality, artificiality. The second presents the narrative characters, the third is the structure of the novel. And the last presents two most important apartheid social barriers such as the pass and racism.

2. Definition of Some Key Terms

The key terms are viewed as the piece of information needed to make something clearly understood by the reader. The main key terms are artificiality, barrier, hospitality, the pass and racism. They help to set the mind to the subject I deal with. Like a key in a lock the right definitions of the key words will also unlock the understanding of the subject under analysis.

2.1. Artificiality

Artificiality means made of a copy of something natural, contrived or false: the artificial division of people into groups: conventional as opposed to natural. [3]. The noun artificiality comes from the adjective artificial which means made of or contrived by art or not natural, not made by nature, made by human or assumed or affected. To be more explicit on the matter, artificiality has to deal commonly with what is not natural and or a false copy of what is natural or known as such.

The artificiality is shown through the novel’s social reform focusing on Black people freedom and equal opportunities and the author’s determination to free her society from chauvinistic attitude towards blacks.

2.2. Barrier

The social barriers are related to all the mechanism set down by apartheid to prevent people from being together or understanding each other. The main barriers we would like to pinpoint are the passbook and racism. The list is not exhaustive.

A barrier is commonly viewed as stumbling block, an obstacle, something blocking the way or a fence or wall to fix the limits of a given place. The barrier is a fence or other obstacle that prevents movement or access, an obstacle to communication, understanding, or progress [4]. From the above definition, we would like to stress the fact that, the barrier in this article is taken mainly in the sense of a set of regulations that prevents people from being together or understand one another.

In its plural form the word barriers in the context of this study depict the characters’ social traumas or principal cause of alienation. They intuitively occur in the mind through spontaneous process of thought encoding into a string of linguistic communication, by substituting a connotative significance for a denotative meaning [5].

2.3. Hospitality

Hospitality as the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests or visitors relating or denoting the business of entertaining client or official visitors. Taken at this level, hospitality is the quality found in someone who treats the others with kindness even a stranger [6].

Shaw views hospitality as a warm welcome or reception to visitors [7]. Hospitality becomes a revolutionary idea when it helps to welcome the socially established enemies as a way to create equal opportunities for everybody. In fact, hospitality has its source in the Unconscious. Thus, hospitality is an anti-reproduction of the socially and psychologically established barriers. Hospitality as the central theme is expressed in July’s attitude towards the white family to which he shows humility, love, hope, joy, pity and confidence. Hospitality implies the love of the others and be ready to frequent them without background ideas, such as the colour of the skin or other stereotypes elements, Newman [8]. Hospitality goes also together with the sense of the human dignity.

2.4. The Pass

A pass is a legal paper allowing someone to go somewhere or have something. Taken in the legal way, the pass is a normal paper that someone may possess to own some rights. But in the apartheid context, the pass has been used to restrict the black people’s rights to move. Here is a reference to the pass book:

Whites in the pass offices and labour bureau who used to have to deal with blacks all the time across the counter-speaking an African language was simply a qualification, so far as they were concerned, that’s all, p44.

The pass laws restricted black people’s mobility in the country of their ancestors. The pass opened the way to the atmosphere of terror and violence. The pass also denied the citizenship to the black people. The pass book was the application of a series of Acts taken by the apartheid regime such as: The Group Area Act (1950). This special law established residential and business section in urban areas for each race. The Separate Amenities Act (1953), which regulated everyday activities. It reinforced the Pass law requiring nonwhites to carry documents authorizing their presence in restricted areas. This Act is a set of segregationist measure that demarcated urban areas according to racial group and The Population Registration Act (1959) which classified people into four racial categories. Clearly, it classified the people as Bantu (the designation for all Black Africans), Colored (those of mixed races), Indian (Asian), or White [9]. To show the artificiality of the pass book as a social barrier, July remembers its contour as follows:

It was flattened and softened to its contents by the years he had carried it always against the contours of the body in hip or breast pocket; his pass-book that his employers had to sign every month, p135.

The fact that July refers to the pass-book in the past, shows us that the pass-book imposed by apartheid regime is an artificial social barrier. The pass book affected greatly the Black South African’s people and is responsible for the collective trauma.

2.5. Racism

The concept racism as a division of people into opposed races is viewed here in terms of the systematic denial of other races by one race, especially the white one. The apartheid is a policy governing relation between South Africa’s white minority and non-white majority. It sanctions racial segregation and political and economic discrimination against nonwhites. Many laws forbade social contacts between the races and authorized segregated public facilities, established separate educational standards, restricted each race to certain types of jobs [10].

Apartheid system stated that blacks and groups of colour were entirely inferior as written by Browser [11]. The novel July’s People reports the historical barrier or frontier between the black people and the white one. The South African society depicted in the novel attests a long history of racism that leads to the dismantlement of the society by a bloody attacks of the black fighters’, p20.

By asking to the white family to leave the town which is being destroyed by the black fighters, July breaks the colonial racist system which was undergoing in the white’s family mental. The contact of the white family with July’s village as explained in the structure of the novel breaks the white racism system by showing its superficiality, p2. Identity has to be constructed through, not outside, difference [12].

3. Narrative Characters July’s People

In this sub point is presented characters. Characters are relevant to the world of the story. The choice of characters is very selective. Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People explores textual, ideological, geographical or spatial boundaries. The novel may be qualified as a thesis novel. Because it is mainly interested in transmitting ideology than in the development of characters. The characters in the novel are images types or ideological representations rather than individuals. They represent racial, cultural and class categories. The white characters ones are always described as skilled, technologically competent and acknowledgeable, whereas the blacks’ ones are depicted as humble children, unaware of the workings of nature, corrupted by urban life as largely supported by Chiwengo [13]. The article presents five characters: July, Martha, Bamford, Maureen and Gina.

3.1. July

The protagonist July is depicted at the beginning of the novel as a servant, disillusioned man who is burdened by his job. This short description illustrates July’s life in the white men’s life:

July bent at the doorway and began that day for them as his kind has always done for their kind (…), but July, their servant, their host, bringing two pink glass cups of tea and a small tin (…), p36.

In spite of the description above, July’s position in the Smales family is somehow better than that of other black servants. He is clad and housed by his masters as can be read below:

The decently-paid and contended male servant, living in their yard since they had married, clothed by them in two sets of uniforms, khaki pants for rough housework, white drill for waiting at table, given Wednesday and alternate Sundays free, allowed to have his friends visit him and his town woman sleep with him in his room…p 9.

July is a thirty five years old man. He is aware of the black people’s conditions in the hatred situation of the country. He is a three-dimensional character, full, or rounded character. He is one who seems to be actual human being. He hopes to save Bam’s family; he is even ready to sacrifice himself for them in a very dangerous situation of a guerilla organized by the black freedom fighters.

Even though presented as humble in the novel, July shows his vanity firstly by acknowledging that he knows many things as he stayed for fifteen years in town beside the white people. The extract below sustains such position: How they know I’m not driving? Everybody is know I’m living fifteen years in town. I’m knowing plenty things, p13. The grammatical mistakes report how July speaks a target English. The correct form he should normally say: Everybody knows and I know plenty of things. He also shows his vanity while translating the conversation between the Chief of the village and Bam, p130-131. July lastly shows his vanity when asserting his new power over his hosts: If I say go, they must go. If they can stay…So they stay, p182.

Even beside Maureen, July takes every occasion afford to him to show that he is emancipated as he lived in town for a long time. He is also seen flourishing the keys to the bakkie (Bam’s car), calling out instructions to women while shaking his head. It is said he does it like a foreman inspecting his workshop, p73. July does this to show his power in the village. This is the metaphorical power of the key with the reference to the New Testament, where Jesus handed the keys to the apostle Peter telling him: And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew18: 18).

3.2. Bamford Smales

Bamford (Bam) a forty years old man. He shows at first a difficult language understanding with July. He could not understand his broken English. This can be asserted by assessing the below excerpt: Often Bam couldn’t follow his broken English, but he and she understood each other well, p13. In spite of the fact that July passed many years besides the white family; he did not speak English fluently. In the words of Neil and Kottak, the target language spoken by July helps to create an atmosphere of master and servant [14]. It conveys July’s mental state of dependency to his master Bamford Smales.

Bamford is described as a humble master who agrees to be under July’s protection. His journey to July’s village helps him have a better understanding of the blacks’ conditions in the village. He empowers July’s people by acquiring a great sense of understanding of black people. The new life in the village pushes him to adapt to the village hard conditions. He even washes in the river as can be read here: Her husband (Bam) took a chance and washed in the river, p9. The reference to washing is charged with symbols. The first one is physical that is to clean the dirtiness of his body. The second is spiritual like baptism, it cleans all the psychological dirtiness like traumas created by apartheid regime. Last, by washing in the river, Bamford Smales dies to his old conception of a white protected by apartheid law [15].

3.3. Gina

Gina five years old, is Bamford and Maureen’s daughter. In her innocence, she goes over the dire conditions they are facing in the village. She feels at home in the village and copes with the village life as she did in town. This is well expressed in these lines:

Gina was called but paid no attention: finally she walked in with the old woman’s sciatic gait of black children who carry brothers and sisters almost as big as they are. She had a baby on her small back…, p41.

Gina as a child adapts easily to the new village life, she even innocently imitates the old woman. She is able to carry a child on her back as all the black girls of her age can do. This shows that the barriers of her society are artificial [16]. Gina is too young to feel the unrest felt by her parents, but her behaviours show that it is only the burden of the white Civilization that makes superior to black girls of her age.

The same Gina makes friendship with a young black girl Nyikko and starts speaking the village language. By empowering July’s people language, Gina figures at the same time that the end of racial profiling in South African society is possible. In other words, Gina innocently denounces the white characters that reduce their black interlocutors to the status of things or underpowered [17]. Gina’s friendship with a black girl suggests to her parents that the human relationships have an empowering force to challenge any loveless system.

3.4. Maureen Hetherington

Bamford’s wife is another important character. She is thirty years old. Maureen is a mother of three children. She is a victim of the radical white nationalism [18]. Her speech is apparently plenty of radical stereotyped chauvinistic points about the black people on going in her society. She criticizes the hut serving as her refuge in a very crude words: She had slept in round mud huts roofed in thatch like this before, p2. The description is true but the underlying intention is racial. White people in South Africa during Apartheid believed in the black genetic inferiority [19].

Although Maureen shows radical social ideologies, she is a kind woman to July children. When she heard about the birth of a new born, she used to send gifts. The present lines are explicit on that: Maureen provided presents for him to send home on her behalf the news of each birth. And to this woman, July’s wife, never seen, never imagined, had toys for the children, p16. Like any careful mother, Maureen showed a great interest to July’s children.

3.5. Martha

Martha is July’s legimate wife who stays in the village which is not named. She is probably a twenty-five years old woman. She is bound by women oppression and class exploitation of her society. Martha is seen in her everyday life of an African woman, bearing children and farming to sustain her family. In the absence of July, she has invested greatly all her energy and time to her children.

4. The Structure of the Novel July’s People

In this section, the stress consists in showing through the actions and the struggle for the emancipation of the people through hospitality. Gordimer’s novel July’s People is divided into nearly fifteen tableaux. I will take into account only the sequences expressing clearly hospitality. In the first tableau there is a presentation of the main characters, e.g. July, Maureen and Bamford Smales. In front of the forth coming horror, July appears like a protector of a white family, by proposing them his hospitality in his village. The white couple is forced to leave the city, to escape from racial fantasies, troubles held by the imaginative or black apocalyptical guerillas. The external conflict provoked by the Black fighters’ rebellion makes the white family uncertain of life in town. The reference to a crudely black guerilla refers to the ANC’s armed branch that threatened the white’s security across the country.

In the new refuge of the white family, July is presented serving tea to Maureen and Bamford Smales in bed one morning as usual, p1. The scene depict the protection of white privilege and monopoly of government resources as depicted by Nixon [20]. The same tableau delineates the Emergency Planning Services, the ’75 Soweto Riots and the strikes of 1980, p6. It also depicts the nostalgic situation in which the white family is victim as it can be read in these lines:

They yearned for there to be time left at all while there still war. They sickened at the appalling thought that they might find they had lived out their whole lives as they were, born white pariah dogs in a black Continent, p8.

In the above citation, the action done by July shows that in spite of the racial purification held by the Black fighters, the white family could not be in despair. July teaches the white family hope and the equality of the human race. As often sustained by Homi Bhabha, national or ethnic identity is a fragile notion, uncertain, imaginary [21]. This means that the protection of life is a universal value that can be found even in Black culture. July’s behaviour contradicts ideological barriers views held by apartheid regime. According to Neil, thanks to hospitality, the privileged white is no longer a hated ruler bearing threat [22].

The Black fighters’ self-defense reaction against apartheid regime should not be considered as segregation, but a painful giving birth process of a free and fair world governed by the hospitality principles. July passes from the position of a servant to that of a saviour thanks to hospitality principles. It is not only July, but also all his people play this role.

The third tableau shows July presenting simultaneously to Maureen his wife Martha. By doing so, July shows to the white family that the African family is an open system within a broad social field of other social system. He is even ready to sacrifice himself for them in a very dangerous moment. As recalled by Fanon ’’The people in struggle must turn their attention to more pressing matters.’’ [24] He plays at the same time the role of an interpreter between Maureen and his wife. In the same tableau, he presents his large family as illustrated below:

There were several others, young woman and half - growth girls, in the hut. His sister, wife’s sister-in-law, one of his daughters; he introduced them with a collective sweep in terms of kinship and not by name, p14.

By presenting his large family to the white family, July inserts thanks hospitality the nuclear white family into a warming large Black African family reality. Where everyone has his/her role to play in spite of his/her age. The white nuclear family is given the large family modality as therapy. The relationships of large family will generate change in the behaviour of the nuclear one. July’s presentation helps the white nuclear family to learn new alternative transactional patterns. Each member of the family participate actively to the family relationships and interactions. Hitherto, it empowers every member to attain a higher level of differentiation and more effective interaction with their social networks. Apartheid barriers with its two antagonistic societies are artificial. Maureen is still dominated by her sense of grandeur. Although, she slept in her new hut, she lives in a given uncertainty. Her resistance to adapt quickly to the new situation is contradicted by the children’s opening (acceptance of July’s people’s hospitality) to the new environment.

The fourth tableau penlights the astonishment expressed by the opening question: Why do you come here? Why to us? - p18. July’s wife is perplexed to see a visitation of five white faces floating in the dark, p18. July’s wife question is quite normal, because apartheid created two artificial antagonistic societies. The explanation of their presence is that: The whites are being killed in their house, p19. It is as if there is a total psychological reversment of the old order, p21. This tableau is very important, because it plays the role of purification of thoughts which is very important in the acceptance of hospitality. Bamford shows that like Jews as reported in the Bible, without exodus, there is not liberation from slavery or great change in life. Bamford’s attitude shows again that, without a social integration there is not any intercultural development.

In the fifth tableau, the Smales find themselves confined in penned like place for safety, p26. In fact, the white family finds itself in one room circular hut that belongs to July’s mother. The family accepts the hospitality of July’s people life as can be read in the citation below:

Maureen saw the arrangement as broken beads set aside from good ones, choices made by, someone momentarily absent-the dioramas of primitive civilizations in a natural museum contrive to produce tableaux like that, p24.

The sixth tableau presents Bam resting among the villagers. He is shown likely integrated in the wild life of the village. July continues to refer to him always like his employer, even being now under his protection, p35. The fact that Bam is at ease among villagers stresses the value of hospitality and depicts the artificiality of apartheid barriers. To show his total integration, Bam tries to take unsuccessfully the traditional liquor made with spore maize. Bam is taken by the anxiety of the family returning to the city. What is happening is due to the white repulsive views in pass offices and labour offices, the two entities used to face black workers.

The seventh tableau, exhibits Maureen pumping Primus while the white children are half-sleepy. The fact that the white family is safe opens the way to believe in a renewed society. The undergoing situation pushes Maureen to think in a destroyed white society they did believe in, p51-52. This is quite normal to any human being, but who is established in an unjust society where people were divided into white and black; qualified by Falkof as the occult moment of late apartheid [25]. Change was for them a vain word until what is reported has become a reality.

The eighth tableau shows July being taught to drive a car. Royce is sick, but the drugs are rare in the village. July projects to fetch for the drugs to an Indian shop. Bam’s ingeniosity has changed the life in the village. He built a water tank which collects the rain-water. Bam is praised for that. The break of barriers helps to recognize each one’s value.

The tenth tableau opens on a hunting scene of wild pigs. Surprisingly, Bam goes to hunt with a black boy. The hunting scene is described as follows: The boy who had been a buck became a predator leaping onto the first piglet…Bam waved him aside and shot it through the head, p71. After the hunting, Bam and the boy bring the fruit of their hunting at home. It is even depicted that since they came in the refuge, it is for the first time they make love without taking into account the presence of their children’s attention. The quote below sustains such a view point:

Finally they made love wrestling together with deep resonance coming to each through the other’s body in presence of their children breaking close round them, p80.

The above quote evokes the first sexual love between Bam and Maureen. In fact, it is the first sexual relation they have since they left their home in town. This act is an expression of security and joy. They do not care about the presence of their children. The fact that they did not do it before, suggests that they were not feeling safe. They were still taking themselves as being in a strange land. Now they can somehow feel at home.

At last, the Smales outlaw life in July’s village is really strange to them. Things seem to have stopped as the dialogue between Maureen is tortured by July’s linguistic grasp. This is true, because their former communication was mainly based on commands and actions. The text itself is more explicit: based on orders and responses, not the exchange of ideas and feeling, p80. In fact, the artificial micro-society created by apartheid placed the black servant on the side of not empowered person who should only listen, obey and execute the orders from his white masters. But hospitality creates a free and fair society in which everyone has a word to say that means able of exchanging ideas and feelings.

The eleventh tableau renders visible that there is a complete breakdown in the Smales who are no longer able to maintain everybody in the separate artificial life. This is attested by the behaviour of their little daughter Gina who is always busied with her black friend Nyikko. Gina speaks even the primitive language of the village. Thanks to hospitality principles language is no longer linked to power. This means, the relationship between language and culture is cooperative. By speaking and understanding the meaning of blacks’ people language, the white little girl gets into contact with black people thinking process, culture, and perception of reality. Language recovers its real meaning as a tool of interaction.

The twelfth tableau delineates the change ongoing on the white host family since being under July’s protection. The language power which was for them an expression of the social identity and constituted a boundary which divided the racial groups is collapsing. According to Boehmer, the fact that the white family accepts July’s hospitality, it has altered the racial cognitive boundaries and vocabulary; on which the white men’s identity was ideologically embedded in a closed myth of pure origins and God’s messengers to civilize the Black people [26].

The thirteenth tableau describes the Smales (the white family) paying a visit to the local chief. There is a long description of his palace, p89. The part ends on the recognition of Gina, the small girl who names July’s village as their home in July’s tribal language (probably in Zulu), p121. She innocently tolls the bell for a conception of the things order. This means, things fall apart on the side of the white family and all the white men’s society.

Tableau fourteen continues to report the meeting between the Smales and the chief of July’s village. The meeting symbolizes the racial revolutionary political change. The two mapped societies meet. English language is no longer a language linked to masters and servants, but a language that has to be redefined in order to integrate black’s history. The language which is used here is no longer a formal one. It is adapted to the context of a refugee in a former hostile environment. It has to be cleaned of its racial profiling. This is the way one can read July’s critics towards the chief who still views the society in a binary system. Nobody could live without the future change.

The fifteenth tableau depicts Maureen in a group of the village women. They are going to cut grasses to thatch July’s mother hut. Maureen admires Martha’s talent in a wild environment as expressed in this line: In this alien place whose paths are strange for the Smales, p131. The village life is hard to Maureen who grew up in town where everything can be acquired thanks to the power of money and the white status. Maureen’s interest on July’s wife as a female character shows that the language barrier is always artificial, p130-131. July’s wife did not speak English, but she could respond adequately to any demand made by Maureen. This shows, according to Hall, that the power of the human mind cannot be bound by the phenomenological barriers of race [27].

The last tableau insists to the fact that Gina’s brothers have also accepted the village as their natural milieu. They feel home in July’s village. This is shown by Gina’s brothers’ receptive attitude towards the gumba (the traditional drums). They name it the local language, p140. The white family’s English language was for them a tool of estrangement and power between them and July (or his people). This bolt breaks slowly and certainly. There is a great change in their relation with July. They are uprooted from their past empowerment and possessive relations towards July and his people. They have to fetch for a new identity governed by the hospitality principles. Their children recognize Nyikko (a black young girl) like one of their humankind, p139. The society proposed in July’s People is based on hospitality as a solution to the integration of the two societies (black and white) compelled to live together in a mutual consideration and esteem. The mutual consideration and esteem open to the empowerment of the two societies.

5. Conclusion

The present study has shown the artificiality of two barriers constructed by apartheid regime which greatly distorted the South African people’s vision of history and the reality of the world around them. Hospitality principles guiding July, the main character arises the human creative spirit that can really free from external and internal seduction of isolating others on the basis of the colour of the skin.

Three questions had to find plausible answers in this study. Firstly, why does the main character suggest hospitality as an emancipation principle? Secondly, do the other characters (white ones) accept heart faithfully hospitality? Lastly, how does hospitality acts on the white man’s attitude? Hospitality destroyed racism as a spontaneous feature of social life. Hospitality as a paradigm adopted by July, contradicts the fact that racism is the death of the other, the death of the bad race, of the inferior race (or the degenerate, or the abnormal) is something that will make life in general healthier: healthier and purer as hypothesized by Foucault [28].

The documentary approach has been used to help us focus on the text. It has been completed by the historical approach, because there is an important relationship between literature and society. The two have been completed by the psychoanalytical approach to analyze the characters’ mental process or psychological behaviours.

The novel shows also the stereotype prejudice, abuses and contradictions of apartheid social barriers. This article aims at showing the importance of hospitality in the breaking of inequalities among people. The writer’s intention remains didactic because she adds her voice to the intellectual fights for the Black people’s emancipation in South African society during apartheid regime and all the world alike.

Hospitality in July’s People (1981) helps to restore the mental and behaviour of the characters to stop the fear experienced as a reminiscence of past events that are returning into the mind and block the true relations among people of different races.

References

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