Six Feet of the Country

Apartheid was introduced in South Africa by the National Party in 1948, operating on the idea that Black and white populations could exist in separate spaces while cultivating their own cultures and economies freely. However, because racist ideologies restricted cultural freedom, indigenous populations were subjected to new societal formations that placed them under the authority of the white population. In “Six Feet of the Country,” this dynamic of one group’s authority over the other is slowly reconstructed to emulate apartheid mindsets, despite the rural setting where the protagonist initially believes these social tensions don’t exist.

The story first presents what the protagonist believes is a relatively equitable, peaceful environment on the idyllic farm so far removed from the city’s racial discord, with himself and Lerice running the farm and taking care of their Black employees. However, the apartheid’s toxic societal ethos catches up with both white characters when the employees wish to bury the young man themselves. As the employees have no power and the protagonist must step in, the narrative events resemble the gradual ascension of white authority in an apartheid society: As a white man, only the protagonist has the power to negotiate for the body’s retrieval—and even he, ultimately, is powerless against the city’s apartheid bureaucracy.