Six Feet of the Country

While the story takes place mostly in a rural community, apartheid, nevertheless, asserts its dominance. This encroachment portrays the domineering nature of apartheid, and its slow invasion of the characters’ lives mimics the colonialistic spirit behind this particular political system.

The urban apartheid influence is not realized by the protagonist at the beginning; the protagonist regards the rural space as a “triumph” because he believes he’s escaped the city’s racism, and his indigenous employees live with relative autonomy. Likewise, the loveliness of the countryside has an almost Edenic quality, connoting an “unfallen” state of being. The protagonist says he and his wife are “not real farmers” (7), as their farm life is only partially motivated by agricultural pursuits; his investment in the land seems related primarily to its peacefulness and beauty, and some of the story’s most evocative passages are his descriptions of the pastoral setting. This tranquility is magnified by the farm’s contrast to the city of Johannesburg, which is fraught with the apartheid’s racial hostility and violence. The protagonist views countryside living as having things “both ways”; that is, he can escape the city’s tumult while still living conveniently near to urban indulgences—“near enough to get into town to a show, too!” (8).