Six Feet Of The Country By Nadine Gordimer Summary May 2026
Nadine Gordimer ’s " Six Feet of the Country " (1956) is a poignant exploration of racial injustice and the dehumanizing effects of apartheid in South Africa. The story centers on a white couple living on a farm near Johannesburg who become embroiled in the bureaucratic tragedy following the death of an illegal immigrant laborer. Plot Summary
The unnamed narrator and his wife, Lerice, move to a farm outside Johannesburg hoping to salvage their strained marriage. However, the idyllic setting is shattered when a young man from Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe)—the brother of their farmhand Petrus—dies on their property from illness and exposure. Six Feet of the Country Summary and Study Guide
Six Feet of the Country " by Nadine Gordimer is a 1956 short story that critiques the apartheid system in South Africa. It follows a wealthy white couple who, despite living on a peaceful rural farm, find themselves entangled in the cold, indifferent bureaucracy of racial oppression. Summary of the Plot Six Feet of the Country Summary and Study Guide
Six Feet of the Country is a short story by Nadine Gordimer, first published in 1953. The story revolves around the death of a farm worker, Paulus, and explores the themes of mortality, social class, and the relationships between the rich and the poor in a rural South African setting.
The story takes place on a farm owned by a wealthy family, the Van der Vyers. Paulus, a poor farm worker, dies after being crushed by a tractor. The narrative follows the events that unfold after his death, particularly focusing on the reactions of the farm's white inhabitants and the treatment of Paulus's body.
The title, Six Feet of the Country, refers to the common phrase "six feet of earth" needed for a person's burial, symbolizing the minimal space allocated to a person's life. The story highlights the disparities in how different social classes are treated, even in death. six feet of the country by nadine gordimer summary
The body of Paulus is taken to the local morgue, and when his family cannot afford to pay for a funeral, the undertaker suggests they sell one of their goats to cover the costs. This act symbolizes the economic struggles faced by the poor and the devaluation of a poor person's life.
The climax of the story occurs when Paulus's widow and children decide to take his body from the morgue and bury it themselves. They dig a grave on the outskirts of the farm where Paulus worked and bury him with makeshift arrangements. This act can be seen as a form of resistance and a reclaiming of dignity for Paulus and his family.
Gordimer uses Six Feet of the Country to critique the apartheid regime and the social and economic inequalities it perpetuated. Through the lens of a single event—the death of a marginalized farm worker—Gordimer exposes the brutal realities of life under apartheid and questions the morality of a society that dehumanizes its poor and non-white populations.
The story is characterized by Gordimer's straightforward yet powerful prose, which effectively portrays the harsh realities of life in South Africa during the apartheid era. Six Feet of the Country has been widely praised for its thought-provoking exploration of social injustice, human dignity, and the impact of systemic oppression on ordinary lives.
The narrative technique employed by Gordimer involves a matter-of-fact presentation of the events, which contrasts with the profound implications of those events. This technique reflects the normalized brutality and injustice prevalent in the society of the time. Nadine Gordimer ’s " Six Feet of the
Six Feet of the Country not only serves as a critique of apartheid South Africa but also poses universal questions about human rights, dignity, and the valuation of human life across different cultures and societies. Through this story, Gordimer challenges readers to reflect on their own moral and ethical positions regarding social justice and human equality.
Plot Summary
The story is narrated by a white man who, with his wife, runs a small trading store and a piece of land just outside a major city (implied to be Johannesburg). They have recently moved there from the city, seeking a quieter life, and employ several Black workers.
The central conflict begins when one of their workers, a young man named Petrus, asks for permission to bring his younger brother, Lucas, from the countryside to live on the property. The narrator reluctantly agrees. However, Lucas is restless and rebellious. He frequently leaves the property without permission, which violates the strict pass laws of apartheid that control Black movement.
One morning, the narrator learns that Lucas has disappeared. Days later, a neighbor informs him that Lucas’s body has been found by the roadside. He was likely picked up by police for not having his passbook, died in custody (possibly from a beating), and his body was dumped.
The narrator, driven by a sense of duty and mild guilt, goes to the city morgue to claim the body so it can be buried properly by Petrus and the family. But he is met with an impenetrable bureaucracy. The officials refuse to release the body without a permit from the pass office. He travels from office to office, facing indifference, rudeness, and paperwork. The pass office officials, who are white, care only about the legal status of Lucas’s pass, not about his death or the family’s grief. Plot Summary The story is narrated by a
After days of futile effort, the narrator finally obtains permission—only to be told that the body has already been buried in a pauper’s grave on state land, a common fate for unclaimed Black bodies.
The climax is deeply ironic and tragic. The narrator, defeated, returns and tells Petrus. He offers to buy a headstone for the unmarked pauper’s grave, but Petrus declines. Instead, Petrus asks for something else: “Six feet of your ground… to bury my brother.” He wants a proper family grave on the land where Lucas lived and died.
The narrator agrees. In the final lines, he realizes that Lucas, who had tried to escape the white man’s land, is now permanently buried in it. The narrator reflects: “But he had got his six feet of the country… and he was not going to give it back.”
Introduction
Nadine Gordimer’s short story “Six Feet of the Country” (first published 1956) explores how apartheid-era South African racial hierarchies deform private life, grief, and human dignity. Set on a farm where a Black laborer’s sudden death confronts a white Afrikaner couple with institutionalized expectations and personal anxieties, the story compresses political critique, psychological realism, and moral ambiguity into a tightly controlled narrative. This paper analyzes Gordimer’s thematic concerns, narrative techniques, character dynamics, symbolism, and ethical implications, arguing that the story stages both a critique of apartheid’s social machinery and a probe into how systemic injustice becomes internalized and reproduced by ordinary people.
Themes and Motifs
- Dehumanization and Bureaucracy
- The story shows death filtered through administrative steps: notification, inquest, burial permissions. These procedures turn a person into a case, highlighting how bureaucratic forms legitimize disposability.
- Complicity and Moral Erosion
- Ordinary people—here, a white couple—become complicit in injustice by prioritizing convenience, reputation, and legal compliance over moral reckoning. Sally’s hesitation and private pity never coalesce into meaningful resistance.
- Social Distance and Intimacy
- Physical proximity (working together on the farm) does not translate into ethical recognition. The dead man’s body becomes a site where social distance is reasserted even in intimate circumstances (the couple’s home, the bedroom).
- Death as Social Mirror
- The manner of his death and the ritualized handling reveal social hierarchies: who arranges burial, who stands aside, who signs forms—these act as mirrors of apartheid’s order.
- Language and Silence
- The story features silences and the absence of the dead’s voice. Language—legal forms, clerkly phrases—functions to displace authentic human expression.