Is There Nowhere Else Where We Can Meet

?This short tier, by Nadine Gordimer, overall, speaks on the deep-seethed racial emphasis that influenced the individuals in this apologue. In essence it is about a presumably blank wo gentleman being mugged by an equally presumable black manful (Gordimer is from South Africa and frequently wrote about racial tensity). The tension in this story is so saturating that it even manages to conquer the language, imagery, and executions of the dickens people involved. The first split reads, It was a cool grey dawning and the air was worry smoke.In that verso of the elements that sometimes takes place, the grey, soft, muffled sky moved like the sea on a silent day. In the very first sentence it is open that there is a smoggy, perhaps suffocating quality in the air. git is a hazardous, cancer causing gas that is as well an agent of hiding these attributes can also apply to the effects of apartheid. Like cancer, racial tension spread rampantly through South Africa and conceale d a soulfulnesss character by his skin color. Even in the morning the air was like smoke as if to almost say, no national how early you wake up racial tension is prevalent.In the very adjacent sentence, it is utter that a turn around of elements has taken place which foreshadows a reversal of sorts in the later part of the story in which the char muliebrity becomes a victim. As she walks by the man her concentration is directed towards the scent of hurt needles that were formerly held in her hand. A thudding is go throughd and the man appears incidentally panting in her face. This sequence of events inspires another theme in the story fore mind. A fear of the unknown is evident early in the story, if further subtly, and evolves into an overwhelming sense of dread.As the char first notices the red-capped go out in the distance, she inexplicably switches her knockout and parcel from unrivaled arm to the other. This is a common defense reaction mechanism for women fearin g a mugging from a perceived source or to simply add a sense of security. Later, as she nears the figure on the path, she grabs a little sheath of languish needlesand as she walked she ran them against her thumb. An innocuous action that seems to hold her attention until the visage of the man steals it away.After passing the now weary, raggedy man, she realizes that the pine needles were no longer in her hand (she doesnt know when this happened which would need to the conclusion that she was transfixed on the man when the needles were dropped). The woman then decides to whiff her hand in golf-club to remember what the needles odoured like in order to compare them to a similar scent from her childhood. The pine needles, which leave a residue on her fingers, leaves the woman with a need to wash them for, Unless her hands were quite clean, she could not lose consciousness of them, they obtruded upon her.By being slap-up on washing her hands, she would no longer be wary of the f igure in which she passed and therefore relinquish her caution. This sets up the next paroxysm as just when the woman decides to let her mind linger on her hands, the man makes his move. and then he was there in front of her, so startling, so utterly unexpected, panting right into her face. He stood deathlike still and she stood dead still. Every vestige of control, of sense, of thought, went out of her as a room plunges into inexorable at the failure of power and she found herself whimpering like an idiot or a child. Animal sounds came out of her throat.She gibbered. For a moment it was Fear itself that had her by the arms, the legs, the throat not fear of the man, of any single menace he might present, but Fear, absolute, abstract. If the earth had opened up in flaming at her feet, if a wild beast had opened its terrible emit to receive her, she could not have been reduced to less than she was now. It is expressly stated that she did not fear the man, so why does Fear presen t itself totally when he bounds to her? Such terror is realized when preconceived notions of menage barriers are shattered unexpectedly and whats to come next dust a mystery.The language changes to reflect the horror that the woman experiences in this moment. She does not simply stand still but dead still, a fable is used to express the fleeting feelings of control, and animal (inhuman) sounds are produced from her throat. Fear also becomes personified by being made a proper noun and entangling her in its grip. passim the story the man is made to seem opposite of the woman. As the woman in the story is traveling along a path, she spots a figure (a native) with a red cap.Upon reaching the man, by adjacent the path, it is expressed that his trouser leg is torn off, revealing the peculiarly dead, pulverized black of cold (the effects of the weather on his cracked skin) his eye are also red and he smells of sweat. When the confrontation occurs, his depiction of something assorte d from her becomes more pronounced. His foot is stated to be cracked from exposure until it looked like broken wood, his face is sullen, voice is deep and hoarse, and he has a pink injury on his skin. Such a distinct limit with the woman is made to emphasize the cause of the tension.After the woman escapes, she desperately runs from the scene in order to get back on the road. The language that follows gives a sense of one escaping a foreign world, And she was out. She was on the road. She could hear a faint hum, as of life Her once encompassing fear has now eased slightly and the cause seems to be her flight from the velds and brush. The cathode-ray oscilloscope of where the native resided and where the woman wants to go are also contrasts that make-up the divergency between the two and only add to the foreignness of the encounter.The last two paragraphs of the story are most interesting in that after the tussle, the woman decides, after some deliberation, that she would not tell anyone of what just happened. Why did I fight, she thought suddenly. What did I fight for? Why didnt I give him the gold and let him go? Perhaps she felt pity for the man? He was obviously poor and tired with severe exposure to the elements His red eyes, and the smell and those cracks in his feet, fissures, erosion.Perhaps her story would appear shady to the people she told, She thought of the woman coming to the door, of the explanations, of the womans face, and the police. It is evident from her previous mien that a mugging was in the realm of possibility, and from the mans expression it was also evident that such an action was not beneath him. The woman doesnt tell anyone of her encounter because of the social difference between the two. At the arrest of the day, the woman can most likely replenish her lost items but, from the translation of the man, his survival could have been at stake if he didnt acquire assets or funds.The is described walking down the road, like an i nvalid, because she was robbed and such an incident leaves a hollow feeling but she realizes that she must move on, common sense by her picking the blackjacks from her stockings. Is There Nowhere Else Where We Can Meet? is a unique title, firstly in its use of nowhere instead of anyplace and secondly, that the meeting between the two characters in the story is an undesirable one because of the racial tension in South Africa. Had these two people met in a different country things might have been different.