ENG2611
ASSIGNMENT 3
ANSWERS 2025
ENG2611 ASSIGNMENT 3 ANSWERS
2025
, ENG2611
ASSIGNMENT 3
Introductory paragraph
South African literature has long been a site for exploring diversity—racial, cultural,
linguistic, and ideological. Among the works that confront these tensions with
integrity and critique is Nadine Gordimer’s short novel July’s People (1981). Set
against the political upheavals of apartheid-era South Africa, the text uses a reversal
of power relations between a white family and their Black servant to probe questions
of race, culture, and language, and to illuminate what social justice and cultural
belonging might mean in a society structured by inequality. This essay argues that
the novel foregrounds the fragility and performativity of cultural identities under
pressure, while using linguistic choices, narrative technique, and spatial imagery to
expose the costs and potentialities of moral solidarity across racial lines. In doing so,
it deepens our understanding of how diversity operates in South Africa—not merely
as a backdrop to a conflict but as a dynamic force that unsettles privilege, redraws
loyalties, and invites new forms of ethical judgment.
Body paragraph 1: Themes of diversity (race, culture, language)
July’s People places race at the center of its inquiry into social life under crisis. The
story follows the Blums, a white apartheid-era family, whose sense of security rests
on a relationship of dependence and subservience with their Black servant, July.
When political and social order begins to fracture, July becomes the primary agent
who must decide how to interpret and exercise power within a rapidly changing
environment. The novel thus renders diversity (in terms of race and class) not as a
fixed identity but as a relational, unstable circumstance—one that tests loyalties,
exposes hypocrisy, and unsettles the inherited hierarchies of cultural belonging.
Language, too, emerges as a arena of tension: English remains the language of the
ASSIGNMENT 3
ANSWERS 2025
ENG2611 ASSIGNMENT 3 ANSWERS
2025
, ENG2611
ASSIGNMENT 3
Introductory paragraph
South African literature has long been a site for exploring diversity—racial, cultural,
linguistic, and ideological. Among the works that confront these tensions with
integrity and critique is Nadine Gordimer’s short novel July’s People (1981). Set
against the political upheavals of apartheid-era South Africa, the text uses a reversal
of power relations between a white family and their Black servant to probe questions
of race, culture, and language, and to illuminate what social justice and cultural
belonging might mean in a society structured by inequality. This essay argues that
the novel foregrounds the fragility and performativity of cultural identities under
pressure, while using linguistic choices, narrative technique, and spatial imagery to
expose the costs and potentialities of moral solidarity across racial lines. In doing so,
it deepens our understanding of how diversity operates in South Africa—not merely
as a backdrop to a conflict but as a dynamic force that unsettles privilege, redraws
loyalties, and invites new forms of ethical judgment.
Body paragraph 1: Themes of diversity (race, culture, language)
July’s People places race at the center of its inquiry into social life under crisis. The
story follows the Blums, a white apartheid-era family, whose sense of security rests
on a relationship of dependence and subservience with their Black servant, July.
When political and social order begins to fracture, July becomes the primary agent
who must decide how to interpret and exercise power within a rapidly changing
environment. The novel thus renders diversity (in terms of race and class) not as a
fixed identity but as a relational, unstable circumstance—one that tests loyalties,
exposes hypocrisy, and unsettles the inherited hierarchies of cultural belonging.
Language, too, emerges as a arena of tension: English remains the language of the
