Six Feet Of The Country By Nadine Gordimer Summary ((full)) Guide
Primarily Petrus and his family, who live and work on the land under the narrator’s authority.
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By the time the narrator calls a doctor, it is too late. The young man dies of pneumonia. The authorities immediately arrive to claim the body for an autopsy and burial, treating the deceased with bureaucratic indifference. The Fight for the Body
Petrus approaches the narrator with a request: he wants to reclaim his brother's body to give him a proper funeral on the farm. However, the authorities demand a fee of £20 to release the body. To the narrator, this is a fortune for a laborer and an absurd waste of money. six feet of the country by nadine gordimer summary
The title, "Six Feet of the Country," is deeply symbolic. It refers to the standard size of a grave. Gordimer argues that while white colonizers claimed ownership over thousands of acres of South African land, the indigenous and migrant black population was denied even the basic right to own the six feet of earth required to bury their dead. The Dehumanization of Apartheid
The money is paid, and a coffin is delivered back to the farm. The workers gather for a solemn, traditional funeral procession. However, during the service, the narrator notices a strange medical smell coming from the coffin.
Petrus is the moral center of the story. As the foreman, he must navigate the impossible terrain of pleasing his white employer while protecting his people. He exhibits immense dignity, leadership, and quiet resilience. By organizing the collection of the twenty pounds, Petrus demonstrates the profound communal bonds and cultural values of the Black South Africans—values that completely eclipse the transactional worldview of the narrator. Core Themes The Commodification and Dehumanization of Black Lives Primarily Petrus and his family, who live and
The story begins with the narrator describing his suburban-style life on the farm. The conflict arises when Petrus , one of the workers, informs the narrator that his brother—who had walked all the way from Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe) to find work—has died in one of the farm huts.
A Black farm worker, recently married, suddenly collapses and dies. The farmer (Sally’s husband, an Afrikaner) and his wife (Sally, the narrator) must arrange burial and notify the authorities. The local policeman, magistrate, and registrar become involved. The white couple are chiefly anxious about paperwork, property, and neighborly appearances. Sally observes the dead man’s body and family; she experiences discomfort and intermittent empathy, but ultimately aligns with the prevailing system—organizing burial with minimal acknowledgment of the deceased’s personhood beyond administrative needs.
The story revolves around the Nxumalo family, who live on a rural farm in South Africa. The family is faced with the sudden and mysterious illness of their young daughter, who falls ill with a fever and eventually dies. The story takes a dramatic turn when the family decides to take the body to Johannesburg, a nearby city, to be buried in a more respectable cemetery. The journey is fraught with difficulties, and the family's traditional way of life is disrupted as they navigate the complexities of urban bureaucracy. search results provide a variety of sources
The story is structured around a simple, linear quest: get the body back for burial. This straightforward plot serves to highlight the absurdity of the system. Each step of the quest, which should be simple, becomes a Kafkaesque ordeal of fees, paperwork, and bureaucratic indifference. The climax is not a violent confrontation but the quiet, horrifying image of a coffin breaking open to reveal a stranger's face. This anticlimactic resolution is the point: the system doesn't produce grand tragedies, but a mundane, grinding, and deeply insulting waste of life and dignity.
The story pits Western bureaucracy (death certificates, permits, numbered plots) against African spirituality (burial with ancestors, community mourning). The cold, bureaucratic system wins, but only by committing a form of spiritual violence. The family is left unable to complete their mourning ritual.
Petrus explains that the family of the deceased does not want him buried in the cheap, anonymous "native grave" on the outskirts of town. Instead, they want his body transported to his home village (a six-hour drive away) to be buried with his ancestors, according to their customs. They have raised money for the transport and ask the narrator for permission and a simple coffin.
The title of the story, "Six Feet of the Country," refers to the six feet of land required for a burial. The Nxumalos' quest for a decent burial for their daughter becomes a symbol of their struggle to assert their dignity and humanity in the face of societal and cultural change. Through their journey, Gordimer highlights the tensions between traditional rural life and modern urbanization, as well as the dehumanizing effects of bureaucracy and urbanization on rural communities.