Well, Gertrude...

Statement:

Alan Paton is using Gertrude to represent the widely perpetrated sexism in South Africa, as well as the negative effects of Westernization on native people. Gertrude suffers from both the consequences of sexism and racism in South Africa’s whites dominated society.

Quotes:

“Johannesburg is not a place for a woman alone” (38).

“There is laughter in the house, the kind of laughter of which one is afraid. Perhaps one is afraid already, perhaps because it is in truth bad laughter”(29).

“You have shamed us” he says, not wishing to make it known to the world. “A liquor seller, a prostitute, with a child… Your brother is a priest. How could you do this to us...” (30).

In South African society, black women are the lowest on the social hierarchy. This well represents Gertrude’s perspective as she is cast down by society. She is stranded in the dank bottom of the well, reaching for the bright lives that the whites have the potential to live. The treatment Gertrude has received makes feel as if she is stuck at the bottom of a well. She can see the light of the toleration towards men in society, but it is impossible for her to escape to the the top of the well.