Feminism in the book None to Accompany Me, by Nadine Gordimer, explores women’s empowerment in post- paid apartheid South Africa. The novel carries the story of Vera Stark, who is a liberal lawyer who embraces her new self at the realization of her freedom and importance in society, thereby, abandoning the needs of family life for the struggle of hopeless struggle by the black community in South Africa. The times change, politically and so do they change socially because there is a feminist realization of womanhood and awareness that changes the road walked by Stark (Sakamoto 8). Sibongile too is not left behind because she is also aware of the changing times. The country was coming to terms with political transformation; human relations were also changing. There is a tremendous change in women’s freedom as well as self- transformation in terms of power relations between them and men because women negotiate new changes and possibilities irrespective of race and generation.
Transition in South Africa makes it possible for women to change their lives because they are presented with opportunities at the personal level and also politically. During apartheid, liberation of the people was a masculine affair but Gordimer presents liberation from a woman’s point of view. Some of the female characters presented by Gordimer move out of their traditional cradles and embrace self- realization. Sibongile for instance, takes up the role of a deputy director in a program that is overseeing the return of people from exile. She goes on to become a member of the central executive in the post- apartheid movement. Vera also takes is also part of the team that drafts the new constitution. Initially, women were not active in any political venture. Men were expected to struggle, and women just stayed at home, with no definite role in the struggle. Gordimer presents a clique of women such as Sibongile, who are now at the forefront in the post- apartheid struggle.
Gordimer presents a class of women whose political participation is paralleled to their personal actualization of the narrative of an upcoming independent nation, aside from redefining themselves in relation to the men in their lives. According to these women, they start moving alone towards the self (Gordimer 306). Their sexual self finds a new meaning, and their roles are redefined too. It may have been hard for women to fight for their rights in an environment that denied both men and women all fundamental rights, but when they get the chance to prove that they also have their rights which need to be respected, they leave nothing to chance. Feminine liberation is the real battle that the women in the story have to battle with and fortunately; they have won it.
Works Cited
Cole, Ernest, D. Post Apartheid and Its Representation: The Interregnum as Motif in Selected South African Novels. Ann Arbor: ProQuest, 2008. Print
Gordimer, Nadine. None to Accompany Me. London: Bloomsbury, 1994. Print.
Sakamoto, Toshiko. Nadine Gordimer's None to Accompany Me: The New Context of Freedom and Empowerment in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Web. Retrieved on 4th November 2014. http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/acd/re/k-rsc/lcs/kiyou/14-3/RitsIILCS_14.3pp.225 240SAKAMOTO.pdf
