SOURCE: "Pleasure and Joy: Political Activism in Nadine Gordimer's Short Stories," in World Literature Today, Vol. 59, No. 3, Summer, 1985, pp. 343-46.

In the following essay, Eckstein considers Nadine Gordimer's short stories as an attempt to break down dichotomies in South African political culture.

I know a recent college graduate, a young white man from an ordinary, comfortable suburb of an American Midwestern city. At Kenyon College he studied Central American history and culture, and now he is a political activist, living sometimes in Central America but mostly in the city where he grew up. Not too long ago I asked him if he sees much of his parents, who still live in the suburb across town. "No, not much," he explained. "They're into pleasure and I'm into joy." When I began thinking about all the characters in Nadine Gordimer's short stories who try to be activists or try not...