The Portrayal of Social Struggle in Post- apartheid Age: A Critical Study of Abdu and Julie's characters in Nadine Gordimer’s The Pickup

Abstract

This paper discusses the importance of race, gender, immigration and identity in Gordimer's novel "The Pickup" through the role of Julie, a white woman from South Africa and her husband (Abdu Ibrahim), an Arab Muslim in the period of post-apartheid in South African. Identity, race and gender have been an important subject in Gordimer's works as her early novels tend to center on her characters' struggle for national freedom rather than personal freedom, while the last novels of her tend increasingly to study the construction of identity. Nadine Gordimer’s novel "The Pickup" is a rigorous study of life in exile as it transcends questions of domestic and national politics and paints a true picture of migration, alienation and loss of identity while choosing a new identity. Here, the novelist (Gordimer) promotes a worldwide identity that transcends tribe by taking into consideration issues of globalization and society via cross-cultural and trans-ethnic identities that transformed the indistinguishable structure of the New World. So, the power of identity is unavoidable sufficient to rise above parallels and move freely in and out of spaces.