Point of View. Point of view is the vantage point from which a story is told. In stories written from a first-person point of view, the narrator may be a participant or witness of the action. In stories told from a third-person point of view, the narrator generally stands outside the action. Writers achieve a wide variety of ends by varying the characteristics of the narrator chosen for a particular work. Of primary importance is the choice of the narrator’s point of view. Will the narrator be omniscient, knowing all things including the internal workings of the minds of the characters of the story, or will the narrator be limited in his or her knowledge? Will the narrator be reliable or unreliable—that is, will the reader be able to trust the narrator’s statements? As you read “The Moment Before the Gun Went Off,” identify the point of view from which the story is told.
Stereotype. A stereotype is an uncritically accepted, fixed or conventional idea, particularly such an idea held about whole groups of people. As you read, keep track of those groups of people about whom the narrator makes stereotypical comments. Use the model to the right as a guide, filling in the left column only as you read the story for the first time.
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Under apartheid, a policy of racial segregation and political and economic discrimination, a person’s race determines what rights he or she has. In 1948, an all-white South African government ensured white political and economic dominance under law through the system of apartheid, a system that allowed the government to force millions of blacks to live in independent homelands or in separated urban townships. Officials required blacks to carry identification papers and revoked their South African citizenship. During the 1950s, as more and more apartheid laws came into being, resistance grew among black communities. Apartheid in South Africa finally came to an end in 1991.
“The Moment Before the Gun Went Off” takes place in South Africa during the time when the policy of apartheid was being dismantled. This story appeared in the 1991 collection Jump and Other Stories by South African writer Nadine Gordimer.
Have you ever been involved in a social situation that influenced how you treated certain people or made you feel as though you couldn’t tell the truth about some aspect of your life? If so, write about this in your journal. If not, consider how you might react to such a situation.
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