GENDER, RESISTANCE, AND MORAL AGENCY IN NADINE GORDIMER’S FICTION: FEMINIST CONSCIOUSNESS UNDER APARTHEID AND BEYOND
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Abstract
Nadine Gordimer’s fiction offers one of the most complex portrayals of womanhood in twentieth-century literature, blending gender, race, and resistance within South Africa’s political and moral transformations. Her novels and short stories challenge patriarchal structures while simultaneously exposing the racial hierarchies that distort female identity. This paper explores Gordimer’s portrayal of women as moral agents and political subjects through Burger’s Daughter (1979), A Sport of Nature (1987), Occasion for Loving (1963), and The Pickup (2001). By engaging with feminist and postcolonial readings, it situates Gordimer’s work as a continual interrogation of power, sexuality, and social change. Drawing on Hogg (2015), Lazar (1992), Petersen (1991), Gunne (2016), Marandi et al. (2017), Kal’A Binene (2018), and other critics, the study argues that Gordimer’s women characters do not merely resist—they redefine ethical and social boundaries, reclaiming moral agency in both the private and political spheres.
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References
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