The Lost Dignity: The Reading of Alex La Guma’s A Walk in the Night

Abstract

This paper unravels the dark side of apartheid system through the analysis of Alex La Guma’s novella; A Walk in the Night. The analysis brings out how La Guma uses his literary texts under study to reveal to his readership the lost dignity of the oppressed. This novella reveals to readers the atrocities that were perpetrated against the non-whites in South Africa. This study highlights the restrictions placed on African workers under the oppressive Apartheid system and its effects on the psyche of the non-whites in South Africa have been given credible space in the novella. There is seen in this novella a fictionalization of the different forms of maltreatments that non-whites suffered during the Apartheid regime. There is also seen in the novella a relentless effort by La Guma to protest against the Apartheid era. The life-styles of the non-whites clearly indicate that the Apartheid system really took away the dignity of the non-whites in South Africa.

Keywords: Alex La Guma, Apartheid, South Africa, Oppression, Dignity