NADINE GORDIMER’S "A CHIP OF GLASS RUBY" A Commentary on Apartheid Society

Political commentary is finding an effective nonviolent vehicle for protest-the ethnic genre. Nadine Gordimer’s &dquo;A Chip of Glass Ruby&dquo; (Gordimer,1983: 957-965) is a short story gem for such a purpose. To provide meaning, the story must be read in its ethnic context-the political turmoil of South Africa, and readers are thereby forced into awareness of the natives’ deplorable state and of the reforms needed, though the author offers no polemic but rather seems to let conditions presented speak for themselves. Nadine Gordimer says there are two kinds of writers in Africa: the testifiers and the creative ones, and that it is the latter who are creating modern African literature. The first group, she maintains, make no attempt to uncover human motivation, either that from within or that from the social situation without, because they do not understand the forces