Six Feet of the Country

The protagonist’s namelessness lends his character an anonymity that better allows him to represent a generalized white viewpoint during the South African apartheid. This portrait is nuanced, however, emphasizing complacency and hardheartedness more than hostility. Though he’s affronted at the police sergeant’s suggestion to be more controlling with his Black employees, and though he scorns the idea of a “master race,” the protagonist betrays a lack of empathy when he only begrudgingly honors his employees’ wish for the burial, all while exercising the authority his Black employees cannot. Additionally, his view that the burial is a waste of money reflects both the egocentrism of the white population and an inhumane materialism.

Even while the protagonist never fully sheds his hubris, however, a slight character arc is detectable in his changing attitude toward his employees’ plight. When first pressed to contact the mortuary, the protagonist exasperatedly calls it a “ridiculous responsibility”; but as the story nears its conclusion, he becomes morally invested in retrieving both the body and the unjustly charged exhumation fee. He repeatedly promises Petrus that “the baas is seeing to it for you” (19), but his voice grows “weaker” with each reassurance, suggesting genuine pity and discouragement.