After weeks of fruitless effort, the narrator is told he can have the body exhumed for a fee of 20 pounds. He reluctantly goes to the undertaker, pays the money, and arranges for the coffin to be delivered to the farm. The employees, led by Petrus, have painstakingly collected the exorbitant sum—months' worth of their meager wages—to pay for the exhumation and a proper funeral. When the coffin arrives, the Black employees open it and find the body of an old, white man inside. The mortuary staff has made a mistake, sending a completely wrong corpse. The narrator goes back to the authorities in protest, but he is met with a wall of indifference. The officials are helpless, and the undertaker has already done his job and been paid. The wrong body is taken away, and Petrus's brother is never recovered.
The story is narrated by an unnamed white man who, along with his wife, Lerice, bought a small farm ten miles outside of Johannesburg. Their move was intended to "change something in ourselves" and salvage their troubled marriage, though the farm has failed to achieve the profound silence they sought. Despite their marital friction, the narrator finds a sense of "triumph" in his escape from the city's racial tensions, where "guns under the white men's pillows and the burglar bars on the white men's windows" are a fact of life. He describes the farm's "almost feudal" relationship with its Black employees as "wrong, I suppose, obsolete, but more comfortable all around".
The central conflict arises because the brother died for lack of a pass. Gordimer, through this story, shows that apartheid was not just about separation, but about the systemic reduction of Black life to a disposable entity. The "six feet" is a double entendre: it is the literal grave, and it is the physical space that apartheid attempted to keep between the races. six feet of the country by nadine gordimer summary
"Six Feet of the Country" is set on a farm near Johannesburg, South Africa, during the apartheid era. The story is narrated by a well-meaning but somewhat detached white farmer who employs several Black workers. The central conflict arises when one of the workers, a young man named Petrus, approaches the farmer with a request: his father has died unexpectedly.
The narrator and his wife, Lerice, purchase a smallholding about ten miles outside Johannesburg, seeking to change something in themselves. The narrator works in the city during the week and retreats to the farm on weekends, where he feels a sense of "triumph" and safety from the "tension" of urban life, which for white South Africans means "the guns under the white men’s pillows and the burglar bars on the white men’s windows". He and Lerice have several Black employees who live on the farm, including a worker named Petrus . The narrator maintains a paternalistic, detached relationship with them, believing their arrangement to be mutually respectful and comfortable. After weeks of fruitless effort, the narrator is
The story ends in bitter resignation. The narrator goes back to his store. His wife, Lerice, weeps, not only for the dead man but for their own moral failure. The narrator concludes that the government has given the family “six feet of the country”—a standard-sized grave. But because of the mix-up, they don’t even have that. They have nothing. The six feet belong to a stranger.
Nadine Gordimer’s 1956 short story "Six Feet of the Country" serves as a critique of South African Apartheid, focusing on the bureaucratic dehumanization of a Black farm worker, Petrus, whose brother dies. The narrative follows a white couple's failed attempt to provide a dignified burial for the employee amidst restrictive state regulations, exploring themes of race, privilege, and disillusionment. A detailed summary and analysis can be found at SuperSummary . Nadine Gordimer – Facts - NobelPrize.org When the coffin arrives, the Black employees open
Moved by their grief, Lerice insists they help, and the narrator reluctantly advances the money, which the workers meticulously pool together from their savings. The Ultimate Insult
In a final, desperate act, Petrus’s family returns and makes a new request. They no longer ask for the body to be taken home. They simply ask that the narrator dig in the cemetery, find any body, and let them have it to give a proper funeral. The narrator, horrified by the absurdity of this request, refuses. He cannot dig up a stranger to pretend it is his brother.
Symbolizes the corruption and economic exploitation of the apartheid state. The government charges a heavy fee to return a body that they wrongfully took, and then refuses to refund it when they commit a catastrophic error.