Jump and Other Stories

With societal unrest brimming throughout the stories, characters seek out ways of feeling more secure in an unstable world. Many of the White characters fortify their homes and neighborhoods. In each case, Gordimer shows that walls, security cameras, and electric fences are not effective solutions. The author makes this clear early in the collection. The White family in the second story, “Once Upon a Time,” spends the story adding more and more security features to their home. At the climax, they’ve installed lethal and garish barbed wire along the perimeter of their home. They’re desperate for a feeling of security, but their own son is killed in the barbed wire. Story 13, “Safe Houses,” is set primarily in Sylvie’s fortified home. When she first meets Harry, her cognition is dominated by fear and skepticism:

And wondering, now, no doubt, whether it was possible that this man off the bus really could be living in the suburb of large houses hidden by trees where she lived, or whether he had left the bus to follow her, and was to be feared, although he was white, in this city where so much was to be feared (188).

From the moment they meet, Harry is kind to Sylvie. He helps her get home and gives her a bus ticket when she doesn’t have one. Sylvie’s closed-off world, however, makes her skeptical of others. When Sylvie lets Harry into her life, a passionate affair unfolds; her decision to live less safely gives her life a titillating spark. Additionally, during their affair, Harry recognizes that Sylvie’s privileged lifestyle hinders her perception of reality. Within the confines of her home, she knows nothing about current events: “she knew nothing of the clandestine world of revolution, when she walked in the streets of the dirty city among the angry, the poor and the unemployed they had ‘nothing to do’ with her—she’d said it” (207-08). Harry studies the world around him and moves to change it. Sylvie, willfully confined, remains static in her home. She avoids the dangers that Harry faces but is also robbed of joy and knowledge. Harry’s ability to come into Sylvie’s home, without her ever knowing he’s a revolutionary, further demonstrates that Sylvie’s sense of security is a false one. When characters try to hide in Jump and Other Stories, they end up hurting themselves and rob themselves of the complexities of the human experience.

When wealth is controlled by the few, the masses suffer from inadequate resources. In addition to showing excessive security with her White characters, Gordimer uses other stories to show the additional consequences suffered by the Black community. The family in “The Ultimate Safari” are helpless against the bandits that destroy their village. They flee, only to face the electric fences of Kruger Park. “Once Upon a Time” features a family with too much security. “The Ultimate Safari” juxtaposes this story with a family that completely lacks it. In “Comrades,” Hattie has a nice home and extra money to hire a Black maid because of her position as a White person. After having Dumile and his group over for dinner, Hattie realizes how different life for them is. They don’t care about her interior decorations; their only concern is having food. The characters with too many resources cause themselves pain, and the economic imbalance that stems from their consolidated wealth forces other characters to fight for basic necessities.

As the characters in the collection navigate a tense world, Gordimer reveals that many of them seek the same thing: love. Their various story arcs reveal both the positive and the negative outcomes of loving someone. Nils in “Home” does his best to support Teresa when her family is arrested. He loves his wife, and he offers his support: “Her whole face trembled. He suffered with her” (129). He doesn’t stand in the way of Teresa’s commitment to freeing her mother, and in the end, her mother escapes prison. Their relationship is not perfect, though. For as much as they love one another, Teresa loves her family more, and she chooses them over her husband. Nil’s love helps Teresa find the strength and time to free her mother, showing how love can make someone stronger, but the love she has for her family also creates a divide in their marriage.

The man in “A Find” represents one of the outcomes of failed marriages: bitterness and resentment. His story opens with anger toward women: “To hell with them” (49). He spends the story distrustful of females, choosing instead to objectify them. His character arc concludes on a hopeful note when he meets the woman who lost her ring. She purposely avoids putting the ring on her ring finger, indicating a failed relationship. The man and woman have both been hurt in the past by love, but they find one another and are willing to try again. Through these stories, Gordimer portrays love as powerful. Love can strengthen, but it can also leave people weak and bitter.

Other characters who fall in love with the wrong person face even worse fates. Vera in “Some Are Born to Sweet Delight” falls madly in love with Rad: “She wept with love for this man who might never, never have come to her, never have found her from so far away” (79). Whenever her parents disapprove of their relationship because Vera and Rad are different races, Vera refuses to give in to their objections. Because of Vera’s love, her parents are forced to accept Rad as a member of the family, especially after Vera becomes pregnant. Vera’s love is so intense that it blinds her. She loves Rad so much that she accepts his secrets. Her willingness to listen to Rad ends with her on a plane unknowingly carrying a plastic explosive. Love gives Vera newfound joy, but she embraces it so intensely that she falls into Rad’s trap. Vera’s story therefore becomes a cautionary tale about how love can blind people and put them in harm’s way.