Tool Late the Phalarope (Historical Context)

Historical Context

Jan Christiian Smuts

A statesman and philosopher, Jan Christiian Smuts was a well-known military leader in South Africa during the early twentieth century. He was a Dutch-speaking Boer whose family originally arrived in South Africa in 1692 as farmers. Smuts grew up in the hostile political climate in which the British and the Dutch were fighting for control of South African land. Educated in law, Smuts adhered to the idea that to cultivate the continent, compromise and peace were necessary between the warring European nations. After the Jameson Raid (an effort by the British to provoke a war), however, Smuts sided with the Boers and proclaimed his loyalty to Afrikaner nationalism.

When the Boer War erupted in 1899, Smuts was still hoping to achieve peace between the British and the Dutch, but was consistently disappointed by efforts to negotiate. Smuts distinguished himself as a military leader during the war, and he and General J. H. de la Rey organized resistance against opposing forces in western Transvaal (one of the two Afrikaner republics).

When the war was over, Smuts returned to law and was the principal designer of the constitution of the Union of South Africa. As he delved deeper into politics, he made enemies of miners and politicians on the far right. Chief among his opponents were members of the National Party. In both world wars, Smuts led South Africa against Germany; in World War I, he led troops as a military leader; during World War II, he was prime minister, and under his leadership South Africa entered the war.

Segregation in South Africa

As British and Dutch forces fought for control of South African land, the native populations were subject to new laws governing their social and political separation from the white citizens. In the early twentieth century, both Jan Christiian Smuts and his political opponent, J. B. M. Herzog, supported racial segregation in South Africa, although Smuts did not favor abolishing all rights for blacks.

The first parliament was established in South Africa in 1910, and one of the first decisions made was to restrict blacks to purchasing land within designated reserves. The reserves, however, accounted for only seven percent of the total land. This extreme limitation ensured that migratory labor would continue to be available for white landowners and that blacks would be forced to work for low wages in mines and other industries. When World War II ended in 1945, political leaders realized that South Africa was rapidly becoming an industrialized nation, which meant that the black population was gaining freedom and importance. To address this, the Boers (white South Africans of Dutch descent) adopted a policy of apartheid, the aftereffects of which continue to be a dominant political issue in South Africa.

Even before apartheid, there were laws governing the social interactions of blacks and whites. An example of this is the Immorality Act of 1927, which is at the center of Too Late the Phalarope. This Act outlawed sexual relationships between blacks and whites, and later the Act would be expanded to forbid sexual relationships between whites and any other race. Toward the end of the twentieth century, as apartheid began to crumble, so did these laws.

Modernist Period in Literature (1914 – 1965)

World War I ushered in the literary movement known as Modernism. While the term is primarily applied to British literature, critics generally consider Paton to have been a modernist author at the time Too Late the Phalarope was published. Some of his later work is considered postmodernist.

The Modernist Period is characterized by lost optimism following the horrors of the war and the beginnings of experimentation as writers intentionally broke with tradition and conventions regarding literary form and content. Literature written during this time often focuses on social issues, attempting to raise the consciousness of readers and introduce them to new realities. Much modernist work emphasizes the individual experience over the larger social context and contains psychological, philosophical, or political elements. Many works, such as T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, reflect a sense of fragmentation and despair. Too Late the Phalarope is an example of a modernist work that depicts self-awareness and the dark side of human nature.

Compare & Contrast

• 1920s: Among the laws governing social behavior in South Africa is the Immorality Act of 1927, forbidding sexual relations between blacks and whites. While originally designed to protect helpless servant women from being exploited by powerful bosses, the law eventually comes to represent the pursuit of racial purity by European settlers. The punishments for violating this Act are severe, and the social consequences are staggering.
  Today: In 1991, 74 percent of Americans say they view interracial marriage as acceptable. In 1994, the number of black-white interracial marriages in America has risen to 1.2 million, compared to only 651,000 in 1980.
• 1920s: Education for native South Africans is lacking, and illiteracy is the norm. In a culture with a strong oral tradition, little emphasis is placed on learning to read, despite efforts by missionaries. This is reflected in Too Late the Phalarope, in which the black children marvel at Pieter's ability to read any book he picks up.
  Today: According to the United Nations Statistical Yearbook, the literacy rate in the United States is 99.5 percent.
• 1920s: Because political power is held by whites, segregation is a way of life throughout South Africa. As a result, blacks have little control over their social, political, or financial lives until the latter part of the century, when apartheid begins to crumble.
  Today: Effects of the racial segregation that once dominated U.S. society still linger. Because of a strong civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, American laws supporting segregation are no longer in effect, but racial tension persists in social interactions, art, film, music, and other elements of culture.
• 1920s: Smallpox is an often-deadly disease feared by people in South African villages. Even into the 1960s there are ten to fifteen million cases reported every year.
  Today: Thanks to the discovery by Edward Jenner of a vaccination against smallpox, and a worldwide vaccination effort in 1967, smallpox is nonexistent today. As of 1979, the disease was declared extinct, with only controlled samples of the virus kept in a few laboratories.