The Train from Rhodesia by Nadine Gordimer

The story deals with the aspect of dehumanization paired with post-colonial Africa. To summarize the story in short a train enters a poor village in Africa. Native vendors, who have been waiting for the train’s arrival, quickly gather along the length of the train holding wooden carvings of various animals at the passengers of the train. The passengers are of foreign nationality and belong to the nationality of their colonial masters. A young woman leans out from a window & points at the wooden carving of a lion. She loves all the tiny details burnt into the lion & admires it very much. But hearing the price as three shillings & sixpence she refuses it deciding it was too expensive.  Her husband bargains with the seller & at the last moment when the train has already begun to leave the station, manages to buy it at a shilling & sixpence. When he brings it to his wife she refuses to accept it and accuses the husband of buying it at such a cheap price.

Her act shows us how much she actually valued the statue. She didn’t buy it at the beginning because she thought it was expensive. Nevertheless she highly valued it because of why she refused to accept it when the husband offered it to her. If she accepted it, which was bought at such a low price that would mean that she ignored its real value. Therefore she rejects it though she absolutely desired it. On the other hand she would’ve been angry because of the uncaring nature of the husband. If he really loved her, he should’ve bought it in the first place without further bargaining. But he continued his bargain till the last moment & even then didn’t buy it. Only when the vendor came running after the train offering the statue at one shilling & six pence did he buy it. This shows that he really didn’t care to buy it & that buying wasn’t important to him & thereby it’s clear that he didn’t love his wife.

But more than anything she was feeling guilty for what her people have done to these poor Africans & to make things was they’ve returned, not to make things better for these people, but to ridicule them & exploit them. That is why she feels sick at heart. We can see that the wife was different from her husband & the rest of the passengers who were blind to the sufferings of these people, whom they considered as nothing more than insignificant vendors who were more importantly their conquests & therefore deserved ill treatment. But the wife saw them as significant human beings who were suffering not because of their own fault but as a result of the greed of the colonists and also whose life depended upon the hard earnings from selling wooden carvings of various animals. Therefore she thinks they deserve better treatment & should be appreciated for their creative work.

Another major aspect highlighted in the story is dehumanization. If you make someone play or suffer for your own amusement, that can be considered as evil & inhuman. It’s simply wrong. In this story the husband takes a human soul as an object of pleasure & amusement. Bargaining is okay only if you do that to a certain level and with the motive of obtaining a product at a low price because you consider the set price as too high. But here there’s no such motive. What he expects from this bargain is mere fun. It is a pathetic pervert enjoyment because of that reason. He makes the poor vendor work unnecessarily to sell his work. Rather than appreciating it he’s ridiculing it. This is why the wife feels it moralistically wrong to accept the lion. On the other hand it shows that life was merely a “game” for the rich but a constant struggle for the poor.

This story also helps us understand what a gift really is & what makes an object a “gift”. A gift is a symbol which reflects & reminds you constantly of its giver. It will represent the love, affection & care of the giver & more importantly will tell you that the giver has read you & understood you. This knowledge will always make you happy. Therefore it’s clear how a gift is so much more than its use value. If we consider all these conditions that make an object a gift we can see that the lion given to her by her husband was not a gift, but a conquest of his despicable game with the poor vendor.

With this short but marvelous short story Nadine Gordimer opens our eyes to the aspect of dehumanization in post colonial Africa & the destiny of the third world countries that have been colonized by various European nations. This pathetic political aspect of the story is one of the greatest things that make it wonderful & interesting.

Source: My own ideas, Lesson notes of ENG111