Lemons Symbol Analysis

Lemons represent the idea that morality is undeniable in spite of people’s attempts to justify or deny their wrongdoings. As its title suggests, the story takes place in a lemon orchard through which four white men lead a “coloured” (multiracial) man to be whipped under cover of night. Near the beginning of the story, the narration notes the citrusy smell of the lemons lingering in the air. This stands out against the suppression of the setting’s other sensorial elements: the men speak in hushed tones, the night is dark enough to obscure their vision, the moon is hidden, and the surrounding crickets are quiet. The darkness and quiet parallels the way in which the men (and, by extension, all of white South African society) are suppressing their moral consciences by reinforcing their racist narratives about non-white people and hiding their actions by whipping the coloured men in secret. Yet, like the ever-present smell of the lemons cutting through the otherwise gloomy night, they cannot fully deny the reality of what they’re doing.

Indeed, the white man carrying the lantern is visibly nervous and expresses his anxieties about being caught up in a murder if the group’s leader shoots the coloured man. He also tells the others that he would take great care of a watchdog like the one they hear barking in the distance as they walk through the orchard. Just as the “pleasant scent of the lemons” is “inconsistent” with the harsh winds and bitter cold of the night, then, the man with the lantern’s underlying conscience and compassion for beings different from himself stands out against the brutality with which the white men treat the coloured man. At the end of the story, the aroma of the fruit becomes more potent alongside the mounting tension between the white men and the coloured man. As they stop in a clearing and prepare to whip him, “the perfume of lemons seemed to grow stronger, as if the juice was being crushed from them.” This suggests that just as the smell of the lemons is inescapable (and indeed even stronger) as the men flee far from the town to commit their act of violence, so too is an individual’s—or an entire society’s—conscience inescapable in spite of their attempts to deny and distance themselves from what they know is morally right.