Throughout the story, varying degrees of light and darkness symbolize how racism is hidden in plain sight in apartheid-era South Africa. In particular, the moon represents institutionalized racism and how, like beams of moonlight tend to distort and highlight the sharp edges of things, the government’s white supremacist regime radiates outward to influence civilians and bring out their harshest and most violent qualities. At the beginning of the story, the moon is hidden behind clouds that look like “streamers of dirty cotton-wool” in the sky, mirroring the way in which the inner workings of South Africa’s racist institutions are shrouded beneath layers of corruption and secrecy.
Yet just because the moon is hidden doesn’t mean there is no light to guide the four white men who take a “coloured” (multiracial) man captive at night and march him through a lemon orchard to be whipped. One of the men carries a lantern, using this light to lead the way and to illuminate the other white men whenever they’re hurling verbal or physical abuse at the coloured man. The lantern light, then, is a smaller-scale but even more intense form of light than the moon, just as the white men’s individual acts of discrimination and violence against the coloured man are smaller-scale but more tangible and personalized forms of racism. Significantly, though, the white men’s leader walks at the back of the party, the farthest away from the lantern light. Shrouded in literal and figurative darkness, he represents how those in positions of authority are able to carry out injustice covertly and with fewer consequences.
By the end of the story, the moon has resurfaced from behind the clouds, and it shines brightly onto the lemon trees, “[clinging] for a while to the leaves and the angled branches, so that along their tips and edges the moisture gleamed with the quivering shine of scattered quicksilver.” This reappearance suggests that just as the moon was present yet hidden throughout the entire story, so too is institutionalized racism intangible yet glaringly present in the ideologies and lived experiences of South African citizens. And as the white men stop in a clearing and prepare to whip the coloured man, the moonlight illuminates the sharp angles of trees so that they appear bladelike and dangerous, symbolizing how the South Africa’s legally enforced segregation heightens and enables the hate-fueled violence of ordinary civilians.
Light and Darkness Quotes in The Lemon Orchard
‘Do not go so fast,’ the man who brought up the rear of the party called to the man with the lantern. ‘It’s as dark as a kaffir’s soul here at the back.’ He called softly, as if the darkness demanded silence.
‘For God’s sake, don’t shoot him,’ the man with the light said, laughing a little nervously. ‘We don’t want to be involved in any murder.’
‘What are you saying, man?’ the leader asked. Now with the beam of the battery-lamp on his face the shadows in it were washed away to reveal the mass of tiny wrinkled and deep creases which covered the red-clay complexion of his face like the myriad lines which indicate rivers, streams, roads and railways on a map. They wound around the ridges of his chin and climbed the sharp range of his nose and the peaks of his chin and cheekbones, and his eyes were hard and blue like two frozen lakes.
The man who had jeered about the prisoner’s fear stepped up then, and hit him in the face, striking him on a cheekbone with the clenched fist which still held the sjambok. He was angry over the delay and wanted the man to submit so that they could proceed. ‘Listen you hotnot bastard,’ he said loudly. ‘Why don’t you answer?’
The man stumbled, caught himself and stood in the rambling shadow of one of the lemon trees. The lantern-light swung on him and he looked away from the centre of the beam. He was afraid the leader would shoot him in anger and he had no wish to die. He straightened up and looked away from them.
‘Well?’ demanded the man who had struck him.
‘Yes, baas,’ the bound man said, speaking with a mixture of dignity and contempt which was missed by those who surrounded him.
The blackness of the night crouched over the orchard and the leaves rustled with a harsh whispering that was inconsistent with the pleasant scent of the lemons. The chill in the air had increased, and far-off the creek-creek-creek of the crickets blended into solid strips of high-pitched sound. Then the moon came from behind the banks of cloud and its white light touched the leaves with wet silver, and the perfume of lemons seemed to grow stronger, as if the juice was being crushed from them.
They walked a little way further in the moonlight and the man with the lantern said, ‘This is as good a place as any, Oom.’
They had come into a wide gap in the orchard, a small amphitheatre surrounded by fragrant growth, and they all stopped within it. The moonlight clung for a while to the leaves and the angled branches, so that along their tips and edges the moisture gleamed with the quivering shine of scattered quicksilver.
Light and Darkness Symbol Timeline in The Lemon Orchard
