The Lemon Orchard

by

Alex La Guma

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Themes and Colors
Apartheid and Racial Hierarchy Theme Icon
Power, Fear, and Violence Theme Icon
Discrimination and Hypocrisy Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Lemon Orchard, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.

Apartheid and Racial Hierarchy

“The Lemon Orchard” is set in South Africa during apartheid, a period when the country’s government enforced racial segregation. This system was based on the ideology of white supremacy and the racist belief that non-white people are inherently savage, barbaric, and violent. In the story, four white men take a “coloured” (multiracial) man captive in the middle of the night and prepare to whip him as punishment for disrespecting a white person in their community…

read analysis of Apartheid and Racial Hierarchy

Power, Fear, and Violence

“The Lemon Orchard” is largely a story of how an imbalance of power harms the underclass in society—but also how it corrupts the upper classes. The four white men who take a “coloured” (multiracial) man captive in the story clearly benefit from their privileged position relative to him, as they’re able to move through society without being judged by or punished for the color of their skin the way that non-white people are. But it…

read analysis of Power, Fear, and Violence

Discrimination and Hypocrisy

“The Lemon Orchard,” which takes place in South Africa during apartheid (a period of legally enforced racial segregation), is a stark portrayal of how large-scale, institutionalized racism affects people of color. But by focusing on a specific instance of racism—four white men taking a “coloured” (multiracial) man captive and whipping him as punishment for disrespecting a white person—the story also digs deep into the logical fallacies and hypocrisy underpinning the discriminatory beliefs of ordinary white…

read analysis of Discrimination and Hypocrisy
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