Characters

The main character in the short story “The Journey to the Brothers’ Farm” by Pippa Gough is Annelie. Other important characters worth mentioning are Thabo and Hendriks, but we will only talk about them when we analyse the way in which Annelie relates to them.

Annelie

Annelie is the main character in the short story. At the time of the main narrative, she is in her 40s. We can deduce her age easily, as she was 13 when she was raped by Hendriks (l. 126), and she reveals that “before today I had not been to the Veldplatt farm for thirty years” (ll. 38-39).

Outer characterisation

Annelie’s outer characterisation reveals that she is now a widow and that, when she was young, she used to live with her father, brother and aunt on a farm.

Also, a very important element regarding Annelie is the colour of her skin:

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Inner characterisation

Annelie’s inner characterisation shows that she was very concerned with the differences between people’s skin colours since she was young:

For many days I puzzled over the mystery of skin, bones, faces and fortunes. I knew about skin – black skin and white skin – but how did all the other things link together? I studied the other children in the playground. Bettina, I noticed, had very pale skin and white-blonde hair […]. Was this strange face her fortune, I wondered? (ll. 5-8)

As she cannot understand why people have to be treated differently according to their skin colour, Annelie forms a friendship with Thabo, an African boy whose father was the “Head Herdsman” (ll. 52-53) at Annelie’s father’s farm. Although she wants to keep up her friendship with Thabo, Annelie is forced to mix with people of her “own type” (l. 55), as her father suggests:

“Mix with your own type now, Annelie,” my father had said one day. “Play with kids from your school. Leave the workers now, hey?” So I took to spending time at Veldplatt with Hendriks and his brothers. Thabo hadn’t wanted to work for the Krugers but we couldn’t afford to take him on. We never really spoke to each other after that. (ll. 55-59)

As she grows up and becomes a young woman, Annelie is “pleased” (l. 133) and “flattered” (l. 132) by the attention she gets from Hendriks, a boy who is five years older than her. Against her better judgement, Annelie does not leave the Kruger farm when a storm breaks out, and she cannot fight Hendriks when he rapes her:

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