Analysis
This section highlights the main elements of our analysis of the story “City Lovers” by Nadine Gordimer.
The story’s plot structure is linear and features narrative techniques such as backstories and foreshadowing. The story presents the forbidden relationship between a white man and a mixed-race woman.
The most important characters of the story are Dr Franz-Josef von Leinsdorf and his lover. The policemen and the woman’s mother are secondary characters.
The events take place in Johannesburg, in South Africa. The social setting explores the racial segregation promoted by the apartheid system during the 1970s.
The events are described by an omniscient third-person narrator. The narrator is reliable, and the narration is both explicit and implicit.
The story is told in a descriptive style, and includes figurative language such as similes and symbols. The language is generally easy to follow, although certain sentences may be harder to understand due to their length and complexity.
You can find a full analysis of the story in the following pages.