Terminal

This study guide will help you analyze the short story “Terminal” by Nadine Gordimer. You can also find a summary of the text, as well as inspiration for interpreting it and putting it into perspective.

Nadine Gordimer (1923-2014) was a South African writer and the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991. Most of Gordimer’s novels and short stories are about social issues connected to apartheid in South Africa.

Extract

Here, you can read an extract from our study guide:

Metaphors and similes

The “fairy story” is a metaphor for the spouses’ unwillingness to focus on what is truly important – the woman’s illness and how it affects them both. Instead of discussing what matters, the spouses talk “only of cheerful things, only of getting better” (p. 143, ll. 33-34) and pretend that their lives are normal.

The metaphor of the fairy story is also ironic, as fairy tales usually have a happy ending. In the story, the woman’s concept of a happy ending – committing suicide and ending her pain – is destroyed by her husband, who fears losing her and betrays her trust.

For the woman and her husband, her wound is “like a contingent love affair (…) whose weight would tear their integument if admitted” (p. 143, ll. 35-36). Spouses who have love affairs tend to keep them a secret, so as not to affect their relationship with their significant other. In this case, the simile suggests that, in order not to destroy their relationship, both husband and wife have chosen not to talk about the woman’s illness. The example also...