• Summary
• Title
• Themes
• How is the story told?
• Activity 5
• Activity 6

The Soft Voice of the Serpent by Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer (1923-2014) was a South African writer who wrote many short stories and novels. Most of her work concerns the political situation in South Africa. She often spoke out against apartheid and censorship. The Soft Voice of the Serpent comes from her first collection of short stories, published in 1952. She won many international prizes for her work. In 1991 she won the most important prize a writer can win, the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1. Summary

A 26-year-old man has lost his leg. While he is trying to get used to this situation, his wife often wheels him into the garden. As he sits in the garden he thinks about his missing leg. He hopes that one day he will be so used to the loss of his leg that it will feel like it has always been gone.
In the garden one morning, when his wife gets up to fetch some tea, she accidently knocks a locust. The young man watches the locust try to move, and he notices that it has lost a leg. He feels that he and the locust are experiencing the same situation – they both have to cope without a leg. The realisation that he is not alone makes him feel much happier.
When his wife returns with the tea, he shows her the locust and jokes about the fact that they both have a leg missing. The wife tries to touch the locust with a stick and causes it to suddenly fly away. The man realises that he had forgotten that, unlike him, locusts can fly. Once again he feels alone.

2. Title

The title of the story brings to mind the biblical story about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In the Bible story the serpent tempts Eve to do what she has been told not to do, with the result that she and Adam are thrown out of Eden. The use of alliteration in the title (the repetition of “s”) reminds us of the hissing sound that snakes make.
In Gordimer’s story the locust is like the serpent. It tempts the man in the story into feeling that he can cope with his situation. Just as Adam makes a mistake by believing in the serpent, so the man makes a mistake in believing that the locust can help him cope.
These biblical references indicate that the story is an allegory.
In an allegory the characters and events become symbols because they also express a deeper, often spiritual or moral, meaning. The symbolism of the locust and garden is moral. The garden in which the man sits is like Eden as it is a peaceful, beautiful place where he can think and come to terms with his disability.

3. Themes

The man who has lost his leg is struggling to come to terms with his situation. He finds some comfort when he notices that the locust is also struggling to cope without one of its legs. At the end of the story the man realises that he must not depend on others, but must learn to cope on his own.

The themes in the story include:

• Loss and how we deal with it: The man in the story feels a connection with the locust when he realises they share the same
• Hope and the loss of hope: The locust’s struggle to walk and its persistence gives him However, the sense of hope is lost again at the end of the story when the locust flies away.

4. How is the story told?

4.1 Setting

The story is set in a garden, where the man’s wife wheels him every day. The garden reminds us of Eden. Just as Adam was in Eden before entering the wider world, so the man can adjust before going out into the world with one leg:

Perhaps there was something in this of the old Eden idea; the tender human adjusting himself to himself in the soothing impersonal presence of trees and grass and earth, before going out into the stare of the world.

4.2 Structure and plot development

At the start of the story we learn what the complication is: the man has to get used to having only one leg. Sitting out in the garden in a wheelchair every day gives him a lot of time to think about his missing leg. He reads a book in order to distract himself and not to feel overwhelmed by his loss.
The tension rises in the story through the man’s mental struggle to get used to the loss of his leg. This is mirrored by his wife’s reaction to the sudden arrival of a locust. She is afraid of it and jumps up, knocking it away. When she goes inside, the man notices that the locust has lost a leg and is struggling to walk. He immediately identifies with the locust’s physical defect. In some ways, his identification with the insect contrasts with his relationship with his wife. She caused the locust to lose its leg, and so he uses the locust’s dilemma to make fun of her. He teases her by saying:

“Don’t encourage it to self-pity”

The climax of the story takes place when the locust suddenly flies away. The situation does not have a happy resolution because the man feels foolish and let down when he remembers that locusts can fly and he can’t. Perhaps he also realises that he has to face his situation alone.

4.3 Characterisation

The main characters in the story are the man and his wife.
The man is the main character or protagonist in the story. He has recently lost his leg and is having to face a new life without it. Mostly, he shares little about his internal emotional and mental conflict with his wife.
The wife is the antagonist in the story. She tries to support her husband by taking him into the garden and looking after him. She does not speak to her husband directly about the loss of his leg. She is, however, the cause of the locust losing its leg; and of the locust flying away. By doing so, she deprives him of hope and some comfort through a sense of shared experience with the locust. He has to face his loss alone again.
The locust is also a character in the story. The writer emphasises this by the way the other characters refer to the locust:

It looked like some little person out of a Disney cartoon.
“isn’t he a funny old man?”
“The poor old thing”

The man identifies strongly with the insect. He studies it very closely. It comes to represent his own suffering and challenges. By talking about the locust the man and his wife are able to talk indirectly about the man’s loss.

4.4 Style

The writer does not give the characters names or describe what they look like, because the main focus is on the complication – the man trying to cope with the loss of his leg. Neither the man nor the woman makes direct references to the lost leg; in fact, at the beginning of the story, they hardly talk at all. The man’s distress is internal – he tries to come to terms with his condition in his mind. Although he feels very fearful and powerless he does not talk about it to his wife.
After a couple of weeks the man starts to take more notice of his surroundings in the garden: the trees, the birds. Then he studies a locust very closely. The description of the locust in the story is very detailed. The writer does this to help the reader feel empathy for the locust, just as the man has empathy for it when he realises it, too, has lost a leg.
The only dialogue between the man and his wife is about the locust. The locust becomes a symbol of what the man is experiencing – his anxiety, his need to cope and become independent, and his hopefulness when he sees how well the locust is coping without a leg. Their identification with the locust is shown in the way they talk about the locust. The man says:

“I’ve been watching it, and honestly, it’s uncanny. I can see it feels just like I do!”
“Funny thing is, it’s even the same leg, the left one.” She looked round at him and smiled.
“I know,” he nodded, laughing. “The two of us ...” And then he shook his head and, smiling, said it again: “The two of us.”

The writer emphasises the link between the man and the locust by repeating the line “The two of us.”

4.5 Narrator and point of view

The narrator is not one of the characters in the story. The narrative is told using the third person. The narrator refers to the characters as “he”, “she” or “they”.

4.6 Diction and figurative language

The writer uses descriptions of nature to show the man’s internal feelings. The man remembers when he was a young carefree boy, swinging in a tree, and this memory gives him hope:

A first slight wind lifted again in the slack, furled sail of himself; he felt it belly gently, so gently he could just feel it, lifting inside him.

Here, the writer uses the metaphor of a sail on a boat opening in the wind, to describe his feeling of hope.
The writer uses figurative imagery in the description of the locust. Its body is compared to an aeroplane in this simile:

flimsy paper stretched over a frame of matchstick, like a small boy’s home-made aeroplane.

The locust’s movements are compared to a man’s in another simile:

Just as a man might take out a handkerchief and pass it over his brow.

The woman compares the locust to an old man in an extended use of personification:

“Shame, isn’t he a funny old man”
“The poor old thing”

The woman does not realise that her pity for the locust is an extension of her unspoken pity for her husband. He does not want her pity and his irritation becomes clear in his use of sarcasm in response to her comments about the locust :

“Don’t encourage it to self-pity”
“Get another little chair made for him and you can wheel him out here with me.”
“Or maybe he could be taught to use crutches.”

4.7 Tone and mood

At the beginning of the story the tone is gentle and calm. The garden is seen as a good place for the man to recover:

the tender human adjusting himself to himself in the soothing impersonal presence of trees and grass and earth

However, the tone changes slightly when the writer describes how difficult it is for the wife to push the man’s wheelchair into the garden, indicating that she is also having difficulty adjusting to his situation. As we witness the mental and emotional struggle the man faces, the tone becomes gloomy.
Later, the wife causes the locust to lose its leg. When the man watches the locust struggling to cope without its leg he gains a sense of hope that he, too, will overcome his loss. His tone of speech becomes more hopeful.
However, when his wife begins to express sympathy with the locust, the man becomes irritable and sarcastic. This tension rises until, at the end of the story, the locust flies off and there is a pause:

There was a moment of silence.

The tone changes here and becomes hopeless again, as the man is left again with a feeling of loss and he says to her in a harsh tone: Don’t be a fool.
Mood: How does this story make you feel? Happy, sad, angry or indifferent? What are the reasons it makes you feel this way?

 Summary
The Soft Voice of the Serpent by Nadine Gordimer

1. Title
   • Allegory: the biblical reference changes characters and events into symbols of morality.
   • Alliteration: The repetition of “s” sound reminds us of a snake.
2. Themes
   • Loss and how we deal with it
   • Hope and the loss of hope
3. How is the story told?
   3.1 Setting
   • In a garden, which reminds us of the Bible’s Garden of Eden
     3.2 Structure and plot development
   •  Complication: The man getting used to having only one leg
   • Tension: The man’s mental struggle to deal with his loss
   • Contrast: The man’s identification with the locust in contrast to his distance from his wife
   • Climax: The locust flying away
   • Resolution: The man realising he can’t fly and feeling alone with his loss again
     3.3 Characterisation
   • Protagonist: The man is the main character in the story.
   • Antagonist: The wife, who cannot connect with her husband and hurts the locust.
   • The locust: Represents the suffering of the man
     3.4 Style
   • Internal thoughts and feelings of the man: His silent thoughts and feelings
   • Dialogue: The only dialogue between the man and his wife is about the locust.
     3.5 Narrator and point of view
   • Third person
     3.6 Diction and figurative language
   • “A first slight wind lifted again in the slack, furled sail of himself”
     Metaphor
   • “flimsy paper stretched over a frame of matchstick, like a small boy’s home-made aeroplane.”
     Simile
   • “Just as a man might take out a handkerchief and pass it over his brow.”
     Simile
   • Shame, isn’t he a funny old man”; “The poor old thing”
     Personification
   • “Or maybe he could be taught to use crutches.”
     Sarcasm
     3.7 Tone and mood
   •  Tone: Begins with a gentle and calm tone; changes to a gloomy tone as the man struggles with his loss; becomes hopeful when the man sees the locust; ends with a hopeless and harsh tone when the locust flies away.
   • Mood: How does this story make you feel? Happy, sad, angry or indifferent? Give reasons for your answer.

Activity 5

Read the extract below and answer the questions that follow.

Extract A

[The lady wheels the man into the garden.]

1. Complete the following sentences by filling in the missing words. Write down only the word(s) next to the question number (1(a) – 1(d)).
   The man is being pushed in a (a) ... by his (b) ... He spends much time (c) ... in the garden. Sometimes he thinks about the (d) ... he lost.  (4)
2. Refer to “slack, furled sail of himself” (line 1).
   1. Identify the figure of speech used (1)
   2. Explain why the writer has used this figure of (2)
3. How do you know that the woman is not good at pushing the man?     (1)
4. The man does not complain about how the woman pushes him. What does this tell you about him? State TWO (2)
5. Using your own words, briefly describe how the man feels about his loss. State TWO points.  (2)
6. Refer to lines 14-15. (“He felt it ... ready to burst.”)
   What does the use of the word “crushing” tell you about the man’s feelings?    (2)
7. In your view, should the man keep quiet about how he feels about his loss? Give a reason for your answer.      (2)  [16]

Activity 6

Read the extract below and answer the questions that follow.

Extract B

[They talk about the locust.]

1. In line 1 the man says that the locust needs a “little chair”.
   1. Why does the locust need a chair? (1)
   2. Who does the man think is responsible for the locust’s injury? (1)
   3. Do you think he is being serious when he suggests that the woman should wheel the locust around? Explain your (2)
2. What point is the man making in his statement in lines 5–6 when he says, “I’m sure the ... being kept active”.                      (2)
3. Choose the correct answer to complete the following sentence:
   When the man refers to “The two of us” in line 12, he means the ...
   1. man and the locust.
   2. woman and the locust.
   3. man and the woman.
   4. man and his nurse.                                                                   (1)
4. At the end of the story the locust flies
   1. Explain how the man’s mood (2)
   2. Why does his mood change in this way? (2)
5. Is the following statement TRUE or FALSE? Give a reason for your answer.
   In the title of the story the serpent refers to a real snake in the garden. (2)
6. Consider the story as a whole. The woman experiences mixed feelings towards the What are these feelings? (2)
7. Do you admire the woman? Discuss your (2)
8. The main theme of the story is about coming to terms with one’s How can disabled people be helped to come to terms with their loss? Discuss your view stating at least TWO points. (2) [17]

Words to know