Summary Of Herman Charles Bosman's Short Story 'Unto Dust'

In the short story “Unto Dust”, Herman Charles Bosman uses setting to help convey the idea that despite prejudices held against each-other in life, death reveals people to be equal. When slavery was abolished throughout the British Colonies in 1833, racism was thriving still and the Boers were furious their ways of life were over. Reflecting on an African tribesman’s dog refusing to leave the dead tribesman’s side, Stoffel Oosthuizen remarks, “I could not help feeling that there was something rather stirring about that beast’s fidelity, even though it was bestowed on a dead kafir” (101). Oosthuizen belittles the existence of the man he killed when implying that a dog’s loyalty was wasted on someone underserving. Many white men of the time were