The Moment Before The Gun Went Off

Vladimir jean

In Philosophy the word identity is used to designate a sense of self that develops in the course of a man's life and that both relates him to and sets him apart from his social milieu. To talk about our identity, we try to answer the question, "Who am I?". Identity gives us a location in the world and presents the link between us and the society in which we live. We have different kinds of identity: national identity, social identity, cultural/racial identity, class identity, familial identity, gender identity, sexual identity, etc. Some people say all these identities are formed beyond our control, but I believe this not to be the case. Society, politics, and experiences can greatly influence a person's identity but do not create a person's true identity. A believe a person's identity is under their immediate control. There is a person's true personality and the one they choose to respond to society with. This is true in the case of Martin Van der Vyver a character of the short story "The Moment Before The Gun Went Off" written by author Nadine Gordimer. "A story set in South
Vyer secretly truly cared for his son. If he had in fact just satisfied his sexual desires on a random black woman who bore his child he would have wanted nothing to do with his son let alone hiring the boy to work on his farm and teach him the art of mechanics while going hunting with him now and then, he treated Lucas as much as a son as he could have without getting himself known, any other self respecting racist would have kept the boy far away from him or paid the mother to stay away. As far as we know it is a mutual understanding between the mother and the Vyers to keep it a secret. For one thing she could have announced the secret at Lucas; funeral in front of Vyer's wife and the whole community, but it seems to have enough respect for him not to destroy his name even though he shot her