 Hello and welcome to a summary of what you need to know about the Lemon Orchard by Alex Lagouma. I'll explain the meaning of this story as it appears in stories of ourselves, the University of Cambridge International Examination's anthology of short stories in English. I'll begin with some context about the author of this story before explaining the plot in a nutshell. I'll explain the characters you should be aware of in the story, then our highlight important themes to consider when studying this text. Now bear in mind that we have a stories of ourselves course that goes into depth on all of these stories in the anthology so do make sure you sign up for our course. So let's get started. Now let's first begin with some context around Alex Lagouma. Now Alex Lagouma is a South African novelist who was born in 1924 and he died in 1985. He was the leader of the South African Colored People's Organization and from when he was a very young man, he took part in strikes organised to protest against working conditions of Africans and factories. For his efforts, he was banned from all political activity in South Africa as well as writing and he was kept under house arrest. He could not receive visitors or communicate with his friends and co-workers. Later on, he and his wife were kept under solitary confinement in prison and on their release they were returned to house arrest. Under a negotiated deal, he and his family were given permanent exit visas from South Africa and sent to London on permanent exile. After spending many years in London, he and his family moved to Cuba as their permanent representative of the African National Congress. Most of Lagouma's works were written and published in London as well as Cuba as he was not permitted to write whilst he was in South Africa. Now let's have a look at the plot of The Lament Orchard. Now this story is set in 1962 in South Africa where four men are walking down The Lament Orchard on a winter night. There are four white men and one African man. The men are a group consisting of one leader and three followers. One of the white people had a battery powered lantern and was in a cycle ahead of everyone else. The other three white people were apparently talking and treating the African man as a pulpit. The leader who had a gun kept him for viking, taunting and insulting this African man referred to as a coloured man in the story for being uncivilised with a minister of the church. It is said that this man abused a white minister which under apartheid construed a crime. Now this prisoner, this African man, this coloured man is an educated schoolteacher. He was a teacher at a school where the white men sent their children. The poor man was afraid of them but also had a stubbornness within him which was against them. The four men refer to his earlier crimes and even if some of the men are apprehensive about killing this man it's not difficult to imagine that the mock questioning will end in a death. The educated schoolteacher is a prey in the hands of these white predators and his body will simply turn up as another one of those unidentified dead bodies that dot South Africa. Now when it comes to the characters of this story the first is the coloured man, the African man. So he's woken up in the middle of the night bound and taken captive by four white men. He's a well educated teacher at a school in the white men's community who allegedly disrespected a white minister at their church and was whipped as punishment. In the story the men are leading him through a lemon orchard to give him a second whipping in secret. They view the coloured man and likely all non-white people in South Africa as savages and hope to drive him out of town by intimidating him through violence. Yet this African man is notably dignified and level-headed through all of this. Although the leader of the four white men berates him with racial slurs and threatens to shoot him with his shotgun, they walk through the orchard and the coloured man keeps his composure in spite of his fear. Now this coloured man only gives in to the leader's demands to refer to him as Bars Master when Andrus, another man in the group, punches him in the face and knocks him to the ground. The story, the lemon orchard, ends just as the white men stop in a clearing to whip the coloured man and it's implied that they're going to carry out the punishment as planned. Not much is known about the coloured man other than his job as a teacher. He only speaks once and the narrative only refers to him by his racial category. His character could thus be interpreted as an allegory for the broader experience of all non-white people under the South African apartheid system, which was essentially a period of legally enforced racial separation and racial segregation, as so many like him were dehumanised and brutalised during this time and also killed. The other character is the leader. So the leader of the group of four white men take the coloured man captive in the middle of the night to march him through the lemon orchard. The white men plan to whip him in secret as a punishment for disrespecting a white man to set their church and the leader walks at the back of the party despite being in charge and he carries a loaded shotgun. He has a heavily pockmarked face and cold blue eyes that give him a really menacing appearance. Though all four of the white men accrue towards the coloured man, the leader is the most vicious of all. He continues, he continuously shoves his gun against the coloured man's back all the while hurling racial slurs at him and threatening to shoot and kill him. The leader is also the most overtly racist of the bunch. He characterises African and multiracial people as barbarians, makes it clear that he won't tolerate any disrespect from non-white people and demands that the coloured men address him as Bas, which is South African term for master. The leader's behaviour thus exposes the illogic and baselessness of apartheid South Africa's racial hierarchy, since he's clearly far more barbaric towards the coloured man than the coloured man has been towards white people. Yet, he still views himself as inherently superior to non-white people purely on the basis of a skin colour. The other character is the man with the lantern, so he walks at the front of the group guiding them through the lemon orchard at night. Now, as I mentioned, they plan to whip the coloured man and the man with the lantern is the only one of the white men who openly expresses anxiety about hurting the coloured man and urging the leader not to shoot and kill the man with the shotgun. Yet, despite this, the man with the lantern is just as complicit in the group's violent abuse as the rest. At one point as they walk through the orchard, he hears a watchdog barking in the distance and comments that he would take care of a pet like that. Clearly then, the man with the lantern has the capacity to empathise and care for others. He simply chooses not to extend that courtesy towards the coloured man. His character thus demonstrates how discriminatory beliefs are often rooted in hypocrisy and then denial of one's moral conscience. The other character is Andres, so he's part of this group and he and one other of the men both carry whips whilst the leader carries a loaded shotgun. He commits the most severe act of violence in the story as he punches the coloured man in the face when he refuses to respond to the leader's racist provocations. His character quickly escalates from being a passive member of the group to an actor of violence demonstrating how a mob mentality like that of the white men can reinforce and heighten abusive behaviour. Now, when it comes to themes, the first is that of apartheid. So do bear in mind that apartheid was a comprehensive system of segregation, racial segregation that divided the people of South Africa along the basis of one single feature, which was the colour of their skin. The coloured people and the African people were the natives of the land. By cunningly fragmenting the ghettos where the coloured people could live, the whites prevented them from getting together. The whites also forbade people from different races into marrying and inside the African and coloured ghettos the conditions were really inhuman. There was not enough space or amenities which were very primitive and these conditions gave rise to a lot of violence. The other important theme is the alienation of African people. So society in South Africa was divided along racial lines. Every facility in the country was segregated with the best reserved for the use of the whites and the black African people had to make do with inferior services and amenities. They lived in specialised ghettos that separated them from their own people and free movement of people between ghettos was also not permitted. The other theme is the denial of freedom and rights. So the African man, the coloured man in this story, referred to derogatoryly as hot knot is taken away for questioning. Accused people did not have to be produced before magistrate and summary executions were the order of the day. Probably that's what also happened to the man in this story also. African people really had no rights that were protected by any rule of law during their apartheid era and most charges against them were just trumped up false charges. So that's all. If you found this video summary useful, do make sure you sign up for a stories of ourselves course which goes into more detail on all the different stories. Also check out our website which is www.fresredeachers.com where you can find plenty of other English revision worksheets, model answers and online courses covering all the major similar verses including edXL, AQA and IGCSE. Thank you so much for watching.