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You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town

The girl in the story is colored and she is at a disadvantage since she does not seem to fit anywhere in the society. However, this does not stop her from using this to her advantage. She is able to get an appointment with an abortionist on the pretense that she is white. She is also admitted to a school that only takes white girls. There is a lot of segregation in the society. The whites have to sit separate from the blacks. The girl observes that the conductor has to take money form the white passengers first before moving to the other section of the bus. Race has enabled me to look at the story from a different perspective. I understand the girl’s point of view on different issues, especially the fact that one can get lost even in places with distinct and clearly visible landmarks. Unlike, the black or the white people, who clearly know where they lie in the society, people of mixed races do not seem to know their position. They are not well accepted by either of the races.

Granted, the racial prejudice that was present when the author was writing the story may no longer be there today. This however, does not mean that it does not exist. The narrator cannot help but notice the different elements that enhance the racial differences in the society. She has been brought up to accept the situation as it is and this is clear in the way she takes relative ease in noticing the segregation elements. She notes that her boyfriend is more interested in the way things look on the outside. The narrator notes that her bag is brown and then she adds that her boyfriend had regarded the bag as cheap and unsightly. This should have bothered her and affected her deeply, but she takes it all in stride and ignores the issue. Race has affected my assessment of the narrator’s psychological condition. It has enabled me to understand why the narrator saw different things in terms of color and why she interpreted things differently.

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