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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Lemon Orchard, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Apartheid and Racial Hierarchy
Power, Fear, and Violence
Discrimination and Hypocrisy
Summary
Analysis
On a chilly night, a group of men walk between two rows of trees. All of them but one are bundled in thick clothing. High above, the moon is hidden behind clouds that look like strands of “dirty cotton-wool.” The men’s shoes sink into the damp ground as they walk, leaving footprints that can’t be seen in the dark. A man holding a lantern walks ahead and leads the others in the group. The crickets nearby are silent, though some that do not yet sense the men’s presence can still be heard in the distance. Far away, a dog barks but then abruptly stops.
The beginning of “The Lemon Orchard” is intentionally vague, creating an atmosphere of mystery and suspense for the reader. It’s unclear who this group of men is or what they’re doing, though the fact that they’re walking under cover of night, combined with the eerie silence of their surroundings, hints that they’re up to something nefarious that must be kept secret. This is supported by the detail that one of the men isn’t wearing warm clothing, as this subtly implies that he was forced out into the cold night rather than bundling up and joining the other men willingly. Finally, the moon hidden behind “dirty” grey clouds represents something hidden beneath layers of corruption, further implying that the men’s intentions are insidious and perhaps even violent.
Themes
In the lemon orchard that the men are walking through, the bittersweet smell of the fruit lingers in the night air. From the back of the group, a man carrying a loaded shotgun calls to the man holding the lantern to slow down. The man with the shotgun says that “it’s as dark as a kaffir’s soul” from where he’s walking, speaking softly as though the darkness demands quiet. The man’s face is heavily pockmarked, though it’s mostly obscured in the dark. Although he walks behind the other men, he’s the leader of the party.
The leader’s use of the word “kaffir,” an Afrikaans racial slur that demeans non-white people, indicates that the story is set during South African apartheid, a period of legally enforced segregation when racist sentiments like this were commonplace. The leader has thus revealed himself to be a bigoted white man who likely benefits from his country’s white supremacist system—and his loaded shotgun characterizes him as a potentially violent person. It’s symbolically significant, then, that he walks at the back of the party rather than the front, the farthest away from the lantern light. This implies that the leader’s racial privilege enables him to remain shrouded in darkness (secrecy) as he discriminates and even carries out violence against non-white people. It’s also important that aroma of the lemons stands out while other sensorial elements of the men’s surroundings are imperceptible. The persistent smell represents the idea that although the group is clearly trying to hide whatever they’re doing from society, the moral implications of their actions cannot be suppressed.
Themes
Another man in the party complains that it’s cold out, and the leader sarcastically asks if he’s as cold as “this verdomte hotnot,” gesturing the gun toward the “coloured” man walking ahead of them. The coloured man is shivering, as he’s the only one who isn’t dressed in warm clothes; the other men had only allowed him to put on pants and a raincoat over his pajamas when they’d taken him from where he was sleeping. They hadn’t even given him time to tie his shoes. The man with the lantern tauntingly asks the coloured man if he’s cold, but the coloured man refuses to reply—partially out of fear but mostly out of stubbornness. The fifth man in the group, Andries, says that the coloured man isn’t cold: he’s shivering with fear.
Here, the identity of the aforementioned man in the group who isn’t dressed in warm clothing is revealed: he’s the captive of the other men, having been woken up from where he was sleeping and forced out into the cold. The term “coloured” is a South African racial category that encompasses all multiracial people, and the fact that the narrative singles this man out as such indicates that all of the other men in the party are white and that the coloured man’s race has something to do with why he’s been taken prisoner. Indeed, the leader uses another Afrikaans slur, “hotnot,” to insult the coloured man based on his race. That the white men bundled themselves up in warm clothing yet forbade the coloured man from putting on sufficient layers indicates that they view him as fundamentally different from them, undeserving of a basic human necessity like warmth. Further, Andries’s mockery of the coloured man’s fear is the first indicator that he and the other white men are deeply hypocritical, as the fact that they waited until nightfall to capture the coloured man exposes their cowardice.
Themes
Again, the coloured man stays silent and looks ahead at the silhouette of the man with the lantern. He doesn’t want to look at the two men on either side of him, as they’re both carrying whips. Andries laughs that the coloured man is dumb as well, but the leader protests and asks the men to wait a moment. They all stop, and the man with the lantern shines the light on the group.
Andries’s insult about the coloured man’s intelligence again sends the message that the white men (and, by extension, South Africa’s white supremacist society as a whole) view non-white people as inherently inferior to them. The whips that Andries and the other man are carrying are ominous; along with the leader’s shotgun, these weapons are likely to be used against the coloured man as a means of punishing or suppressing him.
Themes
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The leader tells the others that the coloured man isn’t dumb—rather, he’s “one of those educated bushmen.” The leader then grows angry and demands that the coloured man answer when a baas speaks to him. He presses the muzzle of the shotgun into the coloured man’s back and calls him a racial slur again, threatening to shoot him if he doesn’t respond. The coloured man, whose hands are bound behind his back, tries not to shiver in case the others mistake it as cowardice. He hears the hammer of the gun being cocked back and feels sweat droplets form on his upper lip despite the cold.
The leader’s characterization of the coloured man as “one of those educated bushmen” is oxymoronic—calling the coloured man a “bushman” is meant to suggest that he’s uncivilized, yet this doesn’t match up with him being a well-educated member of society. This contradiction, coupled with the leader’s violent threat, begins to suggest that the white men view the coloured man as a potential challenge to their authority. The emphasis on his education implies that the white men are not as intelligent or competent in comparison, and they’re lashing out violently at him in order to protect their unearned societal privilege as white men. Further, the leader’s suggestion that the coloured man is a savage is deeply hypocritical, given that the leader is the one acting barbarically in this passage. Clearly, he holds white and non-white people to entirely different standards.
Themes
With a nervous laugh, the man with the lantern tells the leader not to shoot the coloured man—after all, they don’t want to be involved in a murder. But the leader questions what the man with the lantern is implying. The leader’s face, now illuminated by the lantern, is dark red and so covered in lines and wrinkles that it resembles a map full of roads and waterways. His features stand out like mountains and valleys, and his blue eyes are like icy lakes.
The man with the lantern’s anxiety about killing the coloured man suggests that he knows what they’re doing is wrong—yet as the one guiding the other men through the orchard, he’s complicit in the abuse that’s occurring. With this, the story implies that those who discriminate against others often delude themselves or adopt hypocritical double standards to justify their wrongdoings. Meanwhile, the illumination of the leader’s face is symbolically significant. The ongoing shifts between light and darkness as the men walk through the orchard represent the varying degrees to which racism is hidden or exposed in apartheid South African society. That the leader, previously shrouded in darkness, is now bathed in light suggests that his racist ideology is about to cross over into overt violence. And the comparison of the man’s scarred face with a convoluted map is a metaphor for how South Africa has been separated and marred—both geographically and ideologically—by its divisive politics.
Themes
The leader then calls the coloured man “a slim hotnot” and points out that he’s a teacher at a school that the men in the group pay for, which means that he lives off of their labor. The leader reminds the others that the coloured man was rude to a minister at their church and says that he won’t allow any “hotnot” to disrespect a white man. The man with the lantern agrees but says that they’re going to deal with the coloured man without the trouble the would arise from killing him. The leader, however, is adamant that he’ll “shoot whatever hotnot or kaffir” he wants—he “demand[s] respect” from them.
Once again, the leader’s use of racial slurs like “hotnot” and “kaffir” are meant to dehumanize the coloured man as something fundamentally different from white people. But the white men’s hatred of the coloured man is revealed to be entirely unwarranted: the coloured man did not commit any crime but merely talked back to a white authority figure. This further characterizes the white men as hypocritical, as they decry the coloured man as disrespectful and uncivilized, yet they are the ones acting cruel and barbaric in a way that’s entirely disproportionate to the coloured man’s perceived slight. Again, the men seem to be motivated by a fear of white people losing their privileged position under apartheid—they “demand respect” and are willing to resort to violence as a means of securing their authority over non-white people.
Themes
Suddenly, the leader shoves the barrel of the shotgun into the coloured man’s back and demands to know if the coloured man heard him speak. Then, Andries hits the coloured man in the face, his fist still clenched around his whip. Angry over being delayed, he calls the coloured man a racial slur and echoes the leader’s demand for him to answer. The coloured man stumbles and catches himself in the shadow of one of the lemon trees, looking away from the lantern light shining onto him. Afraid that the enraged leader will shoot him, the coloured man averts his eyes and replies, “Yes, baas.” The other men are oblivious to the mixture of composure and contempt in his voice.
The white men’s hypocrisy is further evidenced by the contradiction of their demands for respect alongside Andries’s brutal violence—clearly, they have no respect for non-white people in return. The coloured man admirably remains level-headed and dignified in spite of this abuse, only giving in to the white men’s demands of being called baas (“master”) when he begins to fear for his life. The light shining on him in this moment symbolizes his realization that the white men’s threats toward him are no longer vague or empty—their capacity for violence has been brought to light.
Themes
The rest of the group, satisfied with the coloured man’s response, continue on; the leader again shoves the coloured man forward with the muzzle of the shotgun. As they walk, the leader points out that the coloured man should have taken the principal and the church leader to court over the whipping they gave him. Andries assures the leader that they’ll give the man a better whipping, teaching him a lesson so that he’ll never seek damages from anyone. The leader agrees—afterward, he says, the coloured man will flee to the city, where undignified people live. He says that they don’t want any “educated hottentots” in their town, and another one of the men adds that they don’t want Black Englishmen either.
The revelation that the coloured man was already whipped once for talking back to the white minister indicates that such treatment of non-white people is commonplace under apartheid. That the coloured man did not press charges for this act of violence further supports the idea that such atrocities are socially accepted and even legally condoned—the coloured man likely wouldn’t have had a chance at winning if he’d taken his case to court. The white men’s determination to whip the coloured men a second time reveals just how terrified they are of non-white people rising up to challenge the rigged system of white supremacy in any way. The leader’s scorn for “educated hottentots” (again using a racial slur to demean non-white people) further highlights his fear that Black and multiracial people achieving upward mobility and success will somehow rob him of the privilege he enjoys as a white person under apartheid. Yet his belief that non-white people are somehow undignified is clearly illogical and hypocritical, as the coloured man’s composure throughout the story has proven him to be much more dignified than the white men.
Themes
Just then, the dog at the farmhouse across the valley starts barking again, and the man with the lantern wonders what’s bothering the watchdog. He shares that he once offered to buy the dog, but the owner wouldn’t sell it. The man says that he’d take excellent care of a dog like that. As the men continue walking, the leaves on the lemon trees rustle violently in the wind, a sound that contrasts with the pleasant smell of the fruit. By now, the air has gotten even colder, and the crickets louder. The moon appears from behind the clouds and bathes the leaves in silvery light, and the fragrance of the lemons seems stronger—as though they were being juiced.
This is perhaps the clearest example of the white men’s hypocrisy. The man with the lantern’s comments about the watchdog indicate that he’s fully capable of extending concern and care to beings who are different from him—his complicity in the violence toward the coloured man, then, is a conscience choice. The story thus shows that people who discriminate against others often compartmentalize their behavior and use double standards in order to justify themselves. With this in mind, the pronounced smell of the lemons in this passage is symbolically significant: just as the aroma of the fruit stands out against the otherwise ominous scene, the men’s moral transgressions are obvious and undeniable regardless of their attempts to hide and justify their violence. It’s also significant that the moon has appeared, given that light is an ongoing symbol of overt racism. The moon’s resurfacing (and the way it shines light onto the trees) suggests that just as the moon has been hidden yet present throughout the story, so too is the South African government’s racist regime a distant yet undeniable influence on the white men’s actions.
Themes
Under the moonlight, the group walks a bit farther until the man with the lantern points out a place to stop. The spot is a wide clearing in the orchard, a sort of amphitheater surrounded by lemon trees. The moonlight shines onto the leaves and branches, illuminating the dew along the sharp angles and edges of the trees like shiny quicksilver.
That the clearing is compared to an amphitheater, where audiences watch performances or events, suggests that the men’s attempts at secrecy are in vain—they cannot fully deny the moral implications of the violence they’re about to commit. That they’re surrounded by lemon trees, an ongoing symbol for the undeniably of morality, reinforces this idea. And again, the moonlight serves as a metaphor for the ways in which the South African government’s white supremacist regime radiates outward to influence its citizens behavior, enabling and condoning their most violent impulses just as the moonlight highlights and distorts the harsh angles of the trees. “The Lemon Orchard” ends without any clear resolution, but it’s implied that the white men will go through with whipping the coloured man as planned. With this, the story leaves readers with the message that apartheid South Africa’s racial hierarchy is fundamentally cruel and unfair, affording unearned privilege to a select group who then deny their moral instincts and inflict violence to maintain their social standing.
Themes
