Abstract
In Nadine Gordimer's 1990 novel My Son's Story, all of the three female characters in the story are comprehensively and simultaneously involved in the anti-apartheid politics, though at different stages in the chronology of the story. More importantly, although these three women are involved in the anti-apartheid politics during the same time span, they form three diverse yet individually characteristic patterns of female political participation. Moreover, textual and contextual investigations have pointed out that the background of the story is exquisitely situated at the specific historical moment in the history of South African liberation movement, that is, the years of the revolutionary 1980s. Puzzled by the simultaneity of their political involvement as well as captivated by the diversity of the political trajectories, in this thesis I attempt to situate the question of the simultaneity of the three women's political involvement in the wider context of real apartheid history and to propose the possibilities that condition their simultaneous involvement. Most of all, individual portraits of these women involved in the anti-apartheid politics will be particularly drawn. Through portraying women involved in the anti-apartheid politics and situating the question of the simultaneity of these women's political involvement in the social and political context, it is my hope that the individual characteristics of these women in politics will be further discussed, and the specific historical moments intersected with racial, social and political problems in South Africa will be deeper explored.