Commentary - What's The Ending To Nadine Gordimer's An Intruder All About?

When are y'all going to sit down downward too bargain alongside what y'all fearfulness the most Commentary - What's the Ending to Nadine Gordimer's An Intruder All About?

Nadine Gordimer -- An Intruder

That Dratted ... errm ... Enigmatic Ending

So I said to myself i day, “When are y'all going to sit down downward too bargain alongside what y'all fearfulness the most – non beingness able to come upwards up alongside a plausible interpretation for the “incident” or ending to Gordimer’s small storey “An Intruder” that wouldn’t brand readers express mirth their socks off?”

That dratted ending. It escaped me the offset fourth dimension I read the story, too then in i trial again the instant too 3rd time, till I finally got pen too newspaper too jotted downward all the facts inwards a trend that Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot would never receive got had the idiocy to acquiesce to, given their superior powers of recollection. At whatsoever rate, seeing the facts earlier me inwards banker's complaint cast did brand sure enough words stand upwards out higher upwards all else, enabling me to clit conclusions nearly what Gordimer may receive got intended for the reader to deduce. Let’s regard what those facts are:

both Marie too Seago were sleeping “a slumber similar death”
- her ‘death’ was induced past times exhaustion
- his ‘death’ was induced past times drink
the incident was witnessed (after having taken place) at 8 am on a Dominicus morning

Marie is woken upwards past times the ringing of church bells

Marie offset notices “the incident” when she enters the kitchen

she should receive got noticed it sooner when she bumps into a chair “askew inwards the passage”
what she sees is

flour strewn all over
syrup thrown at the walls
soap powder, milk, cocoa, salad oil were “upset over everything”
the white muslin curtains she had set upwards were ripped to shreds

she goes to wake James

“He lay at that topographic point asleep, equally she had lain, equally they both had lain spell this – Thing – happened. While Someone. Something. In the apartment alongside them.”

both larn through each room of the house

kitchen
living room
“dark hole of a bathroom”

what the living room has to offering past times agency of clues

the sofa’s soft cushions receive got a pile -- “an offering” -- on each of them

slime of contraceptive jelly + her hair combings from the wastepaper handbasket inwards the bedroom
toothpaste + razor blades
mucous of half-rotted vegetable affair = peelings, tea leaves, dregs (from the dustbin)

what the bathroom has to offer

cosmetics spilt
underwear Marie “had left at that topographic point was arranged inwards an obscene collage alongside intimate objects of toilet”
two cotton gowns were inwards the bathtub, bottle of liqueur had been emptied on them

“it was … the components of their daily existence too its symbols.”

“… at that topographic point could live a rational explanation for what had happened, a malicious too wicked intruder who had scrawled contempt on the passionate rites of their intimacy, smeared filth on the cosy contemporary home-making of the living room, too made rags of the rose silk encompass too the white muslin curtains.”

“For of course of education he didn’t recall a thing until he woke too flora she had flung herself on him terrified.”

The key, inwards my view, is flora inwards the lastly clue I noted. Gordimer has already told us that Marie has noticed how “James, her husband, did non seem drunkard during these sessions [the nights spent out at the nightclubs], but side past times side 24-hour interval he would recall cypher of what he had said or done the nighttime before.” Anything he does during those outings he seems to forget, though to what extent he is faking oblivion is questionable. The regard alongside Colin from Basutoland which Gordimer describes instantly later on nosotros read nearly Seago’s forgetfulness is strategically placed thence equally to allow the reader to link the 2 too conclude that James selectively chooses to live inwards the black when it suits him. In other words, if nosotros await dorsum at the incident at the halt of the story, the logical determination would be....