The Promise

The final pages of the novel force the reader to reconsider much of what has come before. Throughout the entire novel, Galgut leads the reader to imagine the promise to give Salome her house as the thing the Swarts must do to redeem themselves. When Amor finally does it, however, Lukas reveals that in many ways it is a worthless gesture, highlighting the theme of The Difficulty of Addressing Past Injustices. Although Amor objects to this, Lukas’s view is well-supported. The house’s value has depreciated, and Salome is now 71 years old, meaning she has a limited time left in life to enjoy any profits she might make from it. Equally importantly, the Swarts’ failure to uphold their promise has contributed profoundly to Lukas’s cynicism. With good reason, he doubts that any white South Africans, even seemingly well-intentioned ones like Amor, are willing to do anything meaningful to address apartheid’s lingering effects. This resonates with a general feeling of the youth during this era of Cynicism Toward Institutions. The legacy of apartheid’s discriminatory education system was still evident at this time, with many black students having limited access to quality education. Education was supposed to be multilingual, but in practice English dominated, leaving those who wanted to study African languages with few resources. The #FeesMustFall movement, which began in 2015 and continued into 2017, highlighted the frustrations of young South Africans with the high cost of university education and the slow pace of transformation in the education sector. The protests underscored the need for more significant investment in education and more inclusive policies.

While Amor has been the novel’s heroine and conscience, Lukas’s accusations put her actions in a new light; doing more than the rest of her family does not mean that she did enough. Galgut’s strategy of withholding Salome and Lukas’s perspectives until this moment makes this ending more powerful, highlighting The Inherent Worth and Complexity of All People. It reinforces that the very thing the Swarts resisted doing for 31 years was not something that Salome and Lukas ever saw as a particularly meaningful gesture. In reality, the Swarts never knew what Salome really wanted or what would have most helped her.

Readers do not learn whether this encounter changes Amor, but given her general humility, there is good reason to believe she will take Lukas’s words to heart and rethink her own contributions to racial equality in South Africa. While the promise may finally be fulfilled, the road to equality still stretches out before the nation with much work left to be done.