“Although she goes quite ugly with anger when Grace says, You English people from overseas… I’m Scottish, Miss McAllister snarls, actually baring her teeth. Now what kind of putting on is that, she said to Tracy-Anne, when everybody knows it’s the same place, same people.”

This quote stuck out to me a lot when I read the short story, as well as when I was working on my presentation with my groupmates. Something Fiona wants is to be distanced and seen as separate from the English, which is why she specifically identifies as Scottish. She doesn’t want to be seen as an oppressor, she wants to be seen as someone who is supporting people of colour, especially since she’s a part of the anti-apartheid movement. She constantly tries to connect with Grace, however she doesn’t do so in a way that is appealing to her. The two come from different worlds, and different experiences. Fiona is a wealthy white woman who is privileged in life, while Grace lives in poverty, faces segregation, discrimination, and racism. To Grace, all white people are the same. They are all oppressors, regardless of where they’re from. Fiona didn’t help improve her image when she also brought up a stereotype directed towards black folks when she asked how Grace was able to look so young and stay in shape, which Grace seemed to take with offense. While Fiona was attempting to connect with Grace, and meant to come from a good place, she was far from hitting the mark she intended to.

“Kerry: Mrs. Gresham, are you sure you’re not committing an error?
Woman: Why should I commit an error?
Kerry: Because I don’t think I’ve ever set eyes on you before … In fact, I’m (he hesitates) I’m almost certain it’s all a mistake.”

“Woman: How can I know that? I don’t know the limits of your talents, do I? Of your capabilities, I mean. (Pause) I can’t simply say straight off, can 1, whether or not you can help? All I can say is, I’m prepared to try you. (Pause) There are so many quacks in Harley street these days, one has to be careful about whom one can trust. (Pause) Oh, I don’t mean you, of course! So far as I can tell, your qualifications are of the highest standards. (Pause) Your qualifications are impeccable. Beyond any question or doubt. All your patients testify to your tremendous skill, to your personal warmth. They say you have a certain touch. (She laughs sexily.) The touch of the sun, I suppose. There must be many women, Dr. Kerry, white, middle-class women like myself, who find the idea of a personal encounter with you positively overpowering. (Pause) Do you know, my sister has been going to one psychoanalyst now for twenty years without any appreciable improvement in her condition. She must have paid a fortune by now. I’ve told her she ought to try someone else for a change. Someone like you, Dr. Kerry: someone from a different background who’s not afraid to show a little personal warmth!”

The play Nkosi wrote is one that is extremely intriguing. There’s so much going on, from the obvious to underlying tones. There’s definite tones of sexual and racial tension between Dr. Kerry and Mrs. Gresham. Some are definitely noted in the above quotes. The way Grasham interacts with Kerry, how she ends up finding out she is related to him, and how much denial there is truly interests me. She’s got white privilege, just like any other white person. However, she also displays traits seen in those who believe in white supremacy. Another thing I found interesting is why she was so keen on making him remember their intimacy. Is it done so she feels superior in a way ? What was her true motive. It’s something that circles around my head that I haven’t fully grasped on yet.

“Woman: I’m warning you, Kerry! I don’t care if you’re black and South African and have been oppressed for as long as anyone can remember. This is not South Africa. Here you’re just another psychiatrist, a professional man, like anybody else. No favors. You’re supposed to perform your duties like anyone else without fear or favor.”

In the above quote, you can tell the tone Grasham has is negative and very passive aggressive- if not already aggressive. It’s hard to tell sometimes. She’s belittling him, only saying this as a way to threaten him. Hell, later on she ends up threatening to call the cops and says only he will get arrested due to his skin colour. She’s being racist, she’s threatening him, and she sure as hell doesn’t seem to care what happens to him. What she wants is to play whatever sick game she wants, and to win it.

“Woman: He’s a chemist. An Adulterous Chemist, Dr. Kerry. He thinks I don’t know he’s sleeping with that Wilkins woman. Some common tart he picked up in the midlands to work as his assistant in the laboratory. God, what a joke!”

This quote makes me a smidge confused and yet very interested. I may be reading into it wrong, but she sounds jealous. Why would a racist woman who has belittled the very man she slept with feel jealous ? Is she actually jealous ? Is she just upset, disgusted, embarrassed ? Trying to get into the mind of Mrs. Gresham and understand her words and actions makes my head spin. Plot twists, tone shifts, Mrs. Gresham’s entire mood shifts, and all are so confusing and yet very interesting. It makes sense and yet it doesn’t. One thing I want to be certain of is that she may have issues like how Kerry presumed so as well. There’s no way a sane, aware, human being does whatever the hell Gresham did right ? Surely not. I wouldn’t do that, I doubt anyone else here would either.

“Yes, and what about this numbness, which I conceal from others? Is it a trait? Is inherited trauma like the water passed from one generation to another, placed in the hands of each person in turn?”

This is it. This is the line that solidified the meaning of the text for me. When reading Kapil’s poem, I was a bit confused as to what it was about. There were mentions of her relatives and her mother, mentions of trauma and generations, however it wasn’t until these specific lines when the purpose- the meaning- of the poem hit me: generational trauma. Generational trauma is a horrible thing, something that no one should have to experience or bear such burden. The poets mention how her mother “was still traumatized by these experiences,” and how she viewed the world had impacted her (poet), casting a “spell” on her. When one experiences trauma, it has a strong impact on the person– it reshapes their whole world. It causes them great pain, and that pain can be projected onto those around them; it even passes down generations. My parents and their parents have lived through war. First it was WWII, my maternal grandfather lost his hand to a discarded defective grenade in the nearby mountains in Dinosh, Podgorica, Montenegro. Germans had abandoned them there. Then there was the civil war and the collapse of Yugoslavia. My mother was forced to learn to load and fire a rifle when she was 10, my uncle when he was 5. My great aunt was held in a concentration camp the Serbians built, and left it broken and physically disabled. They all bear trauma caused by a collapsed socialist country, one that no longer exists and yet has caused great trauma. They tell us these stories, they project their pain onto us in the form of lessons: what to “avoid,” what is “bad,” and who is “bad.” They despise Serbians; they despise socialists, comparing them to communists; they despise politics, blaming them for the pain and suffering millions have endured. Kapil touches on this, mentioning how “my mother wept, telling this story to my son in a Mexican restaurant on Eisenhower Avenue. It was my mistake. He was writing a paper on colonization. I said: “Ask your grandmother. She’s sitting right in front of you. She
lived…” Through these things.” Whether directly or indirectly done, trauma is passed down from one generation to another. In this case, it’s the grandmother telling her grandson what she experienced for the sake of his paper. In other cases, like my own, it’s so we can hopefully avoid what previous generations have experienced. It sparks a fear in us, it shapes our world the way it reshaped theirs, it causes us to form prejudice of any degree. This can continue, whether intentional or not– consciously done or not– we may end up repeating this molding, this reshaping of worlds: trauma passed down from generation to generation.

After reading your blog post, I was able to see the poem and its meaning in a whole new light. Not once, against the teachings of former teachers,  did I think of looking into the regional background and time period of when and where the poem was written. I had assumed it was located somewhere in the Middle East, but not of the year when it was written. You spoke of men attacking other men, checking men for circumcision to confirm their religion (Muslim or Hindu), and even enacting violence upon one another. One thing I thought that truly tied your point together and strengthened it was how you related to it (in a way). You brought up your own origins, as well as mentioning how your grandfather spoke of such things he’s experienced in his youth. It makes the message of the poem all the more real, and all the more horrifying. It’s like a stamp on a letter, confirming–solidifying–everything. 

I’m quite glad this poem is short, especially since my attention span has been rather short. When I first read “Sorry,” I was certain it was about assault. To be specific, SA. Another thing I was certain of was that it was a man assaulting another man. Of course, following what the past several years of school has taught me, I read the poem again. This time, I began to question my certainty. Was it a man who was being assaulted, or was it a woman ? I took notice towards the name of the author and chose to search him up. At first, I believed Manto might have been a woman, in which perhaps the story was a telling or projection of personal experience ? Upon searching him up, I found out he was a man, which in a way supported my certainty towards my original claims. I am still under the impression the poem is some form of self-projection, a telling of his experience. Going back to my claim, one thing that truly made me believe this was the last line of the poem. The apology itself was insincere- painfully so too. SA towards men, whether by another man or woman, is always overlooked or downplayed. The attacker downplays their actions and excuses them. Calling such a thing a “mistake” is a way to downplay it, and Manto makes sure it is known even if it is conveyed in few words. This poem doesn’t seem to be just self-projection, but also a. lesson: a way of saying “this is not a mistake,  despite what the attacker is saying. It is done with complete awareness and full intent–there is no mistake.