In "A Soldier's Embrace", Nadine Gordimer starts with a celebration of freedom. The blacks in this South African country have just won the right to govern themselves. In "A Soldier's Embrace", the lawyer and his wife represent white liberals and offer an ironic historical overview of South African society.

During the celebration, the lawyer's wife kisses two men on the cheek. They were grinning and laughing amazement. That it could be: there they were, bumping into each other's bodies in joy... one side a white cheek, the other a black. The white one she kissed on the left cheek, the black one on the right cheek, as if these were two sides of one face, (Kalasky 163).

The technique of the story is gradually to develop the embrace of the white soldier and the black soldier, with the white liberal woman caught in between, into a metaphor of the...