Although skin color has played a decisive role in human relations for hundreds of years and continues to signify power relations, the concept of “race” is relatively new. It is a primordial tendency of humanity to consider its own race or blood superior to that of its peers. But recognizing this bias towards biological genetic properties is a relatively new concept. Michael Banton observes that Race is a concept rooted in a specific culture and a specific historical period which brings with it suggestions on how to explain these metamorphoses. It is suggested for use in a variety of contexts and is explained in an entire style or idiom of clarification. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The term “race relations” refers to the relationship between individuals of numerous races. The Cambridge Dictionary provides a simple definition of race relations as "the relationship between members of different races". While the Collins Dictionary defines the term as “Race relations are the ways in which people of different races living together in the same community behave towards each other.” These race relations are intensely present in colonial societies and South Africa is the prime example of such a society. It has a variability of racial cultures. And since Andre Brink's literature is the representation of social reality, it allows him as an author to make a noticeable imprint on the soul of a particular person, as well as the entire community. South African novelists, white, black and also as coloured, have commented on the discriminatory practices in their country. In South Africa, apartheid existed for about four decades and was based on law until 1990. According to this law, the black races were not allowed to mix with the white races. Sexual relations and marriages between different races were considered illegitimate. In the 1950s and 1960s major authors such as Nadine Gordimer, Alan Paton, Dan Jacobson, JM Coetzee and Andre Brink portrayed this difficult situation brought about by realistic images of South Africa. Andre Brink is one of South Africa's largest, most thriving and globally acclaimed authors. Its central thematic concern is the search for the interdependence of the black and white races beyond entrenched racial prejudices. This thesis intends to emphasize the representation of social reality in the different aspects of racial relations as articulated in Andre Brink's novels; one of them is Before I Forget. The central character and narrator of the novel is a seventy-eight-year-old South African writer, Chris Minnaar. He fell into that state of melancholic and questioning memory, where all his previous repressions and relationships with women were renewed for a long time. It made whatever gift he had for writing vanish. Meet Rachel on New Year's Eve. It turns out to be the innumerable love of his life. His mother is over a hundred years old. Thus, his confidence that his previous purpose is to take care of her. But he finds himself fascinated by Rachel and therefore unable to care for his mother. He has a close acquaintance with Rachel's husband, George. Their friendship inevitably intimidates this uncertain trilateral relationship. Throughout this story, the story of his life is intertwined. The story resembles lifelong love stories that include brief relationships, prolonged relationships, a marriage, extremely fervent sexual encounters, and even delicate affections. There are numerous types of women such as Daphne, the troubled dancer, Bonnie, the secretaryof his father, etc. They belong to almost all breeds. These women shape and inform his life. Since it is clear that the present novel is Chris's last act of writing in his artistic life, it can be understood that the memory of many loves is an effort to bring order to an otherwise disorderly situation. As Godfrey Meintjes aptly points out, “The narrator, Chris Minnaar… driven by the death of his lover, addresses the deceased in a series of notes that take stock of his life and loves; in the process, the private experiences recounted reflect broad swaths of South African history.” In this new novel Before I Forget by André Brink there are moments when you have the feeling that he is sending out the emotional male novelist who wears his heart on his sleeve. and always tries to get in touch with her feminine side. Before I Forget is stitched together by the memories of a 78-year-old writer, Chris Minaar, who measures his life in love affairs. Minaar also includes a couple of women from Brink's novels among her former lovers. Minaar is Don Juan when he isn't Peter Pan, recalling his serial relationships throughout much of the 20th century. The tragic lovers of great works are a tireless point of reference. It begins with his disturbed love for his mother, whose memory fades but she is unable to forget her husband's infidelities. Minaar's last unconsummated passion is for Rachel, a young, happily married sculptor who demotes the old man to the rough status of trusted friend. This is a post-apartheid novel, but also a post-power novel. Minaar, the once vigorous satyr, has been reduced to babysitting Rachel when her photographer husband George is away. Cape Town provides a rather stark backdrop for the dialogues between Minaar, Rachel and George about love, art and Don Giovanni. For all the heat of these discussions, the triad seems to live in a twilight world – as if the “real” things that once lit up their sky ended with Mandela's rise. Rachel sculpts small, intricate figures, and although Minaar claims their physical strength, you get the sense that they serve much the same purpose as the complicated patterns the Victorians sewed onto specimens: an antidote to the haste and rudeness of the new world. They exist, these people, on the other side of the ecstasy that greeted the end of apartheid. An air of disorientation hangs over them. And they fear for personal safety, because what has flowed into the space emptied by the "old" politics is accidental evil, a factor that will trigger the tragedy. Minaar's life was a series of sexual events with activists, followers, artists and spies. One after another, her lovers walk down the walkway of memory. Brink had a great idea when he tied Minaar's love life to influential moments in South African history, from the Sharpeville massacre to the Soweto uprising to Mandela's emancipation. It should work, but I don't think these wild political events shed much light on the sexual escapades of an elderly, brooding white novelist. There is an excellent moment where Rachel tells Minaar that he is a hopeless romantic and an irredeemable sentimentalist. She's right and he knows it, but he begs to differ. Somehow it seems like Minaar's creation is Brink's insubordinate assertion that feelings matter, emotions are real, and if too many make you look foolish, worse. This is brave. The old-fashioned way of doing things in South Africa was for public drama to demolish private feelings. South African, Minaar says he has always been afraid of feelings and embarrassed by intimacy. But the constant dramatization of his feelings makes Minaar excessively agitated. When he watches television images depicting the war in Iraq, he diagnosesthe American incursion as a form of male stubbornness. An interesting thought turns out to be another way of emphasizing Minaar's sexual mortification at the hands of her father and other aggressive males. Using apartheid to explain American belligerence is unconvincing. Minaar teems with self-centeredness. His love affairs are pretty soggy; perhaps because his women are really pegs on which to hang another chapter of the "true" history that he, like all writers of the apartheid era, cannot forget: the frightening narrative of South African history. For Minaar the truly noteworthy other is not a person but a place. It's about a lifetime with the kind of partner that, as he quizzically admits, no one in their right mind would fall in love with. Ultimately Brink's vexed and indulgent attachment to South Africa is the strongest thing about this novel. Brink primarily emphasized intraracial and interracial male-female relationships in his novel. These relationships are established by describing the hero's relationships with various women. There are more than twenty women in his life. All these women play an essential role in his development as a true human being. We will talk here about some of their representatives such as his mother, nanny, wife, Rachel, Driekie, Daphne, Merlene, Bonneie, Venessa etc. Chris Minnaar has been in relationships with many women throughout his life. Right at the beginning of the novel, he confesses: 'There are two moments in my relationship with every woman I have known in my life that have brought me closer to understanding... what it means to be alive. ' (Brink 4) He has relationships with not only black women but also white and colored women. He meets a young married woman, Rachel. With cumulative encounters, he secretly falls in love with her. After his wife's death, he is well escorted by Rachel. But after Rachel's death, Chris suffers from isolation. He can't stop writing down memories of Rachel. As she writes these memories, she inevitably evokes other women in her life before Rachel. He thinks that writing about Rachel ties him to the memories of all those other people, especially women, who have influenced his life. By portraying his relationships with women, the novelist introduced us to his relationships with his mother, with his nanny, as well as with his wife. He has strong relationships with three of them. His mother is over a hundred years old and lives in an old house. He always goes to meet her, to take care of her. Since his childhood, he shared his every experience with her. He too asks her for guidance and assistance regarding the girls. He chooses to marry Helena because she suggests security, expectation and companionship. Before his marriage to Helena and even after her death, he longed for these things, as he admits, "later in life I missed, dear, the sense of a 'home' to return to." Brink depicts the relationship between a black nanny and her master's son by describing the relationship between Chris and Aia. Due to his mother's long illness, Chris is hired by a black nanny. She is their old housekeeper. She recites rhymes and stories for him in his native language, Xhosa. Chris always said his old Hague. It is thanks to her that he develops an awareness of black culture. It might be well thought out that his relationship with Nannie becomes the basis for his impartial view towards other races. As the novel continues, Chris's humanistic vision towards other races, his political consideration as well as his anti-apartheid temperament are revealed. But the novelist only made him reflect on the existing political status of South Africa and also that of the world. Characters are not allowed to take vigorous participation in politics. We can understand that this is the reality in South Africa during apartheid. Even the white people who are incontradiction with apartheid they cannot utter a single word due to the oppressive policies of the state. Christopher Hope records that: “The traditional way of doing things in South Africa was for public drama to erase private feelings. South Africans… have always been afraid of feelings and ashamed of intimacy.” This is applicable to the mentality of one of the characters, Daphne. She is a dancer. Although she is a dancer, she can talk about a surprising range of topics such as: 'the ice ages of Europe, bison in America, colonial exploitation in Africa; and invariably he returned to the political situation of the country and his acute sense of involvement in it.' Although she loves Chris, she always tries to maintain a safe distance between them. When Chris asserts her, she can't help herself and throws her into his arms. But later she is humiliated by her intimacy and penalizes herself by dancing meticulously and throwing her body into the thorn bushes of her garden while dancing. Chris is unable to judge his performance and the reason behind his thinking. She wore a shaggy rope knotted around her waist so tightly that it left marks of many colors on her soft skin. He confesses to Chris that he wears the rope to keep himself aware of reality. She is very disenchanted with the Sharpeville incident. According to her: even if I can't change anything, I can avoid forgetting. I want to make sure that with every movement of my body, on stage or off, I will never allow myself to ignore what is happening beyond my own little world. Here, Brink depicted the discontent in the minds of people who oppose apartheid and its oppressive policies. It argues that political activities agree on the nature of race relations at the group level as well as can touch race relations at the individual level as well. Another alarming episode with the Sharpeville massacre decides Chris' fate as an author. But as he progresses as an established author he begins to abandon his relationships with his father, Marlene etc. Chris has been writing since he was twelve or thirteen. But it was the Sharpeville Massacre that forced him to actually write. He begins to write a novel about Sharpeville in a notebook, which is produced by his father. He gets very irritated and throws the book on the desk. He orders Chris not to write this nonsense anymore. But Chris continues to write in secret and his mother hides everything he has created in her dresser. But Sharpeville's outburst disturbs him so deeply that he can no longer bear the silence. And he publishes A Time to Weep, a novel about Sharpeville. At that time he is inspired by a young woman named Marlene. This novel A Time to Weep establishes a surprising protest and resolves his future as an author. He writes the novel in Afrikaans but there is no plan to publish it in Afrikaans. With Merlene's help he translates the novel into English and publishes it in England. After the novel was published, Merlene left him because she thinks the book took him away from her. It is the Sharpeville massacre that unites two individuals, but it is the preconception that separates them forever. It is a demonstration of the prejudiced mentality typical of the white races. In this regard we can consider Ghorpade's observation. She states: 'Race relations have almost always been conducted in terms of conflict.' The relationships between Chris and his father result in stressed relationships between a father and his son, which focus on tensions in family relationships. The cumulative disconnect between family relationships is a result of apartheid as well as dissatisfaction with apartheid among younger generations. Bonnie Pieterse is the only person of color in Chris' father's office. She is the only person dignifiedly affectedof note to have his surname credited. He has been working there for at least five years. She was initially named "tea girl". Thanks to her impressive skills as a typist and stenographer, she is quickly promoted. She also gets promoted to secretary. The writer gives two reasons for her promotion which are significantly true in the South African scenario. One reason is that it is inexpensive to hire a black woman than to hire a white woman and the other is her incredible beauty. Chris's father likes to let her go. He thinks that she replicates his generosity as a good Christian and an important businessman well. Even though he knows his place, he has a quiet and healthy self-confidence. On the day of the Van Riebeeck Festival there is "a series of presentations and historical scenes". Chris's father offers the entire office staff the day off, including Bonnie. So they could watch those presentations; as well as "taking some edifying lessons from history". They all go to see the presentations. Bonneie, Gerald and Solly are already there in their "Sunday best". The rest of "their people" were also present at the event. The presentation reveals the history of the white man's entry into the African continent. These presentations were the clear demonstration of how God's chosen people had, by divine providence, come to rule this land... van Riebeeck's arrival at the Cape of Good Hope and the first meeting between his band of colonizers in their resplendent gowns straight out of Rembrandt's The Night Watch and the gang of tales of fawning, radiant Hottentots, soon to be lured into abject submission by the fumes of arrack and tobacco. Biased whites have always celebrated their whiteness, supremacy and sovereignty and consider other races brutal and captive. Chris finds it so embarrassing that he gets up and leaves. His father gets angry with him and then asks his intention to leave the show. Initially Chris makes excuses but when his father insists he can't stop himself from clarifying the real reason. She tells him that she cannot imagine such a humiliating presentation in front of black and brown people. He states: “The point is, when van Riebeeck's landing was staged, I suddenly thought about how it must have seemed to them to see their ancestors portrayed that way. Like so many dogs crawling on their bellies, begging for a crust of bread or a chicken bone." The father, on the other hand, does not see any mortification in it, on the contrary he feels embarrassed for his son who says such nonsense. For him, Carnival is "a day to thank God for leading us through three hundred years of struggle and turmoil to such a glorious conclusion." Due to completely contradictory views on racial differences, the relationship between a father and his son is distorted. In contrast, Chris's relationship with his mother and his beloved Rachel becomes solid due to their global nature. Brink confirms the horror and pressure in master-slave relationships with reference to the relationships between Bella and the Hottentots. Chris recalls an incident that occurred in his Uncle Johnny's orchard. Her cousin Driekie and her four sisters went for a walk at the farm's dam. They took off their clothes before entering the muddy water. But, when they get out of the water and go to lie down on the shore to dry their bodies in the sun, Driekie hears a hissing in the nearby bushes. She notices a young black boy, David looking at them. He is the son of one of the workers on their farm. Their mother, Bella, becomes very angry when she learns of what happened that evening. He angrily exclaims, “AHotnot!” Spying on my daughters! You could all have been raped. Aunt Bella considers the non-white races to be vicious and warlike; while his daughters, thenext generation, have a humanistic vision towards them. His daughters have quite a different view of him. They try to reassure the mother. Driekie tells her that, “He ran away the moment I saw him, Mom. And we all know it. He always fetches and carries for us. And sometimes we also help him in the kitchen with his schoolwork. He's actually pretty smart. And very polite." But Aunt Bella doesn't have the temperament to listen to anything. Bella orders them to follow her and goes to the workers' homes. He shouts at David's parents to come out and furiously tells them briefly what happened. He orders his father and two other men to take David to the latrine. They threw him into the old wine barrel and tore his clothes. They bind his wrists and ankles with ropes hanging from a hook in the corner. “Tears and snot flowed from him.” Then Bella orders them to whip him with a pipe and a halter. Through Driekie's words, Brink describes the terrible master-slave relationship. Driekie says: 'Everything went on and on, without stopping. At first David screamed with every blow, but then he just whimpered, he no longer had a voice. It wasn't like crying, it was like an animal. And they went on and on and on. They only stop when Driekie shouts 'You're killing him!'” She breaks down in tears as she tells the story to Chris. Brink determines that while older generations are unwilling to change inflexible traditional relationships between the races, new generations of both races have developed interracial relationships from humanistic views. The relationships between political protesters and people are depicted by describing George's experiences at work. George, Rachel's husband, is a photographer. He has to travel due to his occupation. Visit numerous locations to capture images of different themes. Chris asks him why he wants to go looking for dark and horrible places. George replies: 'Just because someone needs to report: ...The undocumented life'. He thinks it's his responsibility to record events and it's people's responsibility to pay attention. Here George represents Brink, who believes that it is his responsibility as a writer to record the events and present them before the nation and the world in an impartial manner. Through which world he could learn about the social and political reality of his nation. Furthermore, George describes the most theatrical event of his career. He thinks the most difficult time of all was in the late 1980s. He recalls a time when he was returning from a funeral in Soweto. In Orlando he stops for a moment to recharge his camera and unexpectedly his car is surrounded by a crowd of protesters leaving a rally. They had been attacked by police just half an hour later, where "several young people had been killed". So I'm in a bad mood. They surrounded George from all sides and began to disturb his car. He's so scared that he thinks, "I won't get out of this place alive." But he always puts a secret weapon in his breast pocket. It's a shot taken by a colleague, myself and Winnie Mandela [George]. His arm around my shoulders. And he had written it. To George Lombard, with love, Winnie'. He rolls down his car window and throws the photo at the crowd. After seeing the photo, "anger turned to jubilation." And George releases safely. She gratefully recalls: 'There was only one person in the world who could save me that day, and that was Mum Winnie. His name was magical'. Here, Brink argues that some whites are equally active in the black empowerment movement but, because of their color, are not trusted by non-whites and their relationships are determined by political activists like Mandela. Christopher Hope, in a review published in The.