Setting of The Lemon Orchard By Alex la Guma Melody and Jennifer The Lemon Orchard was set in South Africa during the time when the Apartheid Policy was enforced in the late 1900s. The time of the Apartheid policy was harsh on those who were colored because they were not accepted as equals by those who have colonized the area which often resulted in unfairness towards the ‘non whites’, which became worse when they rose to protest about the injustice that had been forced upon them.

Social Setting Historical Setting We can infer that the social setting of the people within this piece had lived like those from the unfortunate scenario of the Apartheid Policy, which means that those who were colored were discriminated against and were regarded as the lowest level of people within a society. In the text, the leader refers to the black man that ‘he had the audacity to be cheeky and uncivilized towards a minister of our church and no hotnot will be cheeky to a white man while I live’ which shows that colored people are being treated unfairly since the leader has a rather angry tone that shows that he wants to kill the colored man for what he had done even though what he did wasn’t serious enough for a death sentence. As we have explained, this piece is set in the 1900s when colored people were not treated fairly because of the Apartheid Policy in South Africa. The situation that is shown here is a scenario that may have been a typical scenario during those times, where a colored person had done something that was rude towards a white person, which resulted in a harsh punishment. This specific story is set in pitch darkness at night except for a single light that leads the group in the lemon orchard. The weather is quite cold as the winter season had not completely passed yet which has resulted in a cold, damp atmosphere.

Economic Setting Moral Setting It is not clear within the story what a majority of the characters work as but it is mentioned that the colored is an educated colored man who works as a teacher. We can also infer from how the leader of the group was clothed that he had a job that involved using violence since he is described to be ‘a big man and wore khaki trousers and laced-up riding boots , and an old shooting jacket with leather patches on the right breast and the elbows’, which means that the leader possibly has a career that involves physical work, and the fact that he had threatened to kill the colored man using a gun without hesitation, it’s also possible that he uses a gun on a daily basis. At the time of the Apartheid Policy, the colored people were discriminated against and were treated very badly by those who had colonized South Africa, which meant that those who were white felt that it was right that they had the upper hand over the colored people, but there were probably also people who had not completely agreed but had also gone with the flow, which we had witnessed within the story when some of the followers in the group hesitated when it came to killing the colored man. The colored people at that time thought that it was wrong for the colonizers to simply take over the country like it was their own and treat others like they were nothing.

Philosophical Setting Political Setting Philosophical Setting The society within this story shows that the colored people are being limited to what they can do by the colonizers with the situation where a colored man is being punished, and could have possibly been killed for being rude towards a priest. This means that is a possibility that there have been many other situations similar to this one and has created an obvious gap between the authority that the colonizers have on the colored people. Violence and intimidation is used to control the colored people, and according to my research, the land in South Africa was split up, and the colored people were assigned a plot to where they were to stay, but still under the control of the colonizers and unable to choose where they were from, even when they came from another part. For the colored people, life was a path of discrimination and lack of human rights because they were not regarded as beings that needed rights by the colonizers, which resulted in several outbreaks for the freedom of colored people, whereas the colonizers felt that life was free and unlimited by others.