Skinner's Drift

In the novel “Skinners Drift” by Lisa Fugard, the horrible acts of racism committed during apartheid are exposed through the journal entries of Lorraine van Rensburg. The acts of cruelty documented in her mother’s journal help Eva reflect on her past living on Skinners Drift. Lefu, the farm-worker begins the novel playing the role of Eva’s conscience that she refuses to adhere to, but by the end of the novel, he is the conscience she must apologize to.
Haunted by a traumatic tragedy that destroyed both her family and image of her father, Eva van Rensburg is hesitant to return back to Skinners Drift after a decade of living in New York. Ashamed of her past and childhood in South Africa during the period of apartheid, she is reluctant to discuss her upbringing and Africa’s social structure with friends. She even went as far as telling her New Yorker boyfriend that she was originally from New Zealand to escape any questions he may have about her childhood


under an apartheid society. After returning back to Skinners Drift when apartheid has ended, her father is terminally ill, and remorse is high, Eva comes to terms with her wrongdoings and pleads forgiveness from Lefu.  
By the time Eva left Skinners Drift and her childhood behind, she could no longer look at her father nor herself in the eye. The emotional impact he had on her throughout her childhood left an undying pain that she could not over come, even in New York. Witnessing her fathers drunken cruelty on a daily basis, hunting Jaquals each night, murdering Toja (the family dog), and murdering a young black child, Eva could no longer declare her loyalty and love for Martin. She thought that escaping as far away as New York would help her forget her painful childhood and what she witnessed, however, upon returning back and reading her mother’s journal, she reflected on the pain she underwent and the horror of the night she lost her ethics.
She recalls the night Lefu found the black child’s...