In Doris Lessing's story, "A Sunrise on the Veld," we see
the attitudes and self-awarenss of a fifteen-year old boy changing from one who believes
he controls the world to a youngster who realizes that he does not,
how fragile life is, and what his responsibilities are—that he affects the existence of
even the animals on the Veld.
The reader meets a boy,
assured of his power in the world. He feels like the master of all that surrounds him:
even his ability to control time, able to awaken with the power of his own
mind—
Half-past four! Half-past four! till his brain
had gripped the words and held them fast. Then he fell asleep at
once...
It was half-past four to the minute, every
morning. Triumphantly pressing down the alarm-knob of the clock, which the dark half of
his mind had outwitted...
His
immaturity and inexperience allow him to believe that nothing can touch him: his hubris
is evident in how he blatantly runs through the Veld (in Africa) where
anything might happen to him: there are wild animals, yet this
illusionary sense of power makes the boy believe that he can remain untouched by the
world…
He was
clean crazy, yelling mad with the joy of living and a superfluity of
youth.
And...
There was nothing he couldn't do, nothing!...he
said aloud...all the great men of the world have been as I am now, and there is nothing
I can't become, nothing I can't do; there is no country in the world I cannot make part
of myself, if I choose. I contain the
world.
He believes he is
superior to his parents, who he belittles as they sleep with no knowledge of what he
does.
The boy
imagined his parents turning in their beds and muttering: Those dogs again! before they
were dragged back in sleep; and he smiled
scornfully.
When the scream
of another "creature" nearby draws the boy's attention, he is confronted with the truth
of life and death: a buck, also passing through the bush, is taken down before his eyes
and is devoured alive by carnivorous ants that
move...
...like glistening black water flowing through
the grass.
The buck might
already have been injured…
Perhaps some Africans had thrown stones at it, as
they do, trying to kill it for meat, and had broken its
leg.
This is something that
easily could have happened to the boy as he raced thoughtlessly through the bush—an
accident that he never saw coming. The boy also realizes that he
could easily have been in the dying animal's situation if he had taken one false step.
In this instance, the boy understands both how easily death may come and how fragile
life is. He also realizes that he cannot control the world as he
believes, though he fights the realization.
At the same time he found that the tears were
streaming down his face, and his clothes were soaked with the sweat of that other
creature's pain.
He has
little control: but he has responsibility. This also concerns him. The boy recalls
shooting at animals such as the buck—perhaps he could have injured
it, and tired from the sport or hungry, he might have left without checking whether or
not he had wounded the animal, making it a target to the other predatory creatures of
the Veld—it was irresponsible behavior, he now
realizes.
The boy's need to soon go off and ponder all he
has witnessed shows his inner-struggle as he reevaluates his place in the world—not as a
god, but just another creature on the planet, doing his best to survive in a world that
can be harsh, and especially unforgiving when we make mistakes.
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