Racism
It's unavoidable to discuss racism in a novel about Apartheid. Mehring is singled out of all the characters not simply because he's the protagonist but because of his anti-black sympathies. He's lived in his perfectly controlled, moderately successful little world for so long that he doesn't remember the principles on which he founded his success. When he has enough money saved to invest in a new project, he buys this farm intending to flip a big profit from underpaying his employees -- all black natives. Additionally he treats them more like slaves than employees, employing a sort of sharecropping system. They don't have enough money to leave the farm and improve their circumstances, so they are completely dependent upon Mehring's all but nonexistent generosity for relief. More importantly they are working strenuous, demanding jobs without proper rest or access to basic healthcare. After Antonia leaves him for his stubborn refusal to recognize his racism and be willing to change himself for the sake of their relationship, Mehring dives deeper into his narrow-minded reserve. He drives his son away, plagued by a conscience which will not allow the boy to participate in Apartheid capitalism like this farm. Mehring's stubborn racism beguiles all of his attempt at success on this farm, as if the universe is demanding he stop behaving so shamefully.
Sacrifice
All of the main characters except for Mehring make sacrifices of themselves, each for the anti-Apartheid movement. They are participating in the natural devolution of unjust regimes. For Antonia, her political activity is so central to who she is as a person that she refuses to continue to waste her time with Mehring when he takes a stand for exactly the opposite. She's a person of an innately just nature who has devoted herself to liberating oppressed peoples whenever she sees them. In this way Mehring is her perfect foil. Although Antonia is willing to abandon all her personal ambitions in order to help the natives, she cannot convince Mehring to see her mission as valuable or good. He is too intent upon his own achievements that he forgets that he's using people who are less fortunate than him to increase his wealth. The two cannot coexist. Recognizing Mehring's hardened nature, Jacobus acts as savior to the other blacks working on Mehring's farm. As foreman, he is the intermediary between employer and employees. He takes the brunt of Mehring's rage and injustice, accepting responsibility for impossible failures in order to spare his fellow workers the pain. This is why he is their respected leader. For his part, Terry sacrifices himself to conscience. Despite his bright and fortunate future in South Africa with his father, he sails to join his mother in America. He does not believe in the oppression of the natives of his country, so he cannot accept the position his father is offering. He prefers to live with his mother and abnegate his inheritance rather than to capitalize upon the oppression of the less fortunate. His sacrifice is more symbolic than material, but it does require a great deal of selflessness and clarity of someone so young as Terry.
Karma
Mehring has such a bad attitude about life in general that he's difficult to please. He constantly complains about how hard life has been on him, how much he's overcome, and how capable he is. Taking a step back, however, one can easily identify Mehring's fatal flaw. He is manifesting his negative mindset, a process sometimes considered karmic. By thinking about or believing certain things a person finds themselves surrounded by those things. For example, Mehring doesn't believe that he's lovable. He thinks the flaw is in other people's inability to see the value in him, but in reality he is driving his loved ones away. People like his ex-wife and Antonia and Terry give him red flag after red flag, but he continues to choose selfishness and pessimism. Eventually it leads him to confirm his suspicions that the universe hates him because his family leaves him. This process is also demonstrated more literally when the dead body is found on Mehring's land. Since the corpse is black, it is simply buried by the river. The police don't even conduct an autopsy or investigation. Although Mehring is uncomfortable with the flippant treatment of the body, he doesn't stop the disrespectful burial. His conscience becomes increasingly guilty until he wanders down to the river one day in a storm and thinks he is being haunted by the ghost of the man buried there. The power of his negative thinking has made him paranoid to the point of punishing himself whether or not his suspicions are true. The state of paranoia in which he lives is worse than the reality of being haunted by a ghost, so it may as well be true in the end. Mehring has terrible karma because he has an awful outlook on life, always suspecting he is being dealt a bad hand.
