Apartheid
The theme of apartheid is similar to, but certainly not the same as, the secondary theme of racism; apartheid was a mandatory way of segregating citizens and so it would be entirely possible to disagree with it yet still have to abide by it. Similarly, in the new South Africa where inclusion was actively encouraged there were still those for whom long held racist beliefs were impossible to get rid of. The theme of apartheid relates directly to the characters in the book in that it is decided that they have contravened the Immorality Act. This was a key law within the apartheid system that was designed to ensure the continued separation of races and colors for succeeding generations. Without the apartheid system this law would not have been passed or modified. Whilst many countries operate a class system South Africa's social system was based more across racial divides, again dictated by the apartheid system. Apartheid is also a system that enabled people to be racists without actually calling them such.
Racism
Racism is the underlying theme of the novel. Allowed to flourish under a racist system of apartheid, it is also a tool that enabled men to abuse women and to abandon their children without any comeback from the state. After apartheid ends, the problems in the nation are not solved in quite the way that it was hoped they would be; in some ways this is also a fault of the government because it is impossible to raise generations of people on the belief that it is essential to separate whites and blacks, and then to tell them suddenly that they are not allowed to think this anymore when they have been raised to accept the fact in the same way that they accept that the sun is hot or that water is wet. In another way, the use of art to commentate at the beginning of each chapter shows that there is less color mixing than ever and that minds are hard to change irrespective of what the government says. it is also racial confusion that causes the mixed race Kids to despise themselves as they do not feel that they are welcomed by either their white families or their black ones.
Abuse of Women
Apartheid caused women to be abused, and caused the abuse to not only go unpunished but for women's personal histories to be rewritten and the abuse to be denied all together. The men were in a position of power by virtue of the fact they were men and it was the 1970s. Women were not considered equal in either the white or the black community. Adding to that the fact that the men were white and the women black gave the men even more of a free reign to do whatever they wanted, including demanding sexual relationships and impregnating women. As is usual in these situations, the women were charged with the relationships as a criminal offense where only one man was actually tried for the same thing.
