Read the excerpt below and answer the question. here and there, in small rooms where a candle makes big shadows, there is good talk. it is attractive, specially if you are white; but it is also sad, bleak, and terrible. it may not be a bad thing to be a sophiatown villon; but it is tragic if you can never be anything else. in this excerpt from gordimer's "1959: what is apartheid? " gordimer suggests that

In this excerpt from Gordimer's essay, the author discusses the consequences of apartheid. This excerpt is used to reflect on how some things are admired by the white and powerful population for their rarity but are the everyday objects for the poor South because it's all they have. She concludes that image by saying "The penny whistle is a charming piece of musical ingenuity; but it should not always be necessary for a man to make his music out of nothing.".

Through this she says that the poor South uses candles because that's all they've got. She says that it's not that bad to live in Sophiatown (predominantly black region, destroyed during the apartheid) but that it's tragic when you don't have the possibilities of living anywhere else.