Both authors of the story believe that apartheid is evil and criminal. Apartheid adversely affects the characters in both stories, but some more than others. Although there are many similarities, the two stories also differ from each other. In Closed for Business, the author makes it seem like fewer people are racist and more are trying to help the black community. “To his great astonishment, he saw hundreds of white people from the city coming up the hill, old and young, men and women, some of the guests he had seen eating his bread, carrying buckets, shovels, cement and bricks. By nightfall, a new bakery was open. (Ossendryver, 2011, p. 6) The white people decided to help Joseph rebuild his bakery and fix the mistakes of the white bakers. Unlike Closed for Business, the new Mrs. Plum was about how the majority of the town's residents were racist. “They're white people who don't know anything, just low-class white people. I told him I thought white people knew everything. (Mphahlele, 1967, p. 4) Black people were treated terribly by their white employers. Black people have also learned that white people are generally