Writing South Africa: Literature, Apartheid, and Democracy, 1970-1995

The dissertation focuses on literary representation of female characters in selected novels by three particular South African writers working within the transitional phase (from the formal ending of apartheid up to the present) of South African history. By means of textual analysis, the study investigates how the representation of numerous female characters in these texts reflects on and reflects the sector of South African society that forms the social setting of each text. This thesis explores the portrayal of female characters in selected fictional works by examining the ways in which the novelists Mandla Langa, Zakes Mda (both of them black and male writers) and Nadine Gordimer (a white and female novelist) characterise women in novels depicting this adapting society. In scrutinising these texts of the transition period, the thesis writer employs detailed individual delineation of female characters, to some extent by means of a comparative approach, with emphasis on parallels between as well as differences among the abovementioned authors’ ways of describing South African women’s circumstances and responses to their social predicaments. In this study literary representations of women are examined in order to evaluate the effects of social and cultural transformation in post-apartheid South Africa. This is done by analysing these authors’ portrayals of women’s circumstances both in the private and public spheres. The thesis therefore contributes to the movement towards a greater recognition of women’s crucial, catalytic function in the achievement of social development and delineates these authors’ expressed awareness of many women’s actual direct involvement in the struggle against all forms of discrimination in society. This research project has been undertaken as an opportunity to investigate the different qualities and types of conduct attributed to female characters in ten selected novels of the transition, on the assumption that the texts reflect something of the way women are perceived and are playing new roles in a changing society. In studying how three significant ‘post-apartheid’ authors depict women affecting and affected by the social conditions of this period, the thesis traces the way the focus of more recent South African writing has shifted from an apartheid-era preoccupation with racial-political issues towards the depiction of private and public, rural and urban social and gender roles available to some contemporary South African women – and of those factors still constraining some other women. Taking in these authors’ portrayals of female political activism and leadership, the thesis also balances previous preoccupation (in South African English literature) with depictions of male political activity. OPSOMMING: Die proefskrif fokus op die literêre uitbeelding van vroue-karakters in uitgesoekte romans deur drie besondere Suid-Afrikaanse skrywers van die sogenaamde oorgangsfase (vanaf die formele beeindiging van apartheid tot die huidige periode) in die Suid-Afrikaanse geskiedenis. Deur middel van tekstuele analise ondersoek hierdie studie hoe die uitbeelding van ‘n aantal vroulike karakters in hierdie tekste die partikuliere Suid-Afrikaanse samelewing wat die agtergrond van elke teks vorm, reflekteer en daaroor besin. Die tesis bestudeer die uitbeelding van vroue-karakters in geselekteerde fiksie-tekste deur die metodes waarmee die romanskrywers Mandla Langa en Zakes Mda (albei manlike en swart skrywers) en Nadine Gordimer (‘n wit, vroulike skrywer) vroue uitbeeld (in romans van die oorgangsfase), na te vors. Deur die bestudering van hierdie oorgangsfase se tekste gebruik die skrywer van die proefskrif gedetailleerde individuele karakter-beskrywings, tot ‘n mate deur die gebruik van ‘n vergelykende metode en met beklemtoning van parallelle sowel as verskille tussen bogenoemde skrywers se maniere om Suid-Afrikaanse vroue se omstandighede en hul reaksies op hul sosiale probleme uit te beeld. In hierdie studie word literêre uitbeeldings van vroue geeksamineer ten einde die gevolge van sosiale en kulturele veranderings in post-apartheid SuidAfrika na te spoor. Dit word vermag deur middel van die analise van hierdie drie skrywers se voorstellings van vroue in beide die private en die openbare sfeer. Derhalwe dra die tesis by tot die beweging na groter erkenning van vroue se krities-belangrike, katalitiese funksie in die bereiking van sosiale ontwikkeling, en omlyn dit die gekose skrywers se bewustheid van vroue se werklike, direkte betrokkenheid in die stryd teen alle vorms van diskriminasie in die samelewing. Hierdie navorsingsprojek is onderneem as ‘n geleentheid om ondersoek te doen na die verskillende tipes en voorbeelde van gedrag wat aan vroulike karakters toegeskryf word in tien uitgesoekte oorgangs-romans – berustend op die aanname dat hierdie tekste iets reflekteer van die maniere waarop vroue gesien word, asook hoe hulle nuwe rolle vervul, in ‘n veranderende samelewing. Deur te bestudeer hoe drie belangwekkende ‘post-apartheid’ skrywers vroue beskryf wat geaffekteer word deur sosiale omstandighede (en dit ook op hul beurt affekteer), omlyn die tesis hoe die fokuspunt in meer onlangse Suid-Afrikaanse skryfkuns verskuif het van die apartheids-era begaanheid met rassies-politiese sake na die private en openbare, plattelandse en stedelike sosiale en gender-rolle wat tans beskikbaar geword het vir Suid-Afrikaanse vroue – asook na die soort omstandighede wat nog steeds sommige vroue kortwiek. Deur aandag te gee aan hierdie skrywers se uitbeeldings van vroulike politieke aktivisme en leierskap balanseer die proefskrif ook die voormalige fokus (in die Engels-Suid-Afrikaanse letterkunde) op die uitbeelding van manlike politieke aktiwiteite.

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The representation of women in the works of three south african novelists of the transition

This article focuses on a transition-era short story by Achmat Dangor, “Mama & Kid Freedom” (1995, Index on Censorship 24 [3]: 108–13), which has thus far been wholly overlooked by literary scholar...

Winnie Mandela: Homophobia and Dystopia in One of Achmat Dangor’s Forgotten Short Stories

The United States have long been characterized by a strong racial binarism, that sees white people as superior to non-whites. Slavery, segregation and inequality have led to racial passing, an act that featured light-skinned black individuals passing for white. In some specific cases these individuals passed for Jewish. This is particularly interesting because Jews, although now considered to be part of the mainstream white race, have been seen for a long time as mere ‘off-whites’, a minority group at best, if not straight-out inferior. Passing continues to be an interesting topic for fiction writers, even after the decrease of real-life passing. Critics have mostly focused on black-to-white passing, neglecting the different types of white that have existed in the Unites States before they merged into one main category. These other minority groups, which due to their white skin belonged to the white race but at the same time were seen as inferior, offered a middle ground between the two main races of the binary, opening new possibilities for individuals who had a fragmented identity and who saw passing not only as an opportunity concerning social and economical status and legal benefits, but also as the means through which they could resolve their fragmentation. This thesis seeks to shed light on the importance of Black and Jewish identities in the contemporary novels Caucasia by Danzy Senna and The Human Stain by Philip Roth. Drawing on Jacques Lacan’s mirror theory and on Daniel Itzkovitz’s analysis of Jews as chameleonic beings who, because of their racial fluidity, exist in a liminal place outside the black and white races, I argue that passing for Jewish instead of passing for generically white allows fictional passers to bring together the scattered pieces of their identity, fragmented by the clash between the image of the self they see in the mirror and identify with, and the image the rest of the population has of them. I argue that becoming a Jew connects the two opposed black/white races and finds a middle ground which provides the passer with a complete identity.

Almost, Both, Neither: Fragmented Identities in Contemporary Black-to-Jewish Passing Literature

Texts of identity: rewriting the self within a multicultural school community

Summary As Zoe Wicomb observes in “Shame and Identity: The Case of the Coloured in South Africa” (1998), the country's history of miscegenation has been silenced by the very people whom the practice has created: “it is after all the very nature of shame to stifle its own discourse” (Wicomb quoted by Attridge & Jolly 1998:92). In chronicling the ways in which the color bar was constantly and continually being subverted through interracial couplings, Kafka's Curse (Dangor 1997) works to challenge the silence surrounding miscegenation as well as the idea that pure categories of race could even exist. But the categories must not be ignored altogether. Kafka's Curse cautions against a total rejection of attachment to origins, obscure, distant or elusive as those origins may be. It must be the project of the new South African literature to examine the role of ethnic identification in nation‐building, and to consider how “remembrance” can be harnessed toward it.

Sailaja Sastry

Papers

Assuming identities: Kafka's Curse and the unsilenced voice