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Ibinga, Stephane Serge. "The representation of women in the works of three South African novelists of the transition." Thesis, Stellenbosch: University of Stellenbosch, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/1100.
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Thesis (DLitt (English))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007.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.
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Spencer, Lynda Gichanda. "Writing women in Uganda and South Africa : emerging writers from post-repressive regimes." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/86251.
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Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The thesis examines how women writers from Uganda and South Africa simultaneously offer a critique of nationalist narratives and articulate a gendered nationalism. My focus will be on the new imaginings of women in and of the nation that are being produced through the narratives of emerging women writers in post-repressive nation-states. I explore the linkages in post-conflict writing by focusing on the literary representations of women and womanhood, while taking into account some of the differences in how these writers write women in these two post-repressive regimes. I read the narratives from these two countries together because, in the last fifty years, both Uganda and South Africa have been through prolonged periods of political repression and instability followed by negotiated transitions to new political dispensations. I use the phrase post-repressive to refer to the post-civil war era after 1986 in Uganda and the post-apartheid period subsequent to the 1994 first democratic elections in South Africa. From the late 1990s, there has been a steady increase in fiction written by emerging women writers in Uganda and South Africa. The term emerging women writers in the Ugandan literary context refers to the writers who have benefitted from the emergence of FEMRITE Publications, the publishing house of the Ugandan Women Writers’ Association; in the South African setting, I use the term to define black women writers publishing for the first time in a liberated state. The current political climate in both countries has inaugurated a new era for women writers; cracks are widening for these new voices, creating more spaces that allow them to foreground, interrogate, engage and address wide-ranging topics which lacked more forms of expression in the past. This study explores how women writers from Uganda and South Africa attempt to capture women’s experiences in literary texts and seeks to find ways of interpreting how such constructs of female identity in the aftermath of different forms of oppression articulate various signs of rupture and continuation with earlier representations of female experience in these two nation states. There are three core chapters in this thesis. I approach the gendered experience as represented in the fictional narratives of emerging women writers through three different perspectives; namely, war and the aftermath, popular literary genres, and identity markers. In the process, I try to think through the following questions: How are writers reclaiming and re-evaluating women’s participation during the oppressive regimes of civil war in Uganda and apartheid in South Africa? How are women writers rethinking and repositioning the roles of women as they continue to live in patriarchal societies that marginalize and oppress them? To what extent have things changed for women in the aftermath of these oppressive regimes as represented in the texts? What new representations of women are emerging? For whom, and from what positions, are these women writing? Is literary representation a reiteration of political representation that ends up not being effective? What is the relation between literary and political representation? Do these narratives open up alternative avenues for writers to represent women’s interests? How do new female literary representations emerge in different novels such as chick lit and crime fiction?
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie proefskrif ondersoek die wyses waarop vroueskrywers uit Uganda en Suid-Afrika krities kyk na nasionalisitiese narratiewe en tegelyk ook na ‘n gendered nasionalisme. Daar word gefokus op die nuwe uitbeeldinge van vroue in en van die nasies wat spruit uit die narratiewe van opkomende vroueskrywers in nasiestate in die post-onderdrukking-tydperk. Deur te fokus op die uitbeeldinge van vroue en vroulikheid word die verbande tussen post-konflik-skryfwerk ondersoek, en word ook rekening gehou met etlike verskille in die wyses waarop vroue deur sodanige skrywers in spesifieke post-onderdrukking-regimes uitgebeeld word. Die narratiewe uit die twee lande word saam gelees, want in die loop van die afgelope vyftig jaar ondervind sowel Uganda as Suid-Afrika langdurige politieke onderdrukking en onbestendigheid, gevolg deur onderhandelde oorgange na nuwe politieke bedelings. Die term post-onderdrukking verwys na die tydperk na 1986 na die burgeroorlog in Uganda en na die post-apartheid-era na afloop van die eerste demokratiese verkiesing in Suid-Afrika in 1994. Sedert die laat-1990’s was daar ‘n geleidelike toename in fiksie deur opkomende vroueskrywers in Uganda en Suid-Afrika. In die Ugandese letterkundige konteks verwys die term opkomende vroueskrywers na skrywers wat gebaat het by die totstandkoming van FEMRITE Publications, die uitgewery van die Ugandese vroueskrywersvereniging; in die Suid-Afrikaanse opset word die term gebruik om swart vroueskrywers te beskryf wat vir die eerste keer in ‘n bevryde land kon publiseer. Die huidige politieke klimaat in albei lande het vir vroueskrywers ‘n nuwe era ingelei; vir sulke vars stemme gaan daar breër barste oop wat hulle toelaat om al hoe meer ruimte te skep waarin wyduiteenlopende onderwerpe, wat in die verlede minder uitdrukkingsgeleenthede geniet het, vooropgestel, ondersoek, betrek en aangespreek kan word. Die proefskrif ondersoek die maniere waarop vroueskrywers uit Uganda en Suid-Afrika die vroulike ervaring in letterkundige geskrifte uitbeeld. Daar word gepoog om te vertolk hoe sodanige konstrukte vroulike identiteit verwoord in die nadraai van verskeie soorte onderdrukking en uiting gee aan verskillende tekens van beide die onderbreking in en die voortsetting van vroeëre uitbeeldinge van die vroulike ervaring in die twee nasiestate. Die proefskrif bevat drie kernhoofstukke. Die gendered ervaring word uit drie afsonderlike hoeke benader soos dit in die narratiewe verteenwoordig word, naamlik: oorlog en die nadraai daarvan; populêre letterkundige genres; en identiteitskenmerke. In die loop daarvan word getrag om die volgende vrae te deurdink: Hoe word vroue se deelname tydens die onderdrukkende regimes van die burgeroorlog in Uganda en apartheid in Suid-Afrika hereien en herwaardeer? Hoe herdink en herposisioneer vroueskrywers tans die rolle van vroue soos hulle steeds in patriargale samelewings voortleef waar hulle opsygeskuif en onderdruk word? In hoe ‘n mate het sake vir vroue verander in die nadraai van die onderdrukking, soos dit in die tekste uitgebeeld word? Watter vars representasies van vroue kom onder die nuwe bedeling tot stand? Vir wie, en uit watter posisies, skryf hierdie vroue tans? Is die letterkundige representasie bloot ‘n herhaling van die politieke representasie, wat dan op niks doeltreffends uitloop nie? Wat is die verhouding tussen politieke en letterkundige representasie? Baan hierdie narratiewe alternatiewe weë oop waar skrywers die belange van vroue kan verteenwoordig? Hoe kom nuwe vroulike letterkundige representasies in verskillende narratiewe vorms soos chick lit en misdaadfiksie voor?
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Samuelson, M. A. "Remembering the nation, disremembering women? : stories of the South African transition." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/18832.
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The thesis explores the making of nationhood, and its contestation, in narrative representations of women during the South African transition. This temporal span extends across the first decade of democracy and the first two terms of governance following the historic 1994 elections. The transition is a fertile temporal zone in which new myths and symbols are generated. My interest lies in the new national symbols and myths that emerge from this historical moment and the ways in which they have been figured through images and appropriations of women and their bodies. Women's bodies, I argue, are the contested sites upon which nationalism erects its ideological edifices. I engage with the mutually informing productions and performances of gender and nation, and the re-membering of a previously divided and divisive South Africa as a unified 'rainbow' nation. I proceed by tracing narrative acts of memory and repression, with a specific focus on the re-memberings and dismemberings of women's bodies as they are reconstituted as ideal vessels for a national allegory.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-238).
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Colleran, Jeanne M. "The dissenting writer in South Africa : a rhetorical analysis of the drama of Athol Fugard and the short fiction of Nadine Gordimer." The Ohio State University, 1988. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1287430526.
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Mazhar, Syeda Faiqa. "A study of the theme of borderland in Nadine Gordimer's fiction." Thesis, University of Bedfordshire, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10547/134375.
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This doctoral project is an analytical study of South African writer, Nadine Gordimer's fiction produced from 1949 to 1994. She presents a theme similar to the post-colonial critic, Homi Bhabha's notion of borderland which he propounds as a place of creativity and cultural hybridity in his work The Location of Culture (1994). The "borderland" in Gordimer's fiction acts as a liminal space and becomes a connective tissue in her characters' lives. It emerges in the form of crossing physical frontiers and mental barriers which existed in South African society. Through moments of transition, Gordimer makes her characters aware of a liberal person's marginal position, between the reactionary colonial past and the "inbetween-ness" of the borderland in radical future of South Africa. Along with this introductory background, Chapter One establishes the dual working of physical and psychological processes through which Gordimer develops the theme of "borderland" in her fiction. The subsequent three chapters focus on the variety in the presentation of "borderland" encounters in her fiction written before and after Sharpeville (1960). The thesis concludes that the dual development of physical and psychological processes is a central narrative strategy which determines a link between chronology and the presentation of "borderland" in Gordimer's fiction.
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Meisel, Jacqueline Susan. "The deepest South : a comparative analysis of issues of exile in the work of selected women writers from South Africa and the American South." Thesis, University of Cumbria, 2013. http://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/3991/.
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This thesis examines the ways in which exile, both actual and metaphorical, informs the work of four path breaking female writers from South Africa and the American South: Carson McCullers, Bessie Head, Zoë Wicomb and Dorothy Allison. In this study, exilic consciousness is closely linked to postcolonial, nomadic feminisms which can best be understood as liminal, as fundamentally ‘out of place’. The border-crossings involved here are not only geographical, they also signify a change in critical consciousness, as the foundational texts of this thesis – Rosi Braidotti’s Nomadic Feminism and Francoise Lionnet and Shu-Mei Shih’s Minor Transnationalism – indicate. By exploring writers who problematise the categories of race, gender, sexuality and class I demonstrate how these writers offer new ways of reading the postcolonial condition as nomadic, and I examine the shared processes that nations and individuals undergo as they experience political and personal liberation struggles. My thesis is divided into four main parts. The opening section offers both an introduction to, and rationale for, the study, providing historical and sociocultural contextualisation linking South Africa and the American South; it goes on to establish my choices of Carson McCullers and Dorothy Allison as the southern US writers in this study and Bessie Head and Zoë Wicomb as the South Africans. In the opening chapter I interrogate self-representation and variations in autobiography by the four writers. Chapter 2 has as its focus body and exilic consciousness in selected work by all four writers. My final chapter examines identity formation as situated subjectivity in the work of Allison and Wicomb who are foregrounded here. I contend that transnationalism need not be seen as inevitably homogenising; rather, I show that minority individuals and groups can establish agency through transversal, lateral networks.
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Kortsch, Christine Bayles. "Women's handiwork dress culture, literacy, and social activism in British women's fiction, 1883--1900 (South Africa, Olive Schreiner, Ella Hepworth, Sarah Grand, Gertrude Dix, Margaret Oliphant) /." Access to citation, abstract and download form provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company; downloadable PDF file 3.85 Mb., 259 p, 2006. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3221129.
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Bukula, Andiswa. "Ukuzotywa kwabalinganiswa ababhinqileyo abaziintloko kwiidrama zolwimi lwesiXhosa bezotywa ngababhali abasini sobuduna kwakunye nabo babhinqileyo." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/18431.
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Eli phepha lithiywe “Ukuzotywa kwabalinganiswa ababhinqileyo, abazintloko kwidrama zolwimi lwesiXhosa, bezotywa ngababhali besini sobuduna nesini sobukhomokazi liza kube lijongene nendlela apho ababhali abasini esohlukileyo, abathi babazobe ngayo abalinganiswa abayintloko, abangamabhinqa kwizibhalo zabo zedrama zelwimi lwesiXhosa. Apha kuzobe kujongwe ingakumbi ababhali abasini sobuduna, ngenjongo yokuveza umba wokuba ababhali besini sobukhomokazi babazoba abalinganiswa ababhinqileyo nje ngabantu abangenamiqolo okuzimela ngaphandle kokuba kubekho indoda obomini babo. Aba babhali babazoba abalinganiswa ababhiqileyo phansti kwala ngcamango yokuba, apho umntu obhinqileyo ekumela afumaneke khona kusezimbizeni apho baphekela usapho lwabo rhoqo, ekucoceni umzi nasekukhuliseni abantwana, hayi enye into engaphaya koko. Ngoko ke eli phepha libhalwe ngenjongo yokuphelisa oku dodobalisa loo ngcamango. Baninzi kea bantu abaphikisana nale ndlela yaphotho lwamabhinqa ngamadoda abo, nangamanye amadoda nje jikilele, eli phepha lizobe lingqinelana nolo ninzi lwabantu abathi loo mpatho mbi yamabhinqa mayiphele, kuvezwe imeko yokuba kukho ulingano phakathi kwamabhinqa kunye nababt abasini sobukhomakazi. Int ethetha ukuba eli phepha lizakuti ligqithele lijonge kwaye liveze indlela apho kungati kuekho ulingwano phathi kwezini zimbini, nendlela apho uwonke wonke angakwazi ukuphila ngentlonipho omnye komnye kungekho zimpatho mbi, okanye sini sinesikhundla esiphakamileyo kunesinye.
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Elliott, Kim. "Women (re)writing history, constructing the case for a state-centered analysis of indigenous women's literature in South Africa and Israel/Palestine." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ36863.pdf.
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O'Brien, Lauren Leigh. "Self, family and society in Nadine Gordimer's Burger's Daughter, Rachel Zadok's Gem Squash Tokoloshe, and Doris Lessings's The Grass is Singing." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006771.
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This dissertation examines Nadine Gordimer’s Burger’s Daughter, Rachel Zadok’s Gem Squash Tokoloshe, and Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing. It focuses on the development of each of the protagonists’ identities in three realms: the individual, the familial and the societal. Additionally, it is concerned with the specific socio-political contexts in which the novels are set. It employs psychoanalytic and historical materialist frameworks in order to engage with the disparate areas of identity with which it is concerned. The introduction establishes the analytical perspective of the dissertation and explores the network of theoretical frames on which the dissertation relies. Additionally, it contextualises each of the novels, within their historical contexts, as well as in relation to the theory. The first chapter examines Nadine Gordimer’s Burger’s Daughter. It focuses on the protagonist’s assertion of an identity independent of her father’s role as a political activist, and her eventual acceptance of the universal difficulty in negotiating a life which is both private and political. The second chapter, on Rachel Zadok’s Gem Squash Tokoloshe, examines the relationship between the protagonist’s traumatic experiences as a child and her inability to assert an identity as an adult. The similarities between the protagonist’s attempts to address her traumas and thereby create herself anew and South Africa’s employment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a means to acknowledge and engage with its traumatic history is of import. The third chapter which deals with Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing traces the life of its protagonist, whose identifications remain childish as a result of having witnessed her parents’ difficult relationship. Her understanding of the world is informed by a rigid, binary understanding, which is ultimately disrupted by her relationship with a black employee. She is incapable of readjusting her frame of reference, however, and ultimately goes mad. I conclude that, while my focus has been on personal, familial and social identifications, the standard terms in which identity is examined, namely, race, class, and gender, are present in each of the three tiers of identity with which I have been concerned.
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Nukeri, Nyeleti Reggan. "Nxopaxopo wa ku xanisiwa ka vamanana hi vavanuna va vona eka matsalwa lama hlawuriweke eka Xitsonga." Thesis, University of Limpopo, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10386/1414.
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Jadezweni, Mhlobo Wabantwana. "Aspects of isiXhosa poetry with special reference to poems produced about women." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006364.
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This study investigates the use of modern and izibongo (praise poetry) techniques in representing women in selected isiXhosa poems. The main interest of the study is to determine whether the same techniques to depict men are used when writing about women. It is also the interest of the study to ascertain how gender issues are dealt with in the selected poems. Seminal studies on izibongo by eminent scholars in this field show a serious lack of critique and little recognition of women in African languages’ poetry in general and in isiXhosa in particular. Pioneering studies in Nguni poetry about women have thus recommended that serious studies on poetry about women be undertaken. The analyses of selected poems by established isiXhosa poets show that modern poetry conventions are significantly used together with izibongo techniques. These techniques are used without any gender differentiation, which is another point of interest of this study. There are however instances where images specific to women are used. Such use has however not been found to be demeaning of women in any way. Poems where modern poetry forms and conventions are used tend to deal with subjects who have international or an urban area background. Even though the modern poetry conventions are used with izibongo techniques the presence of the modern literary conventions is prominent. This is the case particularly with poems about women in politics. That some female poet seems to accept some cultural practices that are viewed to be undermining the status of women does not take away the voice of protest against this oppression by some of the selected poets. These two voices, one of acceptance and the other one of protest are used as a basis for a debate around a need for a literary theory that addresses the question of African culture with special reference to isiXhosa poetry about women. The success of the selected poets with both modern and izibongo techniques is a good sign for the development of isiXhosa poetry in general and isiXhosa poetry about women. It is strongly recommended that continued research of a serious nature concerning poetry about, and produced by women, be undertaken.
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Colyn, Tania. "Stem van die gemarginaliseerde : 'n ondersoek na die konstruksie van die identiteite van die vroulike figure in die werk van E.K.M. Dido." Thesis, Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/1953.
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Thesis (MA (Afrikaans and Dutch))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: E.K.M. Dido publiseer in 1996 haar eerste roman, Die storie van Monica Peters, en word so een van die eerste bruin vrouens wat ‟n bydra tot die Afrikaanse letterkunde lewer. In Dido se romans word daar altyd ‟n vrou as hooffiguur gestel, en dit is van belang om na die konstruksie van die identiteite van die vroulike hooffigure ondersoek in te stel. Die romans lig invloede op, en aspekte van, identiteit uit en demonstreer hoe kwessies soos identiteitsmerkers ‟n rol in die konstruksie van identiteit speel. Die konstruksie van die vroulike figure se identiteite wys op die veranderende aard van identiteit, en die stemme van die gemarginaliseerdes van die verlede word in twee van hierdie romans deur hierdie figure gehoor. Dido self skryf vanuit die posisie van die voorheen gemarginaliseerde. Deur die konstruksie van die hooffigure vind die gemarginaliseerdes van die verlede ‟n geleentheid om hul eie verhale te vertel, en so verbreek Dido die stiltes wat in die verlede geskep is. Die postkoloniale aard van Dido se romans speel ‟n ondermynende rol binne ‟n letterkunde wat steeds verteenwoordigend is van die magstrukture van die verlede. Die konsep van hibriditeit word uitgelig as een wat positief eerder as negatief is. So word daar byvoorbeeld ‟n nuwe perspektief op wit mense gegee, soos gesien deur die oë van die historiese ‟Ander‟. Die posisie van swart skrywers in die huidige Afrikaanse letterkunde is een wat ondersoek moet word en uiteindelik moet hierdie posisionering van swart skrywers herevalueer word. Daar is ‟n vraag na ‟n literêre geskiedenis wat verteenwoordigend is van al die stemme wat in die Afrikaanse geskiedenis teenwoordig is. Uiteindelik is dit nodig om te bepaal waar presies Dido in hierdie literêre sisteem geposisioneer is, en of haar stem as swart vroueskrywer werklik gehoor word.
ENGLISH SUMMARY: E.K.M. Dido published her first novel, Die storie van Monica Peters (The story of Monica Peters) in 1996 and so doing became one of the first brown women to make a contribution to Afrikaans literature. The central character in Dido‟s novel is always a woman and this study will focus on the methods of construction of the identities of the female characters. The novels highlight the influences of external factors such as markers of identity on the construction of identity. The changeable nature of identity is demonstrated through the construction of the identities of these female characters. The voices of the marginalised figures from the past are heard through these characters in two of Dido‟s novels. Dido writes from the position of a previously marginalised woman. She breaks the silences of the past by the construction of the female characters‟ identities in such a way that they are able to tell their stories. The postcolonial nature of her work acts to undermine a literature which still reflects the power relations of the past. Dido‟s novels look at the concept of hybridity and see it as a positive, rather than negative, state of being. The white characters in the novels undergo a process of “Othering” which gives a new perspective on race relations from colonial times. There is a need to investigate and rethink the position of black writers within the Afrikaans literary system. Critics have expressed a desire for a literary history which is representative of all voices in Afrikaans. Dido‟s position in the literary system has to be investigated and it needs to be determined whether her voice as a black Afrikaans woman writer is being heard.
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Snyman, Vicki. "Unfallen women : negotiations of alternative feminine identities in selected writings by Olive Schreiner." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002257.
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This study constitutes an inquiry into how Olive Schreiner‟s peripheral position as a colonial woman writer enabled her rewriting of feminine identity, specifically her subversion of Victorian feminine stereotypes. I focus particular attention on three novels: The Story of an African Farm (1890), and the posthumously published From Man to Man (1926) and Undine (1929). I employ a feminist literary approach to examine how Schreiner‟s hybrid identity as a British South African enabled her revisioning of femininity. If Schreiner is situated within the context of her time, it can be demonstrated that her negotiations of feminine identity are influenced by her dual intellectual and cultural heritage. On the one hand, she can be situated within a British tradition of women‟s writing – in particular, the New Woman fiction which emerged in the late nineteenth century. On the other hand, she can be situated within a nascent South African literary tradition – and demonstrates prototypically post-colonial concerns. Schreiner‟s writing style develops out of her colonial heritage and her experiences as a woman living in a patriarchal society. The resultant voice subverts the narrative traditions of the metropolitan novel in an attempt to articulate an alternative view of femininity. I examine in detail how Schreiner undermines and subverts Victorian stereotypes, and focus particular attention on the „fallen woman‟ and the „mother-figure‟. She attempts to challenge conventional Victorian conceptions of femininity by erasing the binary between the „angel‟ and the „whore‟ in order to create a New Woman. In Undine and The Story of an African Farm the full realisation of this New Woman is deferred, since both protagonists die, but From Man to Man is more nuanced, particularly in its emphasis on economic empowerment for women. Schreiner also destabilises traditional notions of motherhood, in order to offer glimpses of an alternative maternal role. It is my contention that, in her depiction of mother-figures and (un)fallen women, Schreiner challenges stock Victorian notions of femininity and, in the process, creates a space in which new possibilities for women can be imagined and negotiated.
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Collins, Brenda. "Representations of landscape and gender in Lady Anne Barnard's "Journal of a month's tour into the interior of Africa"." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/17744.
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Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2007.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis will focus on Barnard’s representations of gender and landscape during her tour into the interior of the South of Africa. Barnard’s conscious representation of herself as a woman with many different social roles gives the reader insight into the developing gender roles at the time of an emerging feminism. On their tour, Barnard reports on four aspects of the interior, namely the state of cultivation of the land, the type of food and accommodation available in the interior, the possibilities for hunting and whether the colony will be a valuable acquisition for Britain. Barnard’s view of the landscape is representative of the eighteenth century’s preoccupation with control over and classification of nature. She values order and cleanliness in her vision of a domesticated landscape. She appropriates the land in wanting to make it useful and beautiful to the colonisers. However, her representations of the landscape, as well as its inhabitants, remain ambivalent in terms of the discourse of imperialism because she is unable to adopt an unequivocal colonial voice. Her complex interaction with the world of colonialism is illustrated by, on the one hand, her adherence to the desire to classify the inhabitants of the colony according to the eighteenth century’s fascination with classification and, on the other hand, her recognition of the humanity of the individuals with whom she interacts in a move away from the colonial stance.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis fokus op Barnard se voorstellings van gender en landskap gedurende haar toer in die binneland van die suide van Afrika. Barnard se bewuste voorstelling van haarself as ‘n vrou met vele sosiale rolle gee die leser insig in die ontwikkelende genderrolle gedurende ‘n tydperk van ontluikende feminisme. Gedurende haar toer doen Barnard verslag oor vier aspekte van die binneland, naamlik hoeveel van die grond reeds bewerk is, die tipe kos en akkommodasie wat beskikbaar is, die jagmoontlikhede, en of die kolonie ‘n waardevolle aanwins vir Brittanje sal wees. Barnard se beskouing van die landskap is verteenwoordigend van die agtiende-eeuse obsessie met beheer oor en klassifikasie van die natuur. Sy heg groot waarde aan orde en netheid in haar visie van ‘n getemde landskap. Sy lê beslag op die land deurdat sy dit bruikbaar en mooi wil maak vir die kolonialiste. Haar voorstellings van die landskap sowel as die inwoners weerspieël egter haar ambivalente posisie jeens die koloniale diskoers omdat sy sukkel om ‘n ondubbelsinnige koloniale stem te gebruik. Haar komplekse interaksie met die wêreld van kolonialisme word weerspieël deur, enersyds, haar navolging van die koloniale neiging om die inwoners van die land te kategoriseer in lyn met die agtiende-eeuse obsessie met klassifikasie en, andersyds, haar herkenning van die menslikheid van die individue met wie sy kontak maak in ‘n skuif weg van die koloniale standpunt.
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Moore-Barnes, Shannon-Lee. "Nature, narrative and language in Marlene van Niekerk's Agaat." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/1235.
Full textAbstract:
Conrad Aiken’s observation that the “landscape and the language are the same, and we ourselves are language and are land,” depicts the material terrain we inhabit as necessarily informing the language we speak. An important corollary to Aiken’s observation is language itself writes the land. I argue that the binary division between culture and nature, as well as the attempts to universalise languages, abstracts discourse from necessary situated knowledges, alienating the land from the language it embodies. The severing of culture and nature as implied by Aiken’s observation is indicative of humanity’s progressive isolation from the land through language, as well as from their embodied natures. Remoteness results in what Marlene van Niekerk’s novel Agaat (2006) terms a “poverty disease” (2006: 251). Michiel Heyns confirms that the character Agaat relates this barrenness of spirit to her “diagnosis of spiritual ills through human dealings with the soil” (2009: 132). I illustrate the novel’s revitalisation of language as an act of ecological recuperation that alleviates dis-eased consciousnesses by potentially recognising, valuing and responding to situated knowledges revealed in land narratives.1 My argument therefore uncovers the challenges that the novel directs at an unreformed and universal Western2 To this end I use critiques of colonialism that reveal culture’s assimilation of the Other, rationalist discourse that continues to appropriate nature as resource for a hierarchical culture. 3 By combining this literary analysis with a wider eco-theoretical enquiry I position my study in an interdisciplinary field of investigation. This is in response to the damaging consequences of the inherited and fragmentary nature of specialisation. In addition, by detailing literary and feminist especially the work of Val Plumwood, Donna Haraway and Nicole Brossard. I use these critiques to analyse self/Other oppositions that Western culture constructs and patrols to maintain a defensive culture of domination. I show how nature and all those feminised and marginalised by Western discourses that hierarchise culture have been consistently overlooked and under-represented by those who purport to ‘control’ the environment and privilege the symbolic language as the carrier of culture. Agaat provides fruitful terrain for the reflection of marginalised voices; voices that confirm the environment and language as necessarily both feminist and social justice issues. 1 My preference for the hyphenated usage of the word ‘dis-ease’ signals the equation between discomfort or unease and disease or sickness. 2 While I am concerned over emphasising words such as Western and Apartheid by capitalising them, I have decided to retain this form so as not to diminish the magnitude of the effect these discourses have had on global and regional communities. 3 When referring to Others I, like Karen J. Warren, capitalise the term. Warren defines Others as all earth Others subjected to “unjustified domination-subordination relationships” (2005: 252). responses to Western patriarchal discourse and its impact on nature, I show the ways in which literature negotiates the possible re-conceptualisation of our collective cultural imagination. Van Niekerk’s novel offers a sustained critique of the oppressive Western conceptual frameworks that have dominated Others through hegemonic constructions. Furthermore, I investigate what this writer might offer as an alternative to systems of social, political and ecological control and the violence it inflicts.
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Hale, Frederick. "Literary challenges to the heroic myth of the Voortrekkers : H.P. Lamont's War, wine and women and Stuart Cloete's Turning wheels." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/52325.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (PhD)--University of Stellenbosch, 2001.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation is an interdisciplinary study of various historical novels which dealt to a greater or lesser degree with the Great Trek and were written between the 1840s and the 1930s in Dutch, Afrikaans and English but with particular emphasis on H.P. Lamont's War, Wine and Women and Stuart Cloete's Turning Wheels (1937). The analysis of all these fictional reconstructions focuses on the portrayal of the Voortrekkers found in them. Much attention is also paid to the historical contexts in which the two principal works in question were written and the great controversies which they occasioned because both of their authors had had the temerity to challenge the long-established myth of the heroic Voortrekkers, one of the holiest of the iconic cows in the barns of their Afrikaner descendants. Chapter I, "Introduction", is a statement of the purpose of the study, its place in the context of analyses of the history of Afrikaner nationalism, its structure and the sources on which it is based. Chapter II, "The Unfolding of the Myth of the Heroic Voortrekkers", traces its evolution from the 1830s to the 1930s and explores how both English-speaking South Africans and Afrikaners, especially Gustav PrelIer, purposefully contributed to it. Also highlighted in this chapter is the significance of the Great Trek Centenary and the events leading up to it in the middle and late 1930s in intensifying Afrikaner nationalism. Chapter III, "The Heroic Myth in Early Dutch and Afrikaans Novels about the Great Trek", considers especially how these works were used as vehicles for placing before Afrikaners the historic virtues of their ancestors both to provide models for emulation and to stimulate their ethnic pride. Chapter IV, "Sympathetic English Reconstructions of the Great Trek", deals with two novels, Eugenie de Kalb's Far Enough and Francis Brett Young's They Seek a Country, both of which reproduced the heroic myth to some extent. Chapter V, "Rendezvous with Disaster? The South Africa in Which Lamont Wrote War, Wine and Women" establishes the context of intensifying Afrikaner nationalism which this immigrant from the United Kingdom encountered in the late 1920s when he accepted a lectureship at the University of Pretoria and why this context was hostile to a novel which was critical of Afrikanerdom. Chapter VI, "Wa1~ Wine and Women: Its General Context and Commentary on South Africa" explores how this work, conceived as a "war book" dealing with the 1914-1918 conflict in Europe, depicted both Englishmen and Afrikaners negatively. Chapter VII, "Academic Freedom vs. Afrikaner Nationalism: The Consequential Strife over War, Wine and Women" deals with the hostile reception of Lamont's pseudonymously published novel, the physical assault on him and his dismissal from his lectureship at the University of Pretoria. Chapter VIII, "The Rhetoric of Revenge in Lamont's Halcyon Days in Africa", explores how the author, after relurning lo England, used his pen as a weapon for striking back al his Afrikaans foes in South Africa. Chapter IX, "Stuart Cloete's Portrayal of the Voortrekkers in Turning U'heels", focuses on the portrayal of various ethnic types in his gallery of characters. Chapter X, "The Con troversy over Turning U'heels", handles the hostile and apparently orchestrated reaction to Cloete's book and how it was eventually banned. Chapter XI, "Conclusion: Quod Eral Demonstrandum", summarises several thematic findings which a detailed examination of the novels in their historical context yields.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie verhandeling is 'n interdissiplinêre studie van verskeie historiese romans waarin daar in 'n mindere ofmeerdere mate op die Groot Trek gefokus word en wat geskryfis tussen die 1840's en die 1930's in Nederlands, Afrikaans en Engels, maar met die klem op H. P. Lamont se War, Wine and Wamen en Stuart Cloete se Turning Wheels (1937) in die besonder. Die analise van al hierdie fiktiewe rekonstruksies fokus op die uitbeelding van die Voortrekkers daarin. Daar word ook in die besonder aandag gegee aan die historiese kontekste waarbinne hierdie twee hoofwerke geskryfis en die groot polemiek daarrondom, omdat beide outeurs die vermetelheid gehad het om die lank reeds gevestigde mite van die heldhaftige Voortrekkers, een van die heiligste ikoniese koeie in die skure van die Afrikanernageslagte, uit te daag. Hoofstuk I, "Introduction", stel die doel van die studie, waar dit staan in die konteks van analises van die geskiedenis van Afrikanernasionalisme, die skruktuur en die bronne waarop dit gebaseer is. Hoofstuk II, "The Unfolding of the Myth of the Herioc Voortrekkers", volg die evolusie van Afrikanernasionalisme van die 1830's tot die 1930's en ondersoek op beide Engelssprekende Suid-Afrikaners en Afrikaners, veral Gustav Preller, doelgerig hiertoe bygedra het. In hierdie hoofstuk word daar ook beklemtoon hoe betekenisvol die honderdjarige herdenking van die Groot Trek en die gebeure wat daartoe aanleiding gegee het gedurende die middel- en laat 1930's, bygedra het tot die versterking van Afrikanernasionalisme. Hoofstuk III, "The Heroic Myth in Early Dutch and Afrikaans Novels about the Great Trek", bespreek veral hoe hierdie werke gebruik is om aan Afrikaners die historiese deugsaamheid van hulle voorvaders voor te hou en wat as voorbeelde moet dien wat nagestreef moet word en om hulle etniese trots te stimuleer. Hoofstuk IV, "Sympathetic English Reconstructions of the Great Trek", bespreek twee romans, Far Enough van Eugenie de Kalb en TheySeek a Country van Francis Brett Young, wat altwee die heroïse mite in 'n sekere mate herproduseer. Hoofstuk V, "Rendezvous with Disaster? The South Africa in Which Lamont Wrote War, Wine and Women" vestig die konteks van groeiende Afrikanernasionalisme wat hierdie immigrant van die Verenigde Koninkryk in die laat 1920's teëgekom het toe hy 'n lektoraat aan die Universiteit van Pretoria aanvaar het, en hoekom hierdie konteks vyandiggesind was teenoor 'n roman wat krities was teenoor die Afrikanerdom. Hoofstuk VI, "Wa1~ Wine and Women: Its General Context and Commentary on South Africa" ondersoek hoe hierdie werk, beskou as 'n "oorlogsboek" wat handeloor die 1914-1918 konflik in Europa, beide die Engelse en die Afrikaners in 'n negatiewe lig gestel het. Hoofstuk VII, "Academic Freedom vs. Afrikaner Nationalism: The Consequential Strife over War, Wine and Women" skenk aandag aan die vyandige ontvangs van Lamont se roman (gepubliseer onder 'n skuilnaam), die fisieke aanval op hom en sy ontslag as lektor van die Universiteit van Pretoria. Hoofstuk VIII, "The Rhetoric of Revenge in Lamont's Halcyon Days inAfrica", ondersoekhoe die outeur, na hy na Engeland teruggekeer het, sy pen as wapen gebruik het in 'n teenaanval op sy Afrikaanse vyande in Suid-Afrika. Hoofstuk IX, "Stuart Cloete's Portrayal of the Voortrekkers in Turning Wheels", fokus op die uitbeelding van verskeie etniese tipes in sy gallery karakters. Hoofstuk X, "The Controversy over Tumng Wheels", bespreek die vyandige en klaarblyklike georkestreerde reaksie op Cloete se boek, en hoe dit uiteindelik verban is. Hoofstuk XI, "Conclusion: Quod Era! Demonstrandum", bied 'n opsomming van verskei tematiese bevindinge aan, wat deur 'n gedetaileerde ondersoek van die romans opgelewer is.
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Young, Cheryl Ann. "A study of the personal literature written in the Eastern Cape in the nineteenth century." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002274.
Full textAbstract:
The evidence of these diaries, all written in the nineteenth century, reveals the heterogeneous nature of early settler society in the Eastern Cape. Generalizations can only be of the most tenuous kind in such a small sample; but women tend to dwell on the domestic, the men on their public lives, the most reticent about their private lives are the soldiers. There is one diary which can be described as personal; the diarists did not regard their diaries as appropriate repositories of their personal triumphs and failures. The perceptions formed in Britain about the land and people of Africa are not drastically modified upon arrival unless the diarist experiences a prolongued contact with either.
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Foster, Lynn. "An exploratory analysis of masters' dissertations in psychology undertaken by women and men in South Africa from 1964-1998." Thesis, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/7966.
Full textAbstract:
This study was an exploratory thematic and categorical analysis of the titles and abstracts of
women and men psychology master's dissertations completed from 1964 to 1998. These
dissertations represent research undertaken at all South African universities. They are located on
the Nexus database, developed by the Centre for Science Development (CSD) at the Human
Science Research Council (HSRC) and maintained by the National Research Foundation (NRF).
This research is an investigation of trends, which might lead to conclusions regarding the areas of
psychological specialisations chosen for research, the methodologies of research applied and the
sample type employed in the research. Secondly, a longitudinal analysis was conducted to
examine if any shifts of focus over time in any of the three areas already mentioned (i.e.
specialisation, methodology and sample type) had occurred.
The methodology used was a combination of both quantitative statistical analysis and qualitative
analysis of selected women's and men's dissertations. Content analysis was the preliminary
research method used to code the data which was then statistically analysed by means of
correspondence analysis. The literature review examined psychology's historical exclusion of
women both as professionals and as potential subjects of research. The literature also examines
the founding premise of psychological research dominated by scientific empiricism underpinned
by logical positivism. Feminist literature was then reviewed in order to offer a commentary on
the patriarchal underpinnings embedded in the discipline and to offer and explore alternatives.
The outcome of this study revealed a number of valuable findings. First, there had been a major
increase in the selection of women masters' students in psychology. Second, the dominant
methodology remains quantitative in nature. There is however a slight increase in qualitative and
combined research by both women and men in the 1990s. Third, there has been a radical increase
in the 1990s of women entering the male domain of industrial psychology. Fourth, no major
differences were found between women and men masters' students and their choice of
specialisation area, methodology and sample type selected. Finally, women more often than men
recognised the gender and ethnicity of their sample subjects. It must however be noted that
gender and ethnicity of the sample subjects were still relatively infrequently registered in the
titles and abstracts of both women and men's masters' dissertations.
In conclusion the plethora of data available on Nexus and the findings identified in the present
study a window has opened up to the potential for many future projects in terms of South African
psychology masters' research.
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Hobyani, Tinyiko Sarah. "Ku tsan'wiwa ka timfanelo ta vamanana eka tsalwa ra ndlandlalati ya malenga ra A.D. Mahatlane na Nkhavi wa le Ndzhaku ra N.B. Mkhari." Thesis, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10386/2275.
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Govinden, Devarakshanam Betty. ""Sister outsiders" : the representation of identity and difference in selected writings by South African Indian women." Thesis, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/9537.
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Mathye, Hlamalani Ruth. "The image of women in selected Tsonga novels." Diss., 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/2135.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation is a critical examination of selected Tsonga novels by male and female writers. Positive and negative images of women by these authors are analysed, compared and evaluated from a feminist perspective.
Emphasis is laid on the manner in which Tsonga writers portray female characters in a changing society and the extent to which the images of women in this literature represent the present day woman. Adherence to ideological, cultural and traditional values as well as the differences in portrayal of women by male and female writers is also investigated.
Through a comparison of novels written by male and female writers it is established that because of patriarchy these writers differ markedly in their portrayal of female characters. In all the novels analysed, the sociol-cultural context influences the way in which these writers portray female characters. Male writers promote traditional values which female writers strive to discard by portraying female characters who predominantly undermine stereotypical cultural sex-roles.African languages
M.A. (African languages)
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Machaba, Rirhandzu Lillian. "The portrayal of women in Xitsonga literature with special reference to South African novels, poems and proverbs." Thesis, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/5542.
Full textAbstract:
The new dawn that brought about democracy in South Africa in 1994 and the social and political experiences have since changed the expectations of women’s roles in society. Literature is the important part of this experience because it mirrors and interprets the experience from the point of view of those who write about it. This study, therefore, attempts to examine the image of women in Xitsonga literature, to investigate whether there is a link in the expected cultural roles of Vatsonga women and their roles as characters in Xitsonga literature; and whether there is a shift in the way women characters are portrayed to represent the current social and political reality.
The study employs African feminist literary criticism as a tool in critically analysing the various literary genres. It also adopts purposive sampling of Xitsonga novels, poetry and proverbs that have women characters in them and analyse how these women characters have been portrayed. The naming of female characters is examined in relation to their roles in the texts and the titles of the texts are also investigated and critically analysed to establish whether they portray any gender stereotypes. The themes of the selected texts are also examined to establish if there is any gender biasness. Both male and female-authored texts have been investigated to explore whether male authors depict women differently from their female counterparts.
The study concludes that there is gender-biasness in the manner in which women characters are depicted that do not reflect the current political and social order, however, some women authors, unlike their male counterparts do not reflect gender-biasness in their depiction of female characters.African Languages
D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)
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Masuku, Norma. "Images of women in some Zulu literary works : a feminist critique." Diss., 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/18156.
Full textAbstract:
Chapter 1 is the introductory chapter which gives the aim of study, delimitation,
scope and methodology. It further presents critical studies that have been done
on Feminism.
Chapter 2 is devoted to the Feminist theory, the origin of the term stereotype and
the diverse schools of thought within the Feminist camp. Feminism from the
African perspective, known as Womanism, has been deliberated on.
Chapter 3 concentrates mainly on two women authors, Damane and
Makhambeni. This chapter looks at how these authors have depicted their female
characters. It also examines the stereotypes employed by these female authors.
Chapter 4 is devoted to the writing of male authors. This chapter also
concentrates on the stereotypes employed by them in their analysis of their female
characters.
Chapter 5, concludes the study and summarizes the main findings of this review.African Languages
M.A. (African Languages)
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Moothoo-Padayachie, Nitasha. "Constructing South African feminism(s) : a case study of Agenda, 1987-2007." Thesis, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/7675.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation provides an analysis of the Agenda construction of South
African Feminism(s). Agenda is a feminist, peer-reviewed SAPSE journal that
was launched as a publication in 1987 in South Africa. The Journal provides a
forum for a number of issues: the most important being the representation of
women's voices towards transforming unequal gender relations; and women's
unequal position in society, their visibility, struggles and problems in relation to
gender inequalities. The Journal also uses a format that encompasses creative
writing and original research that is intended to be accessible to a broad
readership. Over the years, the Journal has published broadly on issues ranging
from health, violence, sexuality, the media, poverty, labour, HIV/AIDS, rights,
sustainable development, citizenship, etc. This dissertation analyses how some
of these themes have been addressed by Agenda in terms of editorial content
and the subsequent impact these choices have had on creating a uniquely South
African Feminism. To determine the 'impact', the study adopts a content analysis
of the Journal, (Neuman, 1997). The content of the Journals, especially during
Apartheid (pre-1994) reflects a focus on the lived experiences of South African
women. It is hypothesised that Agenda has shifted its focus since Issue 20 (the
first Issue of 1994 aptly titled "Politics, Power and Democracy"). The argument in
the dissertation demonstrates that with the inclusion of South African women,
Agenda has steadily and consistently developed a discourse that is collaborative
and participatory, reflecting a hybrid of various earlier strands of Western originating
feminisms (such as radical, liberal, Marxist, socialist). This new discourse could be labelled South African Feminism(s), and such a conclusion is
investigated through close analyses of selected themes and issues covered by
the Journal copy.Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.
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Jacob, Mark Christopher. "Marguerite Poland's landscapes as sites for identity construction." Thesis, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/206.
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Scott, Claire. ""How do I understand myself in this text-tortured land?" : identity, belonging and textuality in Antjie Krog's A change of tongue, Down to my last skin and Body bereft." Thesis, 2006.
Find full textAbstract:
This thesis explores the question, “What literary strategies can be employed to allow as many people as possible to identify themselves positively with South Africa as a nation and a country?”. I focus in particular on the possibilities for identification open to white South African women, engaging with Antjie Krog's English texts, A Change of Tongue, Down to My Last Skin and Body Bereft.
I seek to identify the textual strategies, such as a fluid structure, shifts between genre and a multiplicity of points of view, which Krog employs to examine this topic, and to highlight the ways in which the literary text is able to facilitate a fuller engagement with issues of difference and belonging in society than other discursive forms. I also consider several theoretical concepts, namely supplementarity, displacement and diaspora, that I believe offer useful ways of understanding the transformation of individual subjectivity within a transitional society.
I then explore the ways in which women identify with, and thereby create their own space within, the nation. I investigate the ways in which Krog represents women in A Change of Tongue, and discuss how Krog uses „the body‟ as a theoretical site and a performative medium through which to explore the possibilities, and the limitations, for identification with the nation facing white South African women. I also propose that by writing „the body‟, Krog foregrounds her own act of writing thereby highlighting the construction and representation of her „self‟ through the text.
I proceed to consider Krog's use of poetry as a textual strategy that enables her to explore the nuances of these themes in ways which prose does not allow. I propose that lyric poetry, as a mode of expression which emphasises the allusive, the imaginative or the affective, has a capacity to render in language those experiences, emotions and sensations that are often considered intangible or elusive. Through a selection of poems from Down to My Last Skin and Body Bereft, I examine the way in which Krog constantly re-writes the themes of belonging and identity, as well as interrogate Krog's use of poetry as a strategy that permits both the writer and the reader access to new ways of understanding experiences, in particular the way apparently ephemeral experiences can be rooted in the body. I also briefly consider the significance of the act of translation in relation to the reading of Krog's poems.
I conclude by suggesting that in A Change of Tongue, Down to My Last Skin and Body Bereft Krog engages with the project of “[writing] the white female experience back into the body of South African literature” (Jacobson “No Woman” 18), and in so doing offers possible ways in which white South African women can claim a sense of belonging within society as well as ways in which they can challenge, resist, re-construct and create their identities both as women, and as South Africans.Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.
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Nudelman, Jill. "CONTESTED DOMESTIC SPACES: ANNE LANDSMAN'S "THE DEVIL'S CHIMNEY"." Thesis, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10539/1736.
Full textAbstract:
Student Number : 7805464 -
MA dissertation -
School of SLLS -
Faculty of ArtsThis dissertation interrogates Anne Landsman’s The Devil’s Chimney. The novel is narrated by the poor-white alcoholic, Connie, who imagines a story about Beatrice, an English colonist living on a farm in the Little Karoo. Connie, who is a product of the apartheid era, interweaves her own story with that of Beatrice’s and, in this way, comes to terms with her own memories, her abusive husband and the new South Africa. Connie deploys the genre of magical realism to create a defamiliarised farm setting for Beatrice’s narrative. She thus challenges the stereotypes associated with the traditional plaasroman and its patriarchal codes. These codes are also subverted in Connie’s representation of Beatrice, who contests her identity as the authoritative Englishwoman, as constructed by colonial discourse. In addition, Beatrice’s black domestic, Nomsa, is given voice and agency: facilities denied to her counterparts in colonial and apartheid fiction. Nomsa’s relationship with Beatrice is also characterised by subversion as it blurs the boundaries between colonised and coloniser. In this regard, the text demands a postcolonial reading. Connie, in narrating Beatrice’s and Nomsa’s stories, reinvents their invisible lives and, by doing so, is able to rewrite herself. In this, she tentatively envisions a future for herself and also potentially ‘narrates’ the nation, thus contributing to the new national literature. The nation is inscribed in the Cango caves, whose spaces witness the seminal episodes in Beatrice’s narrative. In these events, the caves ‘write’ the female body and women’s sexuality and the text thus calls for an engagement with feminism. The caves also inscribe South African history, the Western literary canon, the imagination and Landsman’s own voice. Hence, the caves assume the characteristics of a palimpsest. This, together with the metafictive elements of the novel, invites an encounter with postmodernism.
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Kohaly, Dawn Felicity. "The Nollybook phenomenon." Diss., 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/19843.
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Moeti, Itireleng David. "Kekana's Nonyana ya tokologo as a representation of emerging feminism in Northern Sotho literature." Thesis, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10210/9363.
Full textAbstract:
M.A. (African Languages)This research concentrates primarily on feminism and attempts to study it in relation to Northern Sotho literature. As Kekana is undoubtedly the first author to deal with this topic in her novel - NONYANA YA TOKOLOGO (The Bird of Freedom), this proves the fact that in Northern Sotho literature feminism is still at its infancy stage, hence, the topic of this research - KEKANA'S NONYANA YA TOKOLOGO AS REPRESENTATIVE OF EMERGING FEMINISM IN NORTHERN SOTHO LITERATURE. Feminism emerges in Northern Sotho literature for the following two reasons: firstly, Kekana is the first writer in Northern Sotho to show vested interest in the topic; secondly, though her efforts in pioneering this path are appreciated, she should have clearly shown the way women should go to be liberated from patriarchal prison. After demonstrating so well that men oppress women in a patriarchal society, she dampens women's morale to aspire to freedom by returning Taamane to her oppressor- Tshaledi.
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Assink, Catherine. "'Malibongwe igama lama khosikazi' ('Let the name of woman be praised') : the negotiation of female subjectivity in Lauretta Ngcobo's And they didn't die." Thesis, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/5560.
Full textAbstract:
In this thesis I attempt to examine the way that rural women in Natal, from the early 1950s to the
1980s, were relegated to the periphery of both white society and black traditional society. Lauretta
Ngcobo's second novel And They Didn't Die is therefore a very useful resource as it takes a look at
the interplay of traditional black patriarchy, white patriarchy, and the way rural women were
affected by these oppressive institutions. And They Didn't Die examines the way that apartheid
affected rural communities and the individual. It investigates the various struggles faced by rural
women; how women have to negotiate their own identities within different systems. And They
Didn't Die focuses on the political, economic, and traditional struggles of rural women in Natal at
the end of the 1950s, but unlike other novels, And They Didn't Die also focuses on the sexual
identities of rural women, and how they mobilised themselves through political activities such as the
struggle against the dreaded pass laws, and the protests against the beer halls. And They Didn't Die
is a novel which explores political, traditional, economic, sexual, and communal aspects of rural life.
Ngcobo foregrounds the communal, political, economic, and traditional problems that the women in
the novel have to face.
Ngcobo recreates the various political protests that were happening at this time, to demonstrate the
construction of the black woman as political subject. She carefully demonstrates how agency has to
be negotiated with both the white authorities and black patriarchy. Black South African women
were forced to fight double political battles on the domestic and national fronts. The split structure
of the political and traditional struggle is at the center of Ngcobo's work. And They Didn't Die
shows that the struggle for female subjectivity is a dynamic process. In South Africa, rural black
women had to negotiate numerous subject positions. Forging a sense of selfhood was difficult,
especially when confronted with dual patriarchies, apartheid, and the constant negotiation with
tradition.
Ngcobo's novel is an interesting fictional account that draws on various historical events that offers
the reader a sense of what women had to go through in order to survive the atrocities of apartheid.Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1999.
32
Msibi, Bongumusa Collen. "Transvaluative analysis of Zulu terms that relate to women : a case study of a TV drama series, Kwakhalanyonini, with reference to gender stereotypes." Thesis, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/6173.
Full textAbstract:
The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between media, language and gender stereotypes. It assumes that language usage in mass media creates and reproduces gender inequalities. Its main objectives are firstly, to randomly select terms for Zulu women from the chosen TV case study, Kwakhalanyonini. Secondly, selected terms will be analyzed, using the 'transvaluative analysis technique', in order to explain their meaning and hierarchy. This having been done, an attempt will be made to show how the usage of these terms reflect gender stereotypes, by locating women into subordinate positions. A question may well be asked; why Zulu language? I am a native Zulu speaker, with Zulu speaking parents.Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1996.
33
Mdluli, Sisana R. (Sisana Rachel). "A reflective perspective of women leadership in Nguni oral poetic forms." Thesis, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13174.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis utilizes the theory of feminism in all its implied branches in an attempt to critically review the subtle and sometimes deliberate subjugation of women in general and South Africa in particular. This occurs, in spite of the fact that there are laws in place that are meant to discourage women abuse. Juxtaposing this is the perspective conception of women, looking at themselves as subjects of virtue who deserve equal treatment to any other human being. It is through some oral forms that this reflection could be tested. Praise poetry, in the hands of a creative artist opens up a world of human emotions that could not be easily seen or felt, and yet it can simultaneously be used to manipulate situations. Language therefore could be seen as a powerful double-edged instrument. The patriarchal system, in this thesis, is exposed as that holy ideology turned unholy to achieve condescending agendas against women. The thin light of respect demonstrated by the traditionalist thinking is made to disappear into thin air, especially when contaminated by Western ideas.
It is the resoluteness and the fair obstinacy of some both traditional and modern women that determinedly stood up to conscientise the world in terms of respect for human life irrespective. In this research, an exploration of literary elements within four Nguni languages, that is Siswati, isiZulu, isiNdebele, and isiXhosa reveals the singularity of purpose, for these elements to be manipulated to achieve domineering intentions. Be that as it may, tibongo (praise poems/ praises) of outstanding women who have served in traditional leadership in these language groups give reason to challenge any idea that women should by virtue be relegated to the back seat. Through these tibongo it becomes apparent that because of the women leaders’ stubborn fairness and unparalleled foresight, they have become personifications of democratic values and as such, role models and symbolic hope not only for the empowerment of women, but also for their total liberation from all negative perceptions and oppressions.African Languages
D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)
34
Marsden, Dorothy Frances. "Changing images : representations of the Southern African black women in works by Bessie Head, Ellen Kuzwayo, Mandla Langa and Mongane Serote." 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/18134.
Full textAbstract:
This study examines representations of Southern African black women
in the works' of two male and two female writers. A comparative
approach is used to review the ways in which the writers
characterise women who labour under intense restrictions in
domestic situations, the workplace, and in political contexts.
Some representations suggest that women have come to terms with
social strictures and have learned to live fulfilled lives despite
them. Other representations are contextualised in creative situations
in which social roles are re-imagined. In the process,
women are removed from conventional object-related gendered
positions. These representations suggest that women have the
capability to achieve personal transcendence rather than accept the
immanence imposed by stereotyped gender relationships and repressive
political structures. The suggestion is made that writers can
change the image of women by centralising them as active subjects,
challenging their exclusion and creating spaces for women to
represent themselvesEnglish Studies
M.A. (English)
35
Gordon-Chipembere, Natasha 1970. "From silence to speech, from object to subject: the body politic investigated in the trajectory between Sarah Baartman and contemporary circumcised African women's writing." Thesis, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/1660.
Full textAbstract:
NOTE FROM THE LIBRARY: PLEASE CONTACT THE AUTHOR AT indisunflower@yahoo.com OR CONSULT THE LIBRARY FOR THE FULL TEXT OF THIS THESIS....
This thesis investigates the trajectory traced from Sarah Baartman, a Khoisan woman exploited in Europe during the nineteenth century, to a contemporary writing workshop with circumcised, immigrant West African women in Harlem New York by way of a selection of African women's memoirs. The selected African women's texts used in this work create a new testimony of speech, fragmenting a historically dominant Euro-American gaze on African women's bodies. The excerpts form a discursive space for reclaiming self and as well as a defiant challenge to Western porno-erotic voyeurism. The central premise of this thesis is that while investigating Eurocentric (a)historical narratives of Baartman, one finds an implicitly racist and sexist development of European language employed not solely with Baartman, but contemporaneously upon the bodies of Black women of Africa and its Diaspora, focusing predominantly on the "anomaly of their hypersexual" genitals. This particular language applied to the bodies of Black women extends into the discourse of Western feminist movements against African female circumcision in the 21st century. Nawal el Saadawi, Egyptian writer and activist and Aman, a Somali exile, write autobiographical texts which implode a western "silent/uninformed circumcised African woman" stereotype. It is through their documented life stories that these African women claim their bodies and articulate nationalist and cultural solidarity. This work shows that Western perceptions of Female Circumcision and African women will be juxtaposed with African women's perceptions of themselves. Ultimately, with the Nitiandika Writers Workshop in Harlem New York, the politicized outcome of the women who not only write their memoirs but claim a vibrant sexual (not mutilated or deficient) identity in partnership with their husbands, ask why Westerners are more interested in their genitals than how they are able to provide food, shelter and education for the their families, as immigrants to New York. The works of Saadawi, Aman and the Nitandika writers disrupt and ultimately destroy this trajectory of dehumanization through a direct movement from an assumed silence (about their bodies, their circumcisions and their status as women in Africa) to a directed, historically and culturally grounded "alter" speech of celebration and liberation.English Studies
D. Litt. et Phil.(English)
36
Ngomane, Elvis Hangalakani. "The contexts of her story : an exploration of race, power and gender in selected novels of Bessie Head." Diss., 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/1157.
Full textAbstract:
This study explores the triple imbrications of race, power and gender in the selected
novels of Bessie Head. A critical analysis of Maru (1971) and A Question of' Power
(1974) is undertaken with a view to identifying the subordinating and the
marginalising tropes that result in silencing of female subjectivities in Head's
protagonists. Linked to a critical reading of the novels, this study examines the role of
cultural and psychological forces in maintaining patriarchal hegemony, which is
based upon hierarchy and domination of women rather than equality.
Furthennore, this dissertation suggests that Head's depiction of narrow ethnic and
racial bigotry serves a broader etiological purpose of accounting for "the state of
thingsff within the South African context. Thus this study oscillates between the
abstract constructs and the concrete social experiences within which Bessie Head's
literary imagination subsists.
In this study, particular attention is paid, in addition to critiques of individual texts, to
some of Head's biographical elements with a view on the one hand, to highlighting
the moments, events and issues which are reflected as " contexts of her-story" and on
the other, to amplifying how Head's formative experiences contribute to her critique
of the exploitative racially structured narratives.
By using Foucault's theories within the social constructionist model, this dissertation
aims to demonstrate the insidious intersections between racism and sexism and how
these constructs are implicated in the conception and construction of power.
Specifically, this study argues that due to their arbitrary applications, racial and sexual
difference be viewed as dynamic and contested, rather than fixed.
A synthesis is reached which accords literarure a role within the framework of socio-cultural practice in general.English Studies
M.A. (English)
37
Nortje, Sandra. "Die vrou as outobiograaf: die Suid-Afrikaanse konteks." Thesis, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/1703.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation is a report on a study about autobiography as genre, focusing on the voice
of the white, Afrikaans-speaking woman. The point of departure for this study was a survey
of the number of autobiographies written in Afrikaans by these women. With the focus on
the limited number of such autobiographies three autobiographies were studied, namely,
Met die Boere in die veld (Sarah Raal), My beskeie deel (M.E.R.) and 'n Wonderlike geweld
(Elsa Joubert). Within the framework of the complexity systems theory the role of the
observer (author/reader) was studied to determine the possibility of demonstrating that
when reading/writing an autobiography, some epistemological changes may occur,
manifesting as conceptual changes in the mind of the observer. It could be demonstrated
that because of women's sensitivity to interpersonal relationships they are capable of acting
as unique registers of the complexity of individual existence, while remaining aware of the
constant influence, effect and needs of the other.AFRIKAANS & THEORY OF LIT
MA (AFRIKAANS)
38
Jacobs, Martha Christina. "Konsep volksmoeder soos dit in die Afrikaanse drama neerslag vind." Diss., 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/2588.
Full textAbstract:
The central problem in this dissertation entails how the concept volksmoeder (mother of the nation) gradually developed to secure a place in the Afrikaans drama. Chapter 1 determines the hypothesis of this dissertation. Chapter 2 focusses on the volksmoeder characteristics. The conclusion reached in Chapter 2 is that Maria in Langenhoven’s Die vrou van Suid-Afrika (1918) reveals similarities and contrasts with female characters in Dutch plays. Chapter 3 ascertains that characteristics of female personages as mothers of the nation determine their positions in patriarch/volksmoeder relationships in W.A. de Klerk’s Die jaar van die vuur-os (1952). Different types of volksmoeder appear in the above-mentioned farm play and in H.A. Fagan’s Ousus (1934). Chapters 4 and 5 identify how the present day volksmoeder in recent plaasdramas such as Deon Opperman’s Donkerland (1996), André P. Brink’s Die jogger (1997), Ek, Anna van Wyk (1986) and Die koggelaar (1988) by Pieter Fourie, indicate a further development in the concepts patriarch and volksmoeder. In the latter’s Koggelmanderman (2003) the man and woman are removed from the idea of gender.Die sentrale probleem in die verhandeling behels hoe die konsep volksmoeder met verloop van tyd in die Afrikaanse drama neerslag gevind het. Hoofstuk 1 bepaal die hipoteses van die verhandeling. Hoofstuk 2 fokus op die kenmerke van die volksmoeder. Die gevolgtrekking in hoofstuk 2 is dat Maria in Langenhoven se Die vrou van Suid-Afrika (1918) ooreenstem en kontrasteer met Nederlandse vrouefigure. Hoofstuk 3 stel vas dat vrouefigure se kenmerke as volksmoeders hul posisie binne die patriarg/volksmoederverhouding in W.A. de Klerk se Die jaar van die vuur-os (1952) bepaal. Verskillende soorte volksmoeder -verskyn in bogenoemde plaasdrama en in H.A. Fagan se Ousus (1934). Hoofstukke 4 en 5 identifiseer hoe hedendaagse volksmoeders in nuwe plaasdramas, soos Deon Opperman se Donkerland (1996), Andre P. Brink se Die jogger (1997), Ek, Anna van Wyk (1986) en Die koggelaar (1988) van Pieter Fourie, verder binne die patriarg/volksmoederverhouding ontwikkel. In laasgenoemde se Koggelmanderman (2003) beweeg die man en vrou weg van die konsepte patriarg en volksmoeder.
Afrikaans & Theory of Literature
M.A. (Afrikaans)