Representations of Masculinity in Wilbur Smith's Courtney Saga

2 1 JUNY 2000 -j •& ?3 32- Representations of Masculinity in Wilbur Smith's Courtney Saga. Contextual Causes and Strategies of Authorial Control i* Mi, M. Isabel Santaulària i Capdevila The reclamation of masculine space 425 10.4. Enterprise, politics and the wilderness as masculine spaces 10.4.1. Masculinity, work and competition To be a man, Rosalind Miles writes, "as popular music and mythology have it, is to be 'king of the town, cock of the walk, top of the heap.'"44 Manhood is closely linked to an obsessional insistence on phallic power and supremacy, what could be termed a droit de signeur of dominant males over other weaker men and women in general. As I have stressed in the previous section of this chapter, competition, the desire to excel and gain authority over others is supposed to characterise male identity; as Dustin Hoffman eloquently put it when asked to explain what he had learnt about masculinity when playing the starring role in Tootsie: Part of manhood is not to be taken advantage of. Poker is the classic masculine sport where the whole thing is bluff and knowing where someone's vulnerability is, so you can attack and try to take something away from them.45 Indeed, most institutions in our western world are organised around hierarchies, methods of competition and elimination, and inexorable systems of rewards and punishments. Men, in order to 'triumph', must be able to perform successfully within power hierarchies and reach top positions in the social pyramid; those who hesitate, show weaknesses or fail are thrown to the jackals. In a world built around systems of production that guarantee the working of capitalism and nurture the ambitions of political leaders, the ability to generate wealth, as well as the talent to manipulate and distribute this wealth, have been turned into two of the main definers of masculinity. Wealth and power - or rather, the power that goes with wealth - are constructed as major prizes men must aim at if they want to become worthy, successful men. These prizes, in turn, are achieved through the application of hard work and enterprise. In western, industrialised societies, therefore, definitions of masculinity are highly bound up with definitions of work; work has become a potent source of validation in the eyes of men and remains a primary definer of adult manhood; as Lynne Segal expresses it, 44 Rosalind Miles, The Rites of Men, 121. 45 qtd. in Rosalind Miles, The Rites of Men, 124. 426 Representations of Masculinity... "a successful man is measured by his ability to achieve at his job,"46 which offers the benefits of money and status, as well as of power. 10.4.2. Man-the-achiever: fantasies of masculine political and economic power in the Courtney saga Given the importance of work and the ability to succeed in it for the definition of manhood in our capitalist world, Smith places his men in two areas which he fashions as masculine preserves and which give his heroes the opportunity to prove their strength by making use of highly-esteemed values within capitalism (hard work, initiative and unwavering determination): the world of hard-core capitalist business and the world of politics. These are presented as manly spaces where there is no room for the faint hearted; where men have to play to win, keep winning and keep rolling in the money; where a pervasive macho climate ensures that only the most aggressive and competitive succeed; and where men must always be on their heterosexual macho guard in order not to become losers left to the opprobrium of other men who could regard them as sissies or 'women'. The worlds of business and of politics, furthermore, are closely connected to the idea of risk and passing beyond the limits of the known and secure (the world of adventure), so men's involvement in business and politics, therefore, clearly underlines their recklessness and adventurous spirit. Given the enormous potential of these two areas of influence and the opportunities they offer men to prove their manhood, Smith characterises his heroes as capable of succeeding in these two broad areas of influence so that he can stress their power and masculinity. Sean I will illustrate the point. He is allowed a 'walk on the business wild side' in what was to become Johannesburg in Kruger's Boer republic. Sean I and Duff Charleywood (an assistant engineer Sean I meets in Dundee, a coal mining area) erect their gold empire by the application of technical skills, physical strength, perseverance and hard work. They are a perfect partnership: Duff is the one who negotiates, "pour[s] the oil on the storm waters churned up by impatient creditors," and who possesses the technical skills, for he is a "storehouse of mining knowledge;" Sean I, on Lynne Segal, Masculinity andPower, 84. The reclamation of masculine space 427 the other hand, is the one who, with his perseverance and no-nonsense approach to life, brings Duffs designs to fruition: he rejects "the least likely Charleywood brain children" and adopts the more deserving, and once he has made himself stepfather of Duffs schemes, he rears them "as if they were his own." {Lion 267) Both of them take risks, for risk-taking is an essential ingredient of adventurous masculinity; but their risks are never unlikely dreams, but down-to-earth plans based on logical thinking. Sean I, who is likened to "a wall to put [one's] back against" or "a friendly mountain," {Lion 267) is especially operative in bringing dreams to a happy conclusion for it is his solid devotion to hard work that makes Duffs plans work. The application of Duff and Sean I's masculinity and manly traits to the world of business is successful and they manage to build their enormous financial empire (described in When the Lion Feeds): they buy twenty-five claims from Doc Sutherland (262) and a hundred more on the other side of Cousin Jock; (263) they put up new buildings around the mill; (267) they buy new mills; (271) they pay back all their debts; (272-273) they build 'a modest little office' in town - two stories, stinkwood floors, oak panelling and twenty rooms; (273) they buy land - one thousand acres at Orange Grove and another thousand around Hospital Hill; (273) they start a transport business with almost four hundred wagons which "ply in daily from Port Natal and Lourenço Marques" (273) and they have brickfields which work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to try to meet the demand for building materials; (274) they join up with most of the members of the Diggers' Committee to build a special type of pleasure house, a brothel, which they call the Opera House; (274) they participate in the formation of a Stock Exchange as the nearest they have is the one in Kimberley, which is too far removed to be of practical use to the millionaires in Johannesburg, who need to seek avenues for investment; (275) they survive Kruger's efforts to behead the gold-laying goose (277) and his high taxes on gold to finance the new development on the East Rand; (360) they become important men who receive deferential treatment wherever they go; (277) have over fifteen hundred human beings who depend on them for their livelihood (278) and build a house which becomes a symbol of the possessions and fortune they own, Xanadu, (284) which they decorate with materials coming from all parts of the British empire - carpets from Persia and 428 Representations of Masculinity... wood from the Knysna forests. They finally combine their strength with Hradsky's, pool their resources and go on together to new greatness by merging their vast financial ventures, (326) so Central Rand Consolidated is born. (332) The narration of Sean I and Duffs exploits in the Witwatersrand, serve Smith the purpose of highlighting their capacity to generate wealth and create cities and big companies; indeed their great power and virility. Furthermore, it brings to the fore their rationality and lack of sentimental softness. They appear to readers as cool and unemotional. True to the masculinist dictum, "Play the game without mercy, play to win," (281) Sean I and Duff show no remorse; they are sharks who smell out vulnerability in men and close in on them: when Karl Lochtkamper, for example, lays himself open by borrowing too much money which he cannot immediately pay back, they do not hesitate: they call the loans in on the last day of the quarter and give him twenty-four hours to meet them, which is certainly not time enough. Karl is weak, a "quitter," (280) and, consequently, he takes fright and commits suicide. Sean I and Duff show no pity; they are very aware of the fact that in the world of business men have to take chances and accept loss with dignity if they are knocked down; so Karl's death is not their fault, but his: he went for the greasy pig and was not manly enough to face defeat with courage and manly dignity. In the world of enterprise, men have to act like men, rationally and unemotionally, and weaklings and no-men cannot play the game to win. Sean I has the capacities a man needs to erect a vast financial empire and to prove his worth as a competitor in the highly masculinist world of hard-core capitalism. His descendants and predecessors, at least worthy ones, are equally capable businessmen. Smith makes sure he endows them with the manly virtues that turn them into successful participants in the world of business.

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