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A Tent of Blue and Souls in Pain

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A Tent of Blue and Souls in Pain COPYRIGHT AND CITATION CONSIDERATIONS FOR THIS THESIS/ DISSERTATION o Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. o NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes. o ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. How to cite this thesis Surname, Initial(s). (2012) Title of the thesis or dissertation. PhD. (Chemistry)/ M.Sc. (Physics)/ M.A. (Philosophy)/M.Com. (Finance) etc. [Unpublished]: University of Johannesburg. Retrieved from: https://ujdigispace.uj.ac.za (Accessed: Date). (i) A TENT OF BLUE AND SOULS IN PAIN CREATIVE RESPONSES TO PRISON EXPERIENCE WITH EMPHASIS UPON EXISTENTIAL AND AUTOBIOGRAPIDCAL ELEMENTS WITHIN SELECTED SOUTH AFRICAN PRISON WRITINGS by ROSEMARY ANNE FOLLI DISSERTATION submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in ENGLISH in the FACULTY OF ARTS of the RAND AFRIKAANS UNIVERSITY MAY 1994 Supervisors: MR DIGBY RICCI MS IRMGARD SCHOPEN PROFESSOR ALEX POTTER (ii) DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my dearfriend The Honourable Mr Justice Richard Goldstone Ceaseless Campaigner in the Cause of Justice and Rights for Political Prisoners Detained Without Trial (iii) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my thanks to my supervisors, Ms Irmgard Schopenand Mr Digby Ricci. Unfortunately for me, but most fortunately for her, Ms Schopen left to take up a Fullbright Scholarship in the United States while I was in the middle of this project. Nevertheless the few meetings which we did manage to conveneproved to be highly fruitful and productive. I would like to extend a very special word of thanks to Mr Ricci, who agreed to assist me during the absence of Ms Schopen, "for friendship sake and for interest sake", and for his expert and constant advice and interest. Thank you also to Professor Potter and to my colleagues for their encouragement and support. A special thankyou goes to Valerie Oddy, who typed this dissertation with great patience, care and skill, and also to Corrie Marucchi, my husband's secretary, who lightened my load in every possible way, so as to give me extra time for this dissertation. Finally, my express gratitude belongs to my whole family for their 'support, especially to my husband, Edo, who listened constantly to my ideas and progress with patience and forbearance, and who also cheerfully conducted many shopping .. expeditions for me when time was pressing. ,, (iv) ABSTRACT FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTERS OF ARTS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE AT THE RAND AFRIKAANS UNIVERSITY TITLE CREATIVE RESPONSES TO PRISON EXPERIENCE WITH EMPHASIS UPON EXISTENTIAL AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ELEMENTS WITHIN SELECTED SOUTH AFRICAN PRISON WRITINGS This dissertation aims to examine the nature of the unique creative response to the prison experience. Different modes ofartistic expression will be analyzed to show that there is no single literary response to incarceration, and to demonstrate the truth of Oscar Wilde's assertion that "technique is really personality".' To this end, autobiographical and existential elements inherent in selected prison writings will be the main focus of this study, since the concern of both the autobiographer and the existential philosopher is with the dynamic, emergent personality. The totalizing prison situation is totalitarian in essence, since this kind of prison regime assumes responsibility for all aspects ofthe imprisoned human being, its aim being to annihilate the individual self. In the face ofthis threat, a human being often feels the need to assert his humanity and selfhood. The creative response can provide a means of reinstating the self. The autobiographer, who concentrates upon the 'becoming' self, must needs be a philosopher, existential in essence, in the search for the 'autos', the self, in relation to the 'bios', one's life. This is realized through 'graphe', language, which enables the writer to probe his/her depths and order his/her disparate experiences into some kind of balance, merging past and present. The fragmented world of the prisoner particularly lends itself to creative expression as the writer attempts to impose some order upon his/her broken life. ,, 1 Oscar Wilde, Intentions, p.212. (v) A critical study of the selected texts will concentrate upon the features and strategies of the autobiographical genre which reveal the dynamic, evolving personality, and which enable the self to reconstitute itself in the face of external attempts at annihilation. Recent studies in the field of prison literature have been undertaken by Michelle Aarons and by Mildred Andersen. Aarons focuses upon prison conditions and upon the cathartic possibilities of the creative response. Andersen examines the autobiographical response to the prison situation by writers "who have been acknowledged as having literary merit. "2 My study, with its focus upon the imprisoned artist, will also reveal these elements, but, unlike the works researched by Aarons and Andersen, it will attempt to establish a link between the autobiographical response and the existential need tocommunicate, as the imprisoned artist searches for his 'autos', his becoming self, in his re-creation of his 'bios', his life, past and present, in his art. Background readings for this dissertation have included theoretical works on the autobiographical genre which give insight into the nature ofimprisonment, and some which give a fuller understanding of the term 'existentialism'. These include works by Roy Pascal, James Olney, and Wayne Shumaker on the autobiography; Erving Goffman on Asylums, and Michel Foucault on the Birth of the Prison; and works by existential philosophers such as Albert Camus, Victor Frankl, Soren Kierkegaard, and Jean-Paul Sartre. The concepts gained from such readings will be applied during a close, critical analysis of the selected prison texts written by Herman Charles Bosman, Jeremy Cronin, and Dennis Brutus. I' 2 Mildred Andersen, Autobiographical Responses to Prison Experience, p.vi. (vi) A TENT OF BLUE AND sotns IN PAIN (Oscar Wilde, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol") CREATIVE RESPONSES TO PRISON EXPERIENCE WITH EMPHASIS UPON EXISTENTIAL AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ELEMENTS IN SELECTED SOUTH AFRICAN. PRISON WRITINGS " (vii) CHAPTER 1 1.1 STRUCTURAL OUTLINE OF DISSERTATION 1.2 BASIC MEANING OF 'AUTOBIOGRAPHY' 1.3 ELEMENTS COMMON TO THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL GENRE 1.4 THEAUTOBIOGRAPHY AND THETOTALINSTITUTION 1.5 THE EXISTENTIAL NEED FOR SELF-AFFIRMATION AND MEANING 1.6 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHER-PHILOSOPHER CHAPTER 2 HERMAN CHARLES BOSMAN COLD STONE ruG CHAPTER 3 DENNIS BRUTUS A SIMPLE LUST CHAPTER 4 JEREMY CRONIN INSIDE CONCLUSION 1 CRAPI'ER ONE 1.1 STRUCTURAL OUTLINE OF DISSERTATION The purpose of this dissertation is to examine a selectionofcreative responses to the prison experience in the South African context, with special emphasis upon the existential and autobiographical elements inherent in these writings. To this end, a brief examination of the meaning of the word 'autobiography' will be made. The essential characteristics and problems of autobiography as a genre will then be outlined. Thereafter, a survey of prison as a 'total institution' will be undertaken in order to show that the primary aim of such a structure is the annihilation of the self. In this context, the writing of an autobiography may be seen as an existential exercise to reassert the self. An examination of various prison writings and writing strategies will then be made in order to offer examples of different responses to the prison experience, and to show that prison life creates an existential crisis within the individual, who must then make some attempt to reconstitute the self in these abnormal conditions. According to Jane Watts, writing has "the power to reverse the process of self-alienation. "I The main tenets ofexistentialism will then be summarizedwith a view to establishing a link between the key concepts of autobiography and those of existentialism. Finally, the prison works of Herman Charles Bosman, Dennis Brutus, and Jeremy Cronin will be analysed to reveal their existential and autobiographical elements. This selection has been motivated by the desire to explore prison writings from different kinds of prisoners, in this case, a common-law convict jailed for murder, and two political prisoners incarcerated for their steadfast commitment to the anti­ Apartheid liberation struggle. This choice has also been made to show a variation of treatment in different kinds of institutions, here, Robben Island and Pretoria 1 Jane Watts, Black Writers from South Africa, p.28. 2 Central Prison, but ultimately to demonstrate the truth of Breytenbach's contention that all "prisons are pretty much the same".2 1.2 BASIC MEANING OF 'AUTOBIOGRAPHY' James Olney, a noted autobiography theorist, divides the word 'autobiography' into three components: 'autos', meaning the self; 'bios', signifying life; and 'graphe', denoting the act of writing." Autobiography, he says, is the"most ... self-conscious of literary performances" (p.4). For Olney, then, the focus of the autobiography is upon the self, the 'autos'. Indeed, he states explicitly that it is the '''autos', the 'I', that ... determines the nature of the autobiography" (p.21). Olney's emphasis upon the 'autos' indicates his belief in the supremacy of 'self in autobiographical writings. Similarly, Jane Watts maintains that the autobiography is the tool by which writers can search for their "'inward moral being' ..• establish their identity [and] work out ... the dimensions oftheir existence" (Watts, pp.113-4). It is, she maintains, the vital means by which man can "most fully realize the existentialist demand that he makes of himself and thereby assert his freedom" (Watts, p.1l4). Autobiography, then, is a mode through which lost seltbood can be rediscovered and reconstituted, an act of opposition to forces which aim to destabilize and depersonalize the human being, and to extinguish the self.
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