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Fulltime Anti-Apartheid Activist, She Embraces Sheer Celebration of Sexuality Beyond Social Or Moral Concerns

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Fulltime Anti-Apartheid Activist, She Embraces Sheer Celebration of Sexuality Beyond Social Or Moral Concerns Quest Journals Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science Volume 5 ~ Issue 6 (2017) pp.: 27-33 ISSN(Online) : 2321-9467 www.questjournals.org Research Paper Sexual Identity of White heroines in Black South Africa: Nadine Gordimer’s take on the Apartheid struggle Sharanya Ganguly Received 01 June, 2017; Accepted 10 June, 2017 © The author(s) 2017. Published with open access at www.questjournals.org ABSTRACT: In Nadine Gordimer’s novels, female sexuality and search for identity significantly overlap and intertwine with racial politics and restricted racial laws. The most private emotions and intimate man woman relationships get influenced, molded and fashioned by the “social determination of racial laws.” Female sexuality plays a pivotal role in her novels. To understand these complex phenomenon of race and sexual identity the paper attempts to analyse two significant novels mainly, Burger’s Daughter and A Sport of Nature. The treatment of sexuality and its impact on the lives of white heroines Rosa and Hillela are distinctly different. For Rosa, sexuality, personal identity and her cry for individuality is a constant struggle, a conflict and negotiation with the sociopolitical system of the Apartheid. For Hillela however, her sexuality and individual identity merge, fuse and amalgamate with the ongoing political struggle against the Apartheid. Burger’s Daughter is an attempt to negotiate or compromise between political struggle on one hand and sexual identity on the other. The contracting conflicting ideas of gender, race and identity intrigues the readers and furthers the struggle for freedom. Keywords: Race, gender, sexuality, Anti-apartheid struggle, white female protagonists, racism, struggle, freedom I. INTRODUCTION “There is no country in the western world where creative imagination, whatever it seizes upon, finds the focus of even the most private event set in the social determination of racial laws.” Nadine Gordimer (The Novel and the Nation) To understand the complex nuances of female sexuality, let us first understand Gordon Allport‟s (The Nature of Prejudice) theory on sexual repression. According to him, „Racism‟ can be viewed as a product of sexual repression. To the white, the “negro” appears to be dark, distant, enigmatic yet exotic, warm and interesting. Similarly in every society sexuality is mysterious, desirable yet something forbidden and instills a sense of guilt when not in accordance to the normative values of society. So racism he says emerges from non- normative sexual desire and its repression, where „sex‟ and the „negro‟ are both ambivalent social ideas, attractive and repugnant at the same time. Now applying this idea in the novels we may argue as sex and race are dominated, controlled and subjugated by the white state machinery, both can fuse and become one when fighting the domination of the state. Assertion of non-normative sexuality and fighting racism would mean challenging white supremacy and state power. Gordimer makes use of this particular concept again and again by depicting interracial sexual relations and combined anti-racial struggle. However, in Burger’s Daughter we do not find female sexuality fusing with anti-racial tussle. In fact the protagonist Rosa Burger is required to completely give up her individuality and sensual life to become a prominent Anti-Apartheid activist. Yet in the end we see, the struggle continues and fails to find a resolution. Perhaps one reason why it remains unsuccessful is because sexuality does not merge with anti -racial motivation. A Sport of Nature reflects a complete merging of female sexuality, identity and Anti-Apartheid struggle. The combination of the two brings success and a visionary, utopian nonracial Azania is founded in the end. Rosa Burger is completely desexualized and infantilized as a fourteen year old daughter of a Communist hero, a mere extension and reflection of her father. As a communist leader‟s daughter she must project herself in a way that satisfies mass expectations. Simone de Beauvoir‟s claims, "one is not born, but, rather, becomes a woman,"(3) signifies that the female body and mind is considered an active process of assimilating and embodying certain cultural and historical possibilities. This is exactly what is expected of Rosa by her family. In the opening pages we hear about Rosa but do not meet her. From a passerby to the *Corresponding Author: Sharanya Ganguly 27 | Page Sexual Identity of White heroines in Black South Africa: Nadine Gordimer’s take on the Apartheid .. headmistress, Rosa is reported as “little Rosa Burger”,(12) a “school girl”(9), an “example to us all‟(10), yet completely trapped in a gallery of mirrors ,an object in the eyes of others to speculate and judge, whose internal emotional realities remain unknown. She confirms this in the very next page “I saw-see- that profile in a hand held mirror directed towards another mirror…”(14). She is deliberately desexualized and must continue to be the torch bearer of a prominent family. Her political activism and struggle against Apartheid cannot coexist with her sensual desires or her autonomy, identity and assertion of sexuality. From the very start we see how she takes up “her mother‟s role in the household, giving loving support to her father…”(12) and again the novel ends with Flora describing Rosa as “a little girl…about fourteen”, when she has “progressed” back to childhood (335) drawing “clumsy still lives and naïve imaginary landscapes”(335). The opening and the ending show Rosa as an Anti-Apartheid enthusiast and deliberately infantilized to continue the legacy of her communist father. It is impossible to remain an individual; transgressing expected social norms of sexuality and at the same time continuing her political activism. Rosa must give up one for the other or compromise either aspect to incorporate the other in her life and career. She indulges in incest with her so called adopted black brother Bassie without the knowledge of her parents and later regrets the intimacy. Later her brief affair with Conrad ends abruptly and she gets intelligently used by the reporter who comes to take down details about Lionel Burger. Though she indulges in sexual encounters, none of these are emotionally fulfilling or long-lasting. It is only when she leaves for the South of France giving up her political pursuit completely, to resolve her identity crisis, she finds the man with whom she has a satisfying relationship both physical and emotional. Even though the relationship turns out to be flawed Rosa accepts Bernerd is the only man she had loved genuinely “You are the only man I‟ve loved that I made love with”(63) Simone de Beauvoir‟s idea of the woman being made by social, familial and cultural agencies is completely deconstructed in Gordimer‟s characterization of Hillela. She is a woman who is never influenced, motivated or shaped by individual, familial or cultural concerns. She epitomizes Gordimer‟s idea of „bridging‟ with the other side of the „color bar‟ through unprejudiced sexual encounters. Unlike Rosa, Hillela is never desexualized. Even when she becomes elderly and a fulltime Anti-Apartheid activist, she embraces sheer celebration of sexuality beyond social or moral concerns. Gordimer had stated that „sexuality‟ is a way of communion with people of other ethnicity and culture and a form of combined protest against normative white social systems. The autobiographical angel is deciphered when she says My only genuine and innocent connection with the social life of the town was through my femaleness. As an adolescent, at least I felt and followed sexual attraction in common with others; that was the form of communion I could share. Rapunzel‟s hair is the right metaphor for this femininity: by means of it, I was able to let myself out and live in the body and mind with others.(Bazin 21) Like Rosa, Hillela too indulges in childhood incest with cousin Sasha but unlike Rosa there is never an ounce of guilt or self-questioning about transgressing the social, moral code of conduct. Her identity is attuned beautifully with her sexuality. She does have a fixed identity or lineage as some one‟s daughter, sister or wife. Therefore she molds her life, character and personality as she moves on in life and the numerous sexual liaisons she encounters. With the colored boy she drops her name Kim and becomes Hillela, with Whaila she assumes the identity of Mrs. Kgomani and finally with Ruel she is Chimeka the first lady of the newly founded Azania. She affirms and symbolizes Gordimer‟s twofold idea of gaining acceptance and supporting the cause of revolution firstly through “radical political actions” and secondly through “sexual liasons with black activists.”(Mohammed 76). While Rosa chooses the first, Hillela makes her body a weapon of use to achieve the former with the later. The female body becomes supremely important as Gordimer sates I think there is a particular connection between sexuality, sensuality and politics inside South Africa. After all what is Apartheid all about? It is about the body, about physical differences, black skin and woolly hair instead of straight blonde hair. The whole legal system is based on the physical, so that the body becomes something supremely important.(Peterson 12) So women like Hillela trusts nothing but the body because the “bed after all does not lie. You feel pain you feel sexual pleasure.”(87). Hillela is able to assert her sexuality, adopt multiple identities as and when required and at the same time uses her physicality to further the Anti-Apartheid cause. Rosa gets her menstruation on the very day of her prison visit as a fourteen year old Burger‟s daughter: “Can anyone describe the peculiar fierce concentration of the body‟s forces in the menstruation of early puberty?”(15) This symbolically indicates that the internal pain is the realization of the self and her puberty reflects the birth of the individual, the birth of the woman, Rosa.
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