i
FICTIONS OF POWER: THE NOVELS OF BESSIE HEAD
MEl CHOO AILEEN BONG-TOH
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
MCGILL UNIVERSITY, MONTREAL
JULY 1990
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND RESEARCH IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTE~ OF ARTS
~ Mei Choa Aileen Bong-Toh, 1990
. ABSTRACT
Bessie Head's fiction reflects the author's consciousness of power as the definitive force in the South African context. By consider ing Head as a social real ist, the thesis relates sociological eVldence to authorial inter~st and demonstrates
Head's treatment of the power issue in her three novels, When
Rain Clouds Gather, ~, and ~Question of Power.
Biographical data, lJarticularly Head' s unique, though socially marginal position as a political exile, a Coloured, and a woman are also applied. The thesis covers three areas politics, race, and gender. The first explores the nature of power in South African politics within the time-frame of the present, past, and future. The second which focuses on the institution of apartheid examines racial relations between the blacks and whites and also among the blacks, with attention given to the dilemma of the Coloured. The third section discusses sexual politics, looking at rnale-female relationships in bOLh tradltional and contemporary societiee. RESUME
Les romans de Bessie Head reflètent d'une façon tres profonde la conception que l'auteur se fait du pouvoir comme la force motrice décisive dans le contexte sud-africain. En considerant Head comme un écrivain du réalismG social, cette the se met en evidence les faits sociologiques et l'intérêt de l'auteur et démontre sa faç0n de traiter la question du pouvoir dans ses trois romans, When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, et ~~estion of
Power. Les donnees biographiques tiennent compte particuliérement de la position socialement marginale de Head comme exilee politique, de plus d'être metisse comme d'être une femme. La thèse engloJe trois domaines - la politique, la race, et le sexe. La p"p.mière partie examine la nature du pouvoir dans la politi'iue sud-africaine dans la limite du présent, passe et futur. La deuxieme qui met l'emphase précisément sur le raci'.>me, etudie les relations raciales, entre les noirs et les blancs, et les noirs par~i eux-memes.
Le dilemme du problème du métissage est également considére.
La troisième section traite la politique sexuelle, en ce qui concerne les rapports homme-femme dans les sociétés traditionelles et contemporaines. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I will always be grateful to Professor Peter Ohlin and
Professor Michael Brist01, both of whom hdve shown me that the
academia can have a human face. 1 thank Benny for allowing me
this opportunity to disc(~'.,er and develop myself. 1 also thank
my friends in Singapore lnd Montreal for their prayers and support.
f
- TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ..•...... 1
CHAPTER TWO: POLITICS ...... 37
CHAPTER THREE: RACE .•••.•...•.••...... ••..••...... 69
CHAPT ER FOUR: GENDER ...... 99
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... ••...... •...... c-. 126
b 1
CHAPT ER ONE: INTRODUCTION
An interesting, if relatively unknown, episode marks the
recent literary history of South Africa. In the sixties, the
Sestigprs, a literary organisation cornprising young and
talented Afrikaans like Andre Brink and Etiénne Leroux, was
created and commissioned by the state in a massive propaganda
campaign t.o promote South African literature. The group' s main
objective was, in the words of Brink, to "broaden the hitherto
parochial limits of Afrikaar.s fiction" (Gordimer in Heywood
1976:111). Hailed as the avant garde of South African
literature, the Sestigers chose to write about existentialist
issues; their works explored thernes such as man's relationship
with Gad or the purpose and meaning of human existence. What
it did not do, however, was ta address the immediate realities
of South African life. In other words, their literature
neglected the ugliness, brutality, inequality, and oppression
which consti tute the social real i ty of their country. In terrns
of literary forro, the influence of William Burroughs was
evident in the writers 1 modes of expression. Surrealistic
techniques such as discontinuous prose, broken narrative
structures, and unconventional symbols or images were widely
used to extract meaning from what was perceived as the horror
and absurdity of life. 1 It may be noted that until 1974 not one writer from this 2 elite circle faced censorship or was bal"'ned. Yet, despite official encouragement from the government, within a short span of time, the popularity of the artists waned and the group eventuaIIy died a naturai death. With the exception of
Brink, whose '.[riting began to take on a more sociailstic slant, the Sestigers with their abstract pieces of writings faded into relative obscurity. what is worth noting is that the group's ardent avowal to the aesthetic notion of "art for art's sake" and its simuJataneous avoidance of confrontation with social issues made its literary efforts appear contrived, affected, and even prete nt ious. The fo110w ing comment by
Nadine Gordimer on Etienne Leroux, one the most prominent among the prose writers, is telling:
Etienne Leroux is Gad, an infinitely detached
Olympian observer amusing himself by recorùing
all those ab su rd and dirty flamboyant little
battles and copulations way, way down on earth
(Gordimer in Heywood 1976:112).
In contrast ta the swift ùemise of the aestheticism of the Sestigers is the durable survival of the more conventionally realistic literary works of Nadine Gordimer,
Alex La Guma, Ezekiel Mphahlele, Dennis Brutus, and Bessie
Head. In fact, the works by these literary artists have not merely survived; the y are flourishing in an appeal to a readership that extends far beyond the borders of South
Africa. And this is 50, in spite of the many legal 3 restrictions imposed on the authors. An explanation to this
paradoxical situation may be found in the differences that
immediately distinguish the tNO categories of writers. The
oppositlon set up here is one that exists between two styles
of artistic expressions - surrealisrn dnd social realism. While the Sestlgers fervently upheld an aesthetic concept of art, the second group of writers focused on a more realistic
interpretation of life or the proclamatlon of "the primal
value of Life over the Idea" (Nkosi 1965: 107). If the work of the Sestigers perished before its time, it i9 largely because
its aims were not directed at, and its efforts not born out
of, the consciousness of the African people. Existentialism,
philosophical contemplations and other metaphysical
abstractions bear little relevance when the deep realities of
the society are mass starvation and poverty, persecution and
death.
As a South African author, Bessie Head has chosen ta
write in the tradition of social realism. Drawing her artistic
inspiration from the social circumstances surrounding her own
life, she addresses the central issue which prevails in South
Africa - the question of power and oppression. The aim of this
thesis is to demonstrate that power is a fundamental concept
in Head's works. Using the sociological orientation of Raymond
l Williams , the thesis will examine the use or abuse of power
at three levels of social relationships applicable ta the l South African context - politics, race, and gender. 4 In his essay, "Li terature and Society", Raymond Will iams establishes the nature of the relationship between these two separate categories, defining their correlation ln terms of
"mental structures" which "simultaneously organise the emplrical consci0usness of a particular social group and the
imaginative world created by the writer" (Williams 1980:21).
In this respect, literature represents the consciousness of a people and evolves out of the group's cultural and historical heritage and experience. The writer's role, then, is to transcribe the consciousness of his social group in writing.
Williams refers to the creative act as a "specifie literary
phenomenon". He elaborates:
(it is) the dramatisation of a process, the
making of a fiction, in which the constituting
elements, of real social life and bellefs, were
simultaneously actu~lised and in an important
w~y differently experienced, the difference
residing in the irnaginacive act ... (Williams 1980:
25) •
The act of creative writing is, thus, a two-fold process.
Firstly, by using his imaginative faculty, the writer
encapsulates in fiction the various elements which constitute
real social life. Secondly, while he faithfully records the
ordinary facts of history, social development, and culture,
the writer, through his artistic imagination, is also
communicating these commonplace human experiences in a way 5
that renders th~m strange and unfamiliar.
cecil Abrahams shares the theoretical understanding that
a writer's vision is unavoidably shaped by the various social
forces impinging u~on his consciousness:
Literature does not qrow or develop in a vacuum:
it is given impetus, shape, direction and even
area of concern by social, political and economic
forces in a particular society. Literature, in
both its interpretative and prophetic segments,
grows out of the confrontation that the artist
experiences in relation to the experienees of
his society (Abrahams 1979:13).
The literary exper3ence i5, thus, not an isolated one. What
shapes a writer's world vie~ are not only his private beliefs,
values or experiences, but also his personal encounters with
the society he lives in. Moreover, sinee every society is
distinct in its historical, pol i tical, and cultural
background, variations in themes and stylistic approaches ar~
likely ta occur in its literary expression.
The sociological perspective is particularly useful when
applied to P,frican literature and its literary evolution.
European authors writing in the tradition of Haggard, Conrad,
and Cary have long projected an image of Africa that is valid
only as i t exists in the mind of the ethnocentric white
conqueror. In his narrow conception of the Africans and their
culture, the white writer has been able to depict Africa in a
m 6 predictably standard manner; Afri~a i5 either the exotic land of the shaka or the symbolic heart of darkness of man. ~he concrete Gocial ~lements that constitute real African life are totally disregarded. Given this lirnlted understanding of the history and culture of the African people, an alternative and more realistic view lS needed to correct the dist0rtions. But the task of depicting Africans as they truly are can only be accomplished by one whose cultural heritage is intimately bOllnd to, or forros part of the African consciousness. In this sense, the development of black African literature represents a new off-shoot in the tradition of English Literature, one which necessurily qprings from the collective experience of the Africaus thelnselves. Charles Larson acknowledqes the
inseverable link between artistic endeavour and social
consciousness in the African context:
tf we think of fiction as growing out of the
collective experience of the society in which
the author lives - out of the reservoir of ideas
and experiences of the total consciousness of the
society i~self - then the African writer has,
indee1 been the historian of his continent's
increasingly ~idened outlook on life, moving
from a v~rtually closed-off societal view of the
village and the clan ta an ever-widening world
view (Larson 1972:280).
For South African literature, the need ta define the 1 7 sociological context of the writer is extremely pertinent.
Where the actions of governmental officiaIs and politicians
dictate the policies WhlCh affect a writer's freedom of
expression, and where the writer, despite banning, censorship
and threats on his life, continues ta write in articulation of
the fears and hopes of his people, the forces operating on the
consciousness of the writer are compelling. Thus motivated by
the urgency of his situation, the South African literary
artist finds himself conunitted to writing on the themes of
conflict and proteste It may be argued that there exist other
literatures which carry similar themes, but none may be said
to be as deeply felt and uniformly sus'tained as the bitterness
and anger against the system of apartheid, the all-controlli.1g
factor of South African life. So prevalent is the hatred for
apartheid, the policy of "apart-ness" and separation which
sanction.3 racial segregation and discrimination, that no
serious writer can hope to write and yet fail to touch on the
tapies of domination or oppression. It is as if the South
African writer, accursed with the burden of having to tell,
needs to unload to the world the injustices that prevail in
his society.
To better understand the predicament of the South African
writer and his seeming Obb~ssion with the subject of racial
discrirnination t it i5 absolutely essential to grasp the
overriding importance of his country's so~io-political
situation. Since 1948, South Africa has been under the 8 administration of the ~par1:heid regime which has promptly
Iegislated a series of "Acts"Z legitimating segregatj on. The concept of apartheid, which holds as its basic 3ssumption the inequal ity of people thrrJugh racial di fferences 1 reverberates through every aspect of South African l ife - free movement 1 employment, marriage, sexuai relations, education. The colour bar operates through the horizontal though not vertical separation of the races (Bunting 1969:477). In other words, whites are positioned above blacks, irrespe:ctive of other sociôl factors such as education, occupation, or wealth. A
Sl tuation like this v..i.rtually ensures white dominat ion and black subjugation, so that the black man who occupies the bottom-most rung of the social ladder finds it "almost illegéi.l ta live" (Nkosi 1965: 38). Indeed, it is no exaggeration ta claim that one 1 s total existence in South Africa is ruled principally by the colour of one 1 s skin. What is deeply
ironical is the tact that black South Afdcans are constantly defined in terms of the whites, that is, they are not merely
blacks, but non-whites (Nkosi 1965:44) - a ludicrous situation when one considers that native Africans make up an overwhelming eighty percent of the population. But it is
sufficient to say thet the term basically reflects the hostili ty and arrogance of the 'N'hi te colonialists. The historical realities of mass violence and police brutality must also be taken into account, as in the Soweto uprising in
1976. 1 9 In the lite-r-ary field, the tense political situation is
antithetical to the writer's freedorn of expression. What i5
significant i5 that the governrn~nt of South i\fr Ica i tself
acknowledges the practical importance of art in and through
its c.;msorship laws3 that control the dissernination of works
by its local writers. Ta safeguard the interests of the
public, laws were passed to empower the state with the right
to declare anything illegal, if i t wishes ta. The resul t of
the repressive exercise is that books and other publications
considered sllbversive in nature were banned, certain authors
were prohibi ted from publishing or having their works quoted,
and many major writers including Dennis Brutus, Alex La Guma,
Ezekiel Mphahlele, and Bessie Head were sent into exile. Even
white writers like Nadine Gordimer did not escape the scourge.
Yet, despite the draconian measures, the repressed refuse to
be silenced. Rather th an submit to the pressure of censorship,
the South African authors have returned to their literary
calling r not only ta make known the anguish of the oppressed
but aiso to remind the white public of the reality it would
rather ignore or forget. As Nkosi suggests, writers come into
conflict with the state primarily because their writings
ottend the white audience with their constant emphasis on the
violence that is the foundation of the privileqed position of
the whites (::kosi 1981:77).
To sorne degree, aIl societies exhibit elements of
f, repression and inequality, often al~nq racial or ethnie Iines. 10
However, the circurnstances in South Africa are, as rnany people recognise, exceptional. A theoretical basis for understandinq this vo]atile and potentially eruptive situation in South
Africa may be provided by looking more closely at the notion c,f repression itself. In his book, 'The Idea of a critical
Theory, Raymond Geuss uses the notions or "macht" and
"herrschaft" to explain the concepts of power and represSlon. 4
"Macht" or power, is the "ability to impose on agents the
frustration of their preferences" (Geuss 1981:34), while the
exercise of "macht" is "herrscha ft" or repress ion (G~uss
1981: 16). Because not any and every preference of hurnan agents
can be satisfied and not a]l conflict between preferences of
different agents will be peacefully and rationally resolved,
sorne frustration, even iroposed frustration, i5 legitimate and
unexceptional. Such a form of represslon where the frustration
of the agents' preferences makes a claim ta legitimacy based
on certain acceptable normative beliefs is "nonnati ve
repression" (Geuss 1981:16). Although "normative repression"
entails the unequal di ntribution of power in the domination of
one group over another fit is not unacceptab l e soc i a l
behaviour since most human societies would practi5e sorne
degree of "normative repression".
Opposed to the concept of "normative repression" 15 the
idea of "surplus repression Il (Geuss 1981: 17) 1 a phenomenon
which takes place when the preferences of the members of a
society are frustrated ta a greater extent than is necessary
li 11
for the society to maintain and reproduce i tself. "Surplus
repression" has been defined as the "total amount of aggregate
repression in the society without any reference to how this
repression is dlstributed among the members" (Geuss 1981:17).
It may be noted that where "surplus repression" exists, the
motivation to collertively impose more rep~essiop than
necessary cornes from the differential distribution of
benefits; members of the privileged group will have a stake in
its continuance. In South Africa where the needs of the native
Africans are fru5trated to d degree that far exceeds the needs
of the South African society to survive as a nation, "surplus
repression" clearly exists. The white minority, because of the
benefits accorded chem by their privileged positions in the
social, politlcal and economic spheres, will seek ta preserve
the status quo. Ta ensure the differential treatment they
enjoy, the aggregate oppression of the blacks under the
present system of apartheid must, thus, be maintained.
Jon Eister's book, An Introduction to Karl Marx, which
defines oppre..;sion as a function of power and exploit;:.tion,
may be used to further explain the sorial forces operating
within South Africa. Elster points out that while the
relationship between market expl()itation and power remains
complex, non-market exploit~ti ve relations are def ini tely
based on power; where more powl.!r resides, greater exploitation
is the outcome. In Elster's terms, exploitation is a dual
concept which encompasses the ideas of "ausnutzen" which rneans
~bt ______'~_' ______12 "making use of" and "ausbeuten" which means "taking unfair advantage of" (Elster 1986: 92). The second meaning which carries negative connotations applies when an unequal exchange takes place between two groups such that one group is perceived to be "taking unfair advantage" of the other. When this happens, exploitation or oppression takes place. Because exploitation often takes place under coercive circumstances, it i5 often perceived by the exploited as a motivation for revoIt, protest, riot, and even revolution. In the South
African context wnere one group has obviousJ y taken "unfair advantage" of another, the blacks have agitated for political and social reforms. However, the confrontation between the two
racial groups has erupted in chronic social viol enee; the
situation in South Africa remains unpredictable and
potentially explosive.
Given the forces of oppre9sion which dominate the South
African existence as weIl as the confrontative nature ot the
black experience, the literature that emerges from the
collect.ive consciousness of the people, through individual
authars, cannot but be bound to hunan suffering. Writers rely
on the actualities of daily life ~or their raw ma~erial, apd
if the everyday reality is fraught with little else but
incessant social violence, it will be the the experience of
pain and horrer which will be recorded. Nkosi explains:
If South African literature seems unable te
conternplate any kind of action without first 13 attemptinq to locate it within a precise social frarnework of racial conflict, it is merely because very often col our differences provide the ultimate symbols which stand for those larger antagonisms which South African writers have always considered it their proper business to explain (Nkosi 1981:6). Thus, while writers from other parts of the African continentS can envision future hopes by exploring their heritage from the pa st , South Afr Ican wri ters cannat, as yet, enj oy the same
luxury. They must, for no~, contend with fighting the evils that plaque their present. As a South African writer, Bessie Head has herself articulated the direct and corresponding relationship between socio-plJlitical conditions and literary creation. In her essay, "Social and Political Pressures that Shape Literature in Southern Africa ", Head talks about the violence and
savagery that characterise Southern Africa 1 s history - "police
states, detentions 1 sudden and violent mass protests and death, exploitation and degrading political systems" (Head 1979:20). How these circumstances have shaped her writing is
significant. She ~ays: l only feel sure that the main funetion of a writer is to make life magieal and to communi cate a sense of wonder. l do admit that l found
the South African situation 50 evil that it was
nr 14 impossible for me ta deal with, in creative terrns (Head 1979:22). On the function of literature in South Africa, she is realistic, insisting on the vital connection between social reality and creative writing: Literature i5 very functional in Southern Africa and bound inextricably to human suffering ... my work has covered the whole spectrum of Southern African pre-occupations--refugeeism, racialism, patterns of evil, and the ancient Southern African dialogue (Head 1979:22). In Head's works, therefore, the themes of power and oppressiol\, and their resultant impact on both the individual and society, assume critical importance in her overall vision as a writer. Her novels examine the physical aspects of power as it is manifested in human and social relationships, at the sarne tirne as the y explore the larger issue of human suffering in relation to the use or abuse of that power by those in commando The ultirnate question that she seeks to resolve in her writing is the highly philosophical problem of the tussel between good and evil. As she says: There is really no God in Africa or a feeling of assurance that one would make it to the end of the tightrope and find eternal salvation and perfection .•. The devil i5 equally paramount but his thought processes can be explained just as
• ------
15
much as God's cano This means they are equals
here ... These themes are the basis of my
preoccupations, the equality of man, the equality
of God and the deviJ in Africa (Head in Vinson
1972:581) .
An overview of the critical writing on Bessie Head will
help enlighten the reader on Head's position in the tradition
of Souch African writing, and reveal her relatively recent
emergence as a writer of stature. Her oeuvre comprises three
full-length novels, When Rain Clouds Gather (1969), Maru
(1971), and A Question of Power (1974), a collection of short
stories, The Collector ot Treasures (1977), and a non-fiction
book, Serowe: village of the Rain Wind (1981). This corpus of
writing seems somewhat seant when compared ta the vast amount
of work generated by other South African writers like Doris
Lessing, Nadine Gordimer, Alex la Guma, Ezekiel Mphahlele, or
Dennis Brutus, all of whom are Head's contemporaries and have
been in the literary scene for a mu ch longer period of time.
Head' s stature as a literary artist 5eems dwarfed by the
reputations of these well-established literary figures.
Despite the disadvantages of a cornparatively brief
career, however, Head's maturity of thought and vision as a
writer has not escaped the scrutinising eye of major critics,
both wi thin and outside of Africa. Having carved a niche in
the canon of South African wri ting, her novels and short
stories have attracted the attention of Western scholars who
m 16 specialise in African literature, such as Arthur Ravenscroft,
Cecil Abrahams, and Lloyd Wellesley Brown. African critics like Lewis Nkosi and Ezekiel MphahlelË also applaud Head ,::; achievements, celebrating her as "one of the most exci ting new voices ta have ernerged from South Africa" (Nkosi 1981:99).
Indeed, this new voice is given a hearing, increasingly, in journals on African, Commonwealth, or Thlrd Wurld literature.
In other publications, while Head deserves more attention than what is presently granted her, her narne appears in most references made ta South African writers. Although she rernains relatively unknown in her home country, a situation whlch may be explained by the fact that she is banned, her reputation far precedes her autside of South Africa. More recently, for the first time, a full volume of critical writing5 on her books has been published. Edited by Cecil Abrahams, this collection of criticism on Head represents a significant step forward in Head 1 s coming of age as a li t:erary art ist.
While critics are not generally in agreement as to which
7 novel constitutes Head's best , they are aIl intrigued by the unique position she occuples in the African social structures.
The bulk of the cri tical mater iai is, therefore, centred around Head's work in relation to her status as an exile, a mulatto or a Coloured person, and a woman writer. What seems to strike literary scholars is the fact that she lived and operated in a social context where few or no privileges are accorded to those whose statuses are bound by any one of the ______1.,
17 above categories. Under these circurnstances, the work produced can be enorrnously intense or enraged, and so it is in Head's cas~. As with most South African writers, the prote st element in Hea~'s fiction is evident. Powerful in convictlon, though not unrestrained in tone, Head's writing reflects the author's sense of outrage towards the pol i tical, racial, and sexual injustices prevalent in South Africa. Yet, it i5 not mere prote st that Head advocates. She explains:
It involves a broader question than mere protest
- it is a question of evil as a whole. We are
likely ta rtmove one horror and replace it with
another and those of us who have suffered mu ch do
not relish the endless wail of human misery (Head
in Connell 1975:23).
Depending on the theoretical basis for critical analysis, critics differ in their assessment of Head's achievements as a novelist. This i5 reflected in the varying viewpoints put
8 forward by the literary critics , each of which operates from a slightly different critical perspective. The studies by
Lewis Nkosi (Nkosi 1981:76-103) and cecil Abrahams (Abrahams
1978:22-29) are insightful by way of what they affer in social criticism: both critics discuss at length on the significance of the protest elements in Head's novels. However, Nkosi's analysis seems to suffer an over-emphasis on the (dearth of) revolutionary potential of Head' s wark. His judgement of
Head's writing is at times unnecessarily harsh - as when he 1 18
declares Head to be politically ignorant (Nkosi 1981:99) 1 or
when he carelessly dismisses A Question of Power as a
"disastrous failure" (Nkesi 1981:101). Nkesl's stiff demandf:
as a literary critic are possibly linked te hiS own background
as a political dissenter. One is tempted te conclude that his
criticism closely corresponds te what he considers te be the
degree of the writer's social or political commitment. On the
other hand, Abrahams' more temperate and even approach takes
us beyond the prote st elements to the metaphysical aspects of
Head's novels, relating the author's plight as a political
exile to her artistic imagination and vision. While Nkosi and
Abrahams regard When Rai~oyds Gather, Mnru, and A Question
of Power to be of varying degrees of success, Arthur
Ravenscroft brings th~ differing strands of the three novels
together by emphasising their homogenei ty - " ... each novel
strikes out anew and also reshoulders the Sdme burden"
(Ravenscroft in Heywood 1976: 17 4·~86). Whi2.e he does not
neglect the political aspects of Head' s 'Work, Ravenscroft
shows great sympathy and understanding for He~d's role as a
socially re3p0nsible artlst.
Of aIl the research on the theme of the exile - the sense
of alienation and the search for an identity - Jean Marquard's
(Marquard 1978-9: 48-61) and Kolawole Ogungbesan' s (Ogungbesan
1979-80: 206-12) essays prove to be the most thought-provoking.
In a two-part essay, Marquard, merging the biographical with
the sociological approach, probes into the author's past as a 1 19 background to u~derstanding the themes of exile and
commi tment. Marquard interpretes Head' s portrayal of the
outsider experience as "becoming African", a process which
encompasses both spiri tuaI renl~wal and social commi tment.
Ogungbesan who focuses more on the concept of al ienation
argues that lf Head seems relue tant to play the part of the
political seer, it ls because she is content with the mode st
aspiration of simply settling down in an alien envir0nment,
which, in the critic's view, is itself admirable. The study on
the literature of exile by Jane Grant (Grant 1978: 30-57)
provides an excellent context for understanding the exile
experience in Head's writing. This is a fairly comprehensive
study, comparing exiled writers from South Africa and the West
Indies, 1Ut because cf its comparative nature, Grant's
comments on Head' 5 work, thouqh reflective of a personal
interest in the author's life, tend ta be brief. Charlotte
Bruner's criticism (Bruner in Parker 1980:261-78j which also
touches on the exile theme i9 different in that it sheds light
on the experience of the woman character in exile. Arguing
from an essentially feminist perspective, she notes that the
difficulties faced by the female exile is worsened by the male
threat in traditional and conservative societies.
A significant amount of critical material based on
feminist theories has aiso been wri tten. These works of
research, reflective of the resurging interest in writings by
female authors, att~mpt ta isolate feminist concerns in Head's
" 20 work by taking into aeeount her status as a woman writer.
Interestingly, it is a male eriti~ who, by far, has provided the most comprehensive, enlightened and chal1enging study of
Head's female figures. Llyod W. Brown, who has devoted a full
chapter in his book (Brown 1981:158-179, to Head, SUggEsts the
possibility of expanded roles for the woman in the context üf
the "new worlds" c"Ceated by the author. Brown' s de 1 ineation of
the male and female chardcters enlarges as weIl as sharpens
our understandins of Head's vision of equitable relationships
between the sexes. contributions by female critics in this
area are aiso ~0te-worthy. Virginia Olals essay (Ola 1986:39-
47) i5 somewhat rudimentary in its effort in exploring the
image of the female protagonist, but i t does enhance our
perception of Head's ideal woman. In another essay, Bruner
(Bruner 1977: 23-31) who foeuses on the dilemma of ttie African
woman caught between traditional and wester~-influenced
cultures, eontributes to the existing research on the changing
role of the African woman. The comparative study (Eko
1986:139-52) of fernale protagonists in African and African
American no..,els by Ebele Eko is too brief and sketchy to
provide conclusive evidence of differences which rnay exist
between the two groups of women characters, but it may pave
the way for further research in the area. Femi Ojo-Ade whose
thesis argues that the western notion of women's liberation
should not be applied ta the study of African women attempts
a study of Head's protagonists from this alternative 21
perspective. However, despite the unusual premise this study
works on, oj o-Ade 1 s essay i5 incoherent, confused, and
generally lacking in focus. Taiwo Oladele's book represents a
laudable attempt at studying African worncn wrlters, but here
again, the effort is disappoint':'ng: the chapter on Head
(01adele 1985:184-214) is more of a general commentary on her
novels and short stories rather than a critical review of her
achievement dS a woman writer.
other studies concentrate on more specia1ised areas and,
therefore, adopt a more thematic approach to Head's novels.
These criticisms which of~er alLernative wayA of reading the
novels include Bruner's comparison of Head's child figllres
with those of Ama Ata Aidoù (Bruner 1979: 5-11) and Marquard' s
use of the farm as a concept linking writers l.ike Olive
Schreiner, Paul ine Smith, Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer to
Bessie Bead (Marquard 1979: 293-307) . Linda Susan Beard' s essay
on the theme of fuadness and mental disintegraton (Beard
1979:267-74) in Head's last novel, A QuestiQn of Power, is
insightful and perceptive: it provides us with a powerful
context aqainst which the protagonist's thoughts and actions
can be assessed. Aside from the critlcisms on Head~s writing,
interviews with Head have also been conducted and recorded,
either on tape or in writing, among which are those by Andrew
Peek (Peek 1984), B.M. Fradkin (Fradkin 1978:427-34), Al
Imfeld (Irnfeld 1979) and Lee Nichols (Nichois 1975). These
"conversations", some.~.:imes serious, sometimes funny, but
-, 22 always engaging and fascinating, reveal the sensitive but vibrant personality that lies hidden behind Head' s work.
Head's own contributions, both creative and critical, have
ilppeared in several literary journals. Despite her premature
death in 1986, it is certain that she has left an indelible
mark in the literary history of South Africa.
At this point, i t is necessary to mention there are three
other issues relevant te the study of South African literature
which merit discussion. The fir~t is the problem of art versus
propaganda. As previously esta:~lished, the value of South
African literature lies in its ardent commitment to social
realisM. However, if it is the active and imreediate protest
element that renders South African art relevant te its social
context, it is also what makes it an easy target of literary
attack. rfhe main criticism levied against South African
literature i5 its inability to tear itself from the
irrepressible need to denounce the institution of ~partheid.
Many South African writers, in their eagerness ta register
protest, have tallen into the trap of prapaganda wr i ting.
Through the subtle incorporation of rnanipulative deviees into
their art, the writers write often with che aim to influence,
if not change the minds of their readers. Because they rarely
venture beyond a range of familiar tapies - Ijmited growth
opportunities for the blacks, unlimited restrictions on
individual freedom, the deprivation of basic human rights -
the literature produced tends ta be predictable in theme, and 23 stilted in fo~~. Rightly 50, critics like Eustace Palmer are worried that e~cessive emphasis on content may lead ta works of "dubious literary value" getting rassed off as significant literature, sinee "all that is necessdry for evaluation is to discuss themes and subj ect matter" (P"llmer 1979: 7). The lurklng fear, of course, is that literary standards may be sacrificed for sociologicdl relevance.
Sorne of these apprehensions are genuine and val id. AlI too often, mediocre pieces of wri ting have been accorded praise only because the message they carry i5 powerful, with little tpought gi'Jen to artistic unit y and originality. In
South African literature, where the urge to protest is great, the tendency for the journalistic form of writing to emerge is even greater. Thus, while Dennis Brutus claims that the wri ter' s dut Y i5 "to protest apartheid", he aiso recognises that "too much protest, surface anguish and anger" (qtd in
Heywood 1976:93) permeate the literatun~ of South Africa. What is deerned undesirable is that the "raw experienc8 rernains untransmuted into art" (qtd in Heywood 1976:87). Nkosi, who shows similar concerns, state~:
What we do get from South African literature,
therefore - dnd what we get rnost frequently is
the journalistic fa ct parading outrageously as
imaginative litelature. We find here a type of
fiction which exploits ready-made plots of racial
violence, social apartheid, inter-racial love- l 1
24 affairs ... without any attempt to transcend or
transmute these given social facts into artist-
ically persuasive works of fiction (Nkosi 1965:
126) •
But, as Nkosi himself points out, this much-quoted passage should be understooù in its original contexte His reference was to the writers of the Oruro generation9 who, in their time, had furiously churned out massive amounts of writing, regardless of quality. Therefore, it is not the protest element per se that Nkosi is against. What he is coneerned with is "how weIl and how significantly" (Nkosi 1981:78-9) that protest is uttered.
The problem at the heart of the argument seems to be one of striking an appropriate halance between two extremes of a continuum. At one end stands the idealist who states that art ls diametrically opposed to propaganda. At the other end is the vulgar materialist proudly proclaims the belief that aIl art 15 propaganda (Szanto 1978: 11). As George Szanto has pointed out, although the ru is sorne validity in bath viewpoints, each "obl1.terates any sense of the specifie kinds of relations between art and propaganda" (Szanto 1978:11). The vast distance between the two generalisations must, thus, be bridged, if a meaningful relationship between the reader and the truth or propaganda value in art is to be established. The case of South Afriean literature needs re-evaluation. If South
African literature is propagandlstic, it i5 50 because it a1ms 25 to raise the awareness of its readers in a "consciousness manipulation process" (Szanto 1978:73): its agitational elements are intended to be subversive. However, the oppositional sta!"lce it adopts towards apartheid with its attendant "Acts" does not detract from the literature's truth or artistic worth. While propagandistic intent may not always coin~ide with artistic purpose, the imaginative aspects of serious protest fiction should not be readily dlsmissed. This
is especially so in the case of South African literature which
is both agitational propaqanda and realistic art at the same time.
For the South African writer, his test is whether he can
enter his experiences so completely that he is able ta refine
those experiences thraugh his creative imagination (Abrahams
1979:14). Yet, the body of works by South African writers that have gained international recognition sho'..,s that, to a certa in extent, the hurdle has been crossed. Doris Lessing, Nadine
Gordimer, and Alan Paton and among the black writers, Ezekiel
Mphahlele, Peter Abrahams, Alex La Guma, and Bessie Head, have
proven their craftsmanship in their writing. The point to note
is that these wri ters wr l te wi th a cause, yet, they have successfully transcended the journalistic fact with their creative imagination.
The second problem relates to the issue of authorship.
Here, the question that arises is, who represents the more authentic voice of the people, the white writer, born and bred - 26 in South Africa and whose sympathies are with the blacks or the black wrlter who can lay claim to black consciousness by
the very fact of his racial background? The point of
difference seems to be one of perspective. While the white
writer operates as an outsider in relation to his black
counterparts, the black writer writes from within the skin of
one who is oppressed. Thus, although both black and white
writers share a common vision in their crusade against
apartheid, they differ in their perception of the same
situation. cry, the Beloved CountrylO, the widely-acclaimed
novel by Alan Paton, represents one wh! te man' s attempt to
depict the plight of the blacks. But Paton has been criticised
for his idealism, if not naivete, in dealing with the racial
problem. Indeed, the novel has been rejected by the blacK
readership as a true portrayal of their lives (Nkosi 1965:5-7,
Barnett 1983:25).
Fundamentally, (and ironically) ~ the white wri ter suffers
the drawback of belng white. As a member of the privileged
class, his shortcoming is that he is able only ta function as
the on-looker, the external observer. It i5 difficult to know
exactly what goe5 on inside the hearts and minds of those on
the receiving end of discrimination when one belongs ta the
same race as the perpetrators of discriminatory acts. Most
black cri tics ramain skeptical of the white man's vision. Toby
Moyana, for example, is of the opinion that "white writers
suffer from a strange aberration of vision" for "they are all
« 27
at different stages of calling their particular slavery
freedom" (qtd in Heywood 1976:87). Richard Rive, a Coloured
writer alse observes that:
Ne matter how sincere or motivated the white
writer is, he is writing about the subject of
racial discrimination, whereas the black writer
is writing from within the subject of racial
discrimination. There is no doubt that the
barriers causing this are artificial, but the
differences will remain until discrimination,
especially constitutionalised discrimination i5
removed (Rive in Daymond 1984:92-3).
The aS5umption here is that African writing cannot be
separated from the African consciousness. A related argument
is that the inherent cultural gap that separates different
cultures cannot be bridged. What distinguishes the black way
of life from the white's is a fundamental difference in world
view, the dissimilarity necessarily expressing itself through
the philosophy of life, the concept of God, the individual or
society, the roles of men and women, or even the importance of
nature or the land. Since the literary artist is inextricably
bound to his cultural background and identity, the differences
in perception will be communicated through his writing. Thus,
while the white author i5 likely to stress the primacy of the
individual by focusing on the singular consciousness of his
character, the black writer is likely to centre his attention f,
------'------~----- ,
28 on the community by emphasising communal or collective consciousness (Larson 1976:173); the primary difference between the two groups of writers resides in their cultural consciousness.
Many white writers acknowledge the limitations imposed by their socio-cultural background. For example, Guy Butler, a white South African poet, adroits that "it is very difficult for a pers on of one language group ta get inside the skin of someone from another" (Butler in Daymond 1984: 7). In this respect, efforts by white authors ta depict social life frequently appear "unconvincing and presurnptuous" (Butler in
Daymond 1984:7). But, despite this disadvanlage, rnany of the white writers remain committed ta writing about social issues.
In recognition of their shortcornings, some have made the very lack of understanding and communicatIon a theme in their writing. Nadine Gordimer and Athol Fugard are among those who have taken the initiative in this direction. Indeed, when one considers the literary development of South Africa, one cannat but see the value of the contributions of the black and the white writer, each of whom has a part in conveying the shared reality of South Africa. While one provides a counter-myth to the dominartt culture, the other supports it with an alternative but equally valid perspective.
This brings us back to the pioneering vision of Olive
Schreiner who, in 1900, had expressed her hopes for the future of South Africa. Her vision is curiously relevant ta the 29 literary contexte Schreiner wrote:
AlI South Africans are one. It is not merely that
aIl men born in South Africa, from Zambesi to the
Cape are bound by the associations of their early
years to the same vast, untamed nature ... This
bond is our mixture of races itself. It is this
which divides South Africans from aIl other
people in the world and makes us one (qtd in
Heywood 1976:52).
Whether consciously or not, Schreiner's conciliatory stance has been adopted by sorne South African writers. Gordimer, for example, is hopeful that the two literary traditions, "one that is imported from Europe" and "one that springs from the traditional culture'l (Gordimer in Daymond 1984:33), would be brought together. Richard Rive, a black wliter, expresses a similar sentiment, that the South African experience would not be complete wi thcut the contributions of both blacks and whites (Rive in Daymond 1984:92-93). Indeed, it makes no sense to deny the white wri ter his portion of the South African experience, in 50 far as his sympathies lie with the people, not the state. To supress his voice on the basis of his race is to commit the very act of discrimination that the blacks decry.
The third area of controversy relates to the status of
South African writers who are in exile. The quest.on here is whether the absence of these writers has stripped them of the ,
30 right ta speak for South Africa and ta represent South African
consciousness. Reinforced by time and space, the rift which
separates writers who have left the country and th05e who have
chosen to stay behind has widened. The diverse experiences of
the exile added ta the external influences on his life have
enhanced the original distinctions ~ while those at home
continue ta wrestle with racial domination, the exiles have
been exposed ta the influence of black intellectuals from
other parts of the world who have by this time come to terms
with themselves and their identity. What results, then, i5 a
diversity of thematic interests in the works of the two groups
of South African intellectuals.
Most apparent among the differences that have arisen is
the black man's image of himself. Ursula Barnett notes that
while the writer at home continues ta promote non-racialism as
an ideal, showing a definite resistance toward the emphasis on
blackness, the overseas writer has moved towards a
redefinition of the black man's identity, advocating that the
role assigned to him by white society be cast aside (Barnett
1983:29). The enlarged experiences of the exiled also imply
new creative resources. Most 0verseas writers converge on the
common theme of alienation in their writing, a preoccupation
spurred by the writer's sense of isolation which in turn stems
from his inability ta become totally assimilated into the
culture of his adapted country. Nkosi's Home and Exile (1965)
and Mphahlele's The Wanderers (1971) are examples of works
- 31 produced under the immense pressure of loneliness. Another feeling that perrneates the works of the writers abroad is guilt, frequently depicted thr~ugh the creation of characters who try ta redeem pa st (mis) deeds wi th present or future action. This is an obsession which clearly springs from the author' s need ta assudge his conscience, given the fact of his freedom when 11i8 people are still undel-' bondage. Nevertheless, like his compatriots at home, the South African writer abroad continues his crusade against the Afrikaner governmpnt.
Despite his new lease of life, he seems unable ta escape the
11 darkness and despair of his past • The ghost of South Africa continues to haunt his immediate real ity, and like ':.he Ancient
Mariner, the South African writer must te-l his stery.
Nadine Gordimer has suggested that since the exadus of writers in the fifties and sixties, among whom were "sorne of the best in the continent" (Gordimer 1973:51), prose writing has becorne stunted - sinee then, "no fict':'on of any real quality has been written by a black writer still living in
South Africa" (Gordimer 1973:51). But, although such a judgement on the state of the art in the country may ho Id sorne truth, it totally disregards the predicarnent of the writer who has te cape with the pressures of banning, censorship and death threats. it is for these sa me reasons, other ~riters have left. Surely those who have stayed behind deserve more sympathy in their ostensible sil'~ce. But even silence is no guarantee of one's safety, as the murder of Richard Rive in 32 1989 proves. If ona is to identify the mainstream South
African writers, one should look at both tho~e who live in
South Africa and are writing despite restrictions as well as those who live beyond the political border. This 5eems to be aIl the present offers. For a fuller expression of creativity among the writers, one may have ta look ta the future:
Perhaps the best of these works are ta come from
those for whom that fight for social and
political independence is not yet history: the
black writers of South Africa may blow the breath
that will bring the African novel of the
political struggle with the white man ta life at
last ... In any case, it seems that the theme of
the political struggle for independence, dealt
with inadequately up ta now, belangs more ta the
future of African writing than to what has
already been achieved (Gordimer 1973:51).
Such is the complexity of the social, political, and literary context in which Bessie Head finds herself a~ a South
African novaliste A creative artist whose own life was subjected ta the oppressive measures of her government, Head, in her novels, is keen ta canvey the impulses that not only lie beneath, but also control the surface reality of South
African Ilfe. As this thesis seeks to prove 1 the forces of power abuse and oppression in South Africa are on1y too real in their a11-encompassing and pervasive hold over the South 33
African people. Through Head's novels, it aims to demonstrate the dynarnics of power manipulation in human relationships in three specifie areas - politics, race, and gender. Chapter Two will explore the nature of power as it is wielded by the political leadership within the cultural framework set up by
Raymond Williams in his book, The Country and the City (1973).
William's three modes ot cultures the dominant, the residual, and the emergent will be applied to the pOlitical situation in South Africa as perceived by Head. The chapter will examine the corrupting effects of power in the dominant culture of Sou~h African politics through the depiction of the plight of the exile and the use of Botswana as a contrasting backdrop" In the contex~ of the residual culture, tribalism will be discussed. The section on the emergent culture will deal with Pan-Africanism as a possible solution te the ills that plague present-day South African politics. Chapter Three will discuss the topic of race in relation to power, with the emphasis on relations between whites and blacks in the first section. The nature of the relation:::>hlps among the blacks themselves will be dealt with in the second part and the theme of the dilemma of the coloured will be covered in the final section. Chapter Four will focus _~ sexual politics from the feminist perspective, looking at sexuai discrimination in traditional as weIl as contemporary societies. The chapter will also examine the changing ro:.e of women and explore
Head' s idea of sexuai equality, envisioned in new and expanded j 34 roles for both men and women. Throughout, the thesis will demonstrate that Head' s arti stic vision goes beyond "mere
protestlf ; her concerns as a writer are ultimately for the
common, ordinary paople whose lives she seeks to "heal and
mend" (peek 1984:5). i 35 NOTES
1. This perspective is discussed in Williams (1980) "Li terature and Society" , Problerns and Ma terialism and Culture, Great Britain: Redwood Brown Ltd., pp. 11-30.
2. The Race Classification Act, Mixed Ma::..-riages A ct and Group Areas Act, passed shortly after 1948, together forro the three leg islati ve pi llars of apartheid. Other "acts" include the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act (1953), Suppression of Communism Act (1950), and Homelands Policy (1~59).
3. As early as 1927, laws were passed te control information dissemination. In 1931, the Entertainment Censorship Act was passed, and in 1960, the Unlawf1l1 Organisation Act was put int0 practice. Two other laws, the Publications and Entertainment Act (1956), and the General Laws Amendment Act (1969), were legislated. As a result of these restrictions, about ~5 000 books are banned, and 750 people prohibited from publishing or having their works quoted.
4. For an elaboration of ~hese concepts, see Geuss (1981) The Idea of a critical Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 16-18, 34-35.
5. This is wlth reference to writers such as Wole soyinka and Chinua Achebe from Nigeria and Kofi Awoonor from Ghana.
6. Refer Cecil Abrahams (1989) Critical Essays on Bessie Head, Africa Worlù Press.
7. Whlle Nkosi rates Head' s first two novels as successful, he declares the thi~d a dismal failure. Abrahams considers Maru to be unrealistic, although he applauds her first and last books. Another critic, Charles Larson thinks that the first two novels are of minor importance co~pared to A Question of Power.
8. The research quoted here represents a selection of the available critical material on Head's work. r l 36 9. Th-a Drum generation generally refers to the group of writers attached to Orum, an English journal for black reaàers, popular in the fifties and sixties. Well-known for its crusading articles delivered in trenchant style, the Drurn was homeground to many black wri ters incl uding Todd Matshikita, Lewis Nkosi, Can Themba, Ezekiel Mphahlele, and Bessie Head.
10. Paton, Alan (1959) Cry, the Beloved Country, New York: Scribner.
Il. See Mphahlele (1974) "The Tyranny of Place", New Letters, 40.1: 68-84.
l 37
CHAPTER TWO: POLITICS
Power 1S by definition a :relational concept; the degree of power possessed by the state, a group, or an individual corresponds directly with the amount of influence each i5 able to w ield over those who are weaker in relation ta i t.
Inequal i ty in social relationships resul ts when the party which has access to the means of power capitalises on i ts dominant position and uses i t ta exert control over those who are denied the same priviledges. The interactional processes between those in positions of authority and those who are deprived of power are, thus, of te" characterised by domination and subjugation. In this model, pO\,;er relationships are not only unequal, but also exploi tative. As Bertrand Russell puts it, power is often used, either consciously or subconsciously, for "the production of intended effects" (Russell 1938:35).
Russell a1so notes that the impulse ta power lS a fundamental concept in human relations (Russell 1938:10). As he observes, it is only by realising that "Jove of power is the cause of the activities that are important in social affairs that history, whether ancient or modern, can be rightly interpreted" (Russell 1938:10). In other words, the "love of power" provldes one of the strongest motives for hurnan action and behaviour. Unlike Michel Foucaul t 1 whose interest lies chiefly in the invisible and insidious manipulation of power, \ 1
1 38 Russell sees power more as a moral concept; the manifestation of power in human relationships is a iunction of either the
good or evil intentions of man.
In the context of a total i tarian state l ike South Africa,
power is not a secret. Absolute power resides in the central
political system which me ans that white government reserves
the right of rule over the intermediate institutions and
social relationships (Kuper 1974: 31). statist ics show that
al though native Africans make up the overwhelming rnaj ori ty'~,
voting rights are extended to only the whites, Coloureds, and
Indians who together constitute 27% of the total population.
Excluded are the black Africans. Control over the political
system has given the white regime the power to extend the
orl.ginal inequality to other social structures and
institutions. The imbalance in political incorporation, thus,
provides the foundation for other forms of status
differentiation; the whi tes who dominate the area of pol i tical
administration also exercise direct managerial control in
legislative matters and economic activities.
The success of this elaborate system of control is
obvious. Through a rigid policy of raci .. 1 differentiation,
cleverly supported by apartheid laws, the white minority has
been able to maintain its position of dominance. Moreover, to
perpetuate the myth of inequality, the white community has
appealed to what Geuss calls "false ideology" or "false
consciousness,,3 ta support or justify its "reprehensiLle 39
social institutions, unjust social practices, and relations of
exploitation, hegemony or domination" (Geuss 1981: 15) • Attitudes or beliefs which emphasise cultural or other
differences are often used by the white public to objectify or
rationalise prejudicial action against the black section of
the population. Politics and race in the South African context are
inextricably linked. The two issues, elsewhere considered
separate, are in South Africa one and the same thing. The
historical factors that ha~e led to this unusual situation are
complex. As with many other African states, South Africa has
undergone the process of colonisation by the European
conqueror, which irnplies that its experience of political
domination is not unique. But what i5 different is that until
this day South Afr ica r-;mains under colonial rule. While other
states on the African continent have attained independence and
self rule, South Africa continues to be dorninated by the white
man. with the exit of the British colonial government in 1910,
the political vacuum was filled by Afrikaners of Dutch
descent, in which case, power was simply transferred from one
white master to the next. with the change effected at only the
administrative level, the original patterns of social
relationships, largely structured along racial l ines, were
preserved. To account for the unequZ\l status that marks
present-day relations between the blacks and whites in South
Afr ica , Kuper, in his book, Race« Class and Power (Kuper
- 40 1974), suggests that the "ethnie prejudices of Afrikaners seem
to have fed upon the ethnie discrimination they suffered under
the British" (Kuper 1974:21). Perhaps this explains, in part,
for the continuing influence of racial discrimination
practised by the A:f.r ikaners 1 which, ironically, persists,
despite their own liberation from British domination. Black
South Africa is not frec from colonial bondage; Lhe
re1ationship between the white minority and the black majority remains that of master and subject, oppressor and oppressed.
With the ri se of the National Party to power in 1948, and the
subsequent ir;,plementation of apartheid pol icies, white
supremacy in South Africa was virtually ensured and the
subjugation of black South Africans, complete.
In literature, the social reality of political conflict
assumes its importance as a major theme in the works of South
African writers. As Irving Howe has noted, politics enters
literature l.n severai forms, as "environment and character,
fetter and goad •.. where freedom is absent, politics is fate"
(Howe 1957:32). In the discussion of South African literature,
the impi ications of the tensions and pressures surrounding the
country's political life cannot be overlooked. Where freedom
is denied to the South African people, and where the 1 ives and
destiny of millions are determined by the arbitrary sway of
the pOlitician's sceptre, politics i5 fate in South Africa.
Literary expression is, therefore, necessarily a "function of
'f > the comprehensive testimony it offers of the turns and 41 patterns of an unfolding drama of existence in which (the
South Africans) have been and continue to he involved" (Irele
1981:1). For the South African writer, his task is to transcribe the fact of his people's oppression and suffering onto paper, and his social conur.itment is to assert their common will to live.
In the case of Bessie Head, the deep and inseverable bond between the author' s consciousness and her country of birth is reflected in the portrayal of the South African political dilemma. It is significant that despite the fact that she migrated to Botswana in 1960, she has chosen as the thematic focus of her books, issues central to South African lite - power and politics, domination and control. This chapter will first discuss the nature of Head's political commitment as a South African novelist. Through the use of examples from
Head's novels, it will critically examine the way political power is exercised in the three cultural settings described by
Raymond Williams in his book, The Country and the city
(Williams 1973) ; Williams' framework of the dvminant, residual, and emergent cultures which explains the historical evolution of a particular social order provides a useful model in its close correspondence with the present, past, and future development in South African politic~. in the section on the dominant culture, two issues will be addressed to appraise
Head's attitude towar~ the present system of government in
South Africa; the tirst is the choice of Botswana as the eA
42 setting for her novels, and the second, the depiction of the
South African in exile. Tribalism will be explored in the part of the chapter on residual culture, and the more recent development of Pan-Africanism will be discussed in the final section on the emergent culture.
Like most South African writers, Head seeks to denounce the dominant political culture in South Africa, characterised by apartheid and its evil regime. However, unlike rnany of her literary peers who seem to have aligned themselves with one forro of political id2ology or another, Head does not subscribe to any kind of revolutionary practicei she is, self-avQwedly,
"not a freedorn fighter" (Head 1963:40). Therefore, critics in search of a political blue-print for African or South African politics in Head's novels are likely ta be disappointed. For her writings hold none of the liberal reforms of Abrahams or the political radicalism of Nkosi, La Guma, or even a white writer like Gordimer. It is of no surprise, then, that Head's political quietism has invited comments such as "she expresses
an indiscriminate repugnance for aIl political aspirations in
aIl races" (Gordimer in Heywood 1976: 114) or "Bessie Head
seems politically ignorant" (Nkosi 1981:99). Yet, when
assessing the nature of Head 1 s pol i tical commi tment, one needs
to go beneath the surface meaning of her novels. As Arthur
Ravenscroft has pointed out, the lack of a specifie politieal
commi tment is more apparent than real. Ravenscroft, who agrees
that initially the books do not seem to be political in the 43 ordinary sense of the word, says: ... any reader with either Marxist or Pan-African
affinities is likely to be irritated by the seem
ing ernphasis on the quest for personal contentment,
the abdication of political kingship ... the novel
ist's preoccupation Wùuld seern to suggest a steady
progression from the first novel to the third book
to ever murkier depths of alienation from the curr
ents of South African and African matters of poli
tics and power ... (Ravenscroft in Heywood 1976: 175) ,
However, he also argues that at a deeper level, they reflect a concern with "the viciousnesses of South Africa' s political kingdom" (Ravenscroft in Heywood 1976: 174). Perhaps, the often unqualified (mis) judgement of Head' s political commitment is the consequence of her less conventional, though more subtle approach towards matters of political concerne
While many South African wri ters are apt to engage in heightened rhetoric to explicitly condemn the dictatorial system of government in their country, Head deliberately avoids sensationalism. Indeed, for one who has encountered
4 only evil with the South African regime , her novels reflect a curious, and yet, notable absence of the obvious pro~esses of oppression. However, the point is, one does not need a panoramic view of the actual happenings in a Scuth African city or a black township to be convinced of the reality of political tyranny. Instead of gore and violence, Head has 44 • chosen to focus on what is unseen but, nonethe1ess, deeply fe1t. In an understated though powerful manner, she communicates her own discontentment with the political culture
that presently dominates South Africa.
Head' s choice of local Botswana scenes over South African
ones as the 1cca1e for the action of her nevels is deliberate.
There is no doubt that the author's experiences in Botswana
since the time of her exile, have sharpened her artistic
vision and instincts. But what has prompted her to creatively represent the physical and social 1andscapen of her adopted
country in a1l her writing, is of greater significance. Head
speaks with fervent admiration for Botswana's political
heritage. She says:
In my eyes, Botswana is the most unique and
distinguished country in the who1c of Africa. It
has a past history that is unequalled anywhere in
Africa. It is a land that was never conquered or
dominated by foreign powers and so a b~ t of ancient
Africa, in aIl its quiet and assertive grandeur has
remained intact (Head 1979:21).
The fact that Botswana remained a black man's country, with
its quality of life preserved, its land and people 1eft intact
and undisturbed, presents a stark contra st to the reality of
South Africa's white domination with its sense of ravage and
horror. Historically, Botswana represents one country in
Africa that has successfully warded off the destructive impact
- 45 of colonial rule. Yet it has also absorbed Western civilisation without pain or suffering. Head writes about its unusual political circumstances: l have found the tensjons and balances of the
rural parts of Botswana, of a fine order. Enough of the ancient way of Atrican lite has survived
to enable the younger generations ta maintain
their balance with comfort and ease, while almost
daily with independence, new innovations, new
concepts of government and critical, complex
situations invade the life of the country (Head in
Daymond 1984:280).
In her novels, Head prevents the physical intrusion of the South African presence by limiting her choice of setting to only Botswana scenes. Thus averting a direct confrontation with issues of South African politics, she redirects our attention te the implicit comparison posed by the two alternative political realities, one symbolised by the relati vely untouched world of Botswana, the other by the chaotic political order of South Africa. What strikes the reader is that while the blending of the cld and new, the modification of custom and tradition, and the incorporation of
"part-part" have contributed ta the harmonious continuity of life in Botswana, this same process did not occur in South
Africa. Botswana, thus, serves as an ideal reference point for what South Africa might have been, had it not been overtaken 1 46 by white imperialismi the contrast between the freedom
associated with an old and timeless society and the sense of
bondage imposed by a foreign and artificially-created European
poiiticai structure pushes the ugly reality of imperialist
domination to the fore.
The fact that Head ls strongly against the oppression
engendered by the dominant political culture in South Africa
is also demonstrated by her depiction of the plight of
individuals forced into exile by the state. At this juncture,
it is ,ecessary ta mention that several major South Afric3n
writers, including Head herself, are political refugees.
Having crossed the border separating South Africa and Botswana
on a one-way exit permit in 1964, Head j oined the Y'anks of
exiled South African writers who now live outside their
country. She did not venture far, considering that her fellow
wri ters have been scatt.ered throughout North America and
Europe. Nevertheless, her experiences as an exile measure up
to those of her colleagues; her consciousness matches that of
the typical exile. It may be noted that of the writers who
migrated, few have adapted weIl te their new homeland; many
died young while in exile, among them, Arthur Nort je , Can
Themba, Nat Nakasa, and Todd Matshikisa. Those who lived or
are living have survived anly ta tell the tale of their
banishment.
At the creative Ievel, the writers pave not always been
successful in integrating themselves into the literary
1 47
tradition ot their adopted country. Most can only think, dream
and write about their home, yearning for the day of return;
they suffer what Mrhahlele tenus the "tyranny of place"
(Mphahlele 1974:68). A psychological acfliction which plagues
the consciausness of the exile writer, the "tyrann)' of place"
forces the writer back ta the South African social landscape
where the power of politics and race continues te wie1d its
influence over his mind, compelling his imagination to
recreate the history of his land and people (Mphahlele
1974:68). Because he remains firm1y rooted to his home
environment, the South African l ~ terary artist wri tes, not
on1y to recount memories and rel ive earlier experiences, but
also in cathartic response te a painful pasto As Abrahams
notes, he returns ta "agonise over, comprehend, and unravel
the cruel ty of his land of birth" in his fiction (Abrahams
1978:22). Ta the extent that Head's artistic s~nsi~ility is
continually haunted by her South African background, a
condition ref1ected in her preoccupation with the theme of
pxile, Head suffers from MphahIele's "tyranny of place".
In the essay, "Literature of the Exile" f Jane Grant
suggests that the creative works of exile writers fall into
two categories, writing about home and writinq about the exile
experience. Mphahlele's Down Second Avenue (1971), in 'lhich
the author recreates life in urban South Af~lca, falls in the
first category. Included in the second are Matshikis~'s
autobiographical Chocolates for My Wife (1961), Selvon's
'0' -,
\
1 48 Lonely Londoners (1956) and Mphahlele's The Wanderers (1971). Head's extensive treatment of the consciousness of the exile
places her in the second category of writing.
Head 1 S portrayal of the experience of the individual
forcE'd into poli tical exile clearly conveys her sense of
indignation wi th the arbi trary wielding of power by the
government of her country. In her first book, When Rain Clouds
Gather and third, A Question of powers , the main characters
are, like their author, exile figures; both Makhaya and
Elizabeth are fugitives who have flad South Africa under the
pressure of hostile pol i tical circulTlstances. To escape the
tyranny of the state, the characters cross the border into
Botswana with the h0pe of a fresh start, a situation that 15
reminiscent of Head's own. But what Head is deterrnined to emphasise, in aIl her novels, is the pain and trauma involved
in the move to a tûreign Land; she does not hesitate to show
the painful process of breaking into an unfamiliar and foreign
culture. Flight from the source of oppression is a welcome
relief, but the worst is aIl but over; the newly _ arrived
immigrant mus~ now create a new life oct of the fragments of
his broken pasto To E.urvive in his newly tr,1nsplanted
environment, he has to put down his roots in alien soil.
Makhaya and Elizabeth c,:Jnfront this challenge as they atternpt
to orient thernselves and reestablish their social identities
amidst totally stranqe social surroundings, for Makhaya, the
village of Golema Mmidi and for Elizabeth, Motabeng. j 49 But these rural Botswana communities do no~ always guarantee a sure-fire welcome for strangers. To the refugee
seeking political asylum, Botswana provides lia freer society",
but it is certainly no Garden of Eden, as Head ventures to
show through the country's inhospitable climatic and social
conditions. Although Head's characters eventually establish a
pattern of Ji [t., for themsel ves, coaxed gently along by the
restorative powers of agricultural activities, as Marquard
6 suggests , their efforts at integration into the Botswana
villages are often hindered by local prejudices as in the
unfounded suspicion of "foreigners". In ~hetl-Ril~Clouds
Gather, Makhaya experiences estrangement in his relationships
with Dinorengo and Mma-Millipede despite the fact that he has
won their love, trust, and respect. In the Most intimate of
social relations, the traditional discrimination against the
"foreigner" seems to prevail. For J- lbeth, the protagonist
of A Question of Power, the situdtÜ, even more complex. As an "out-and out outsider" of Botswana, her fate in Motabeng is
decided for her; she wou:d "never be 'in' on 'Lheir' things"
(QE 26). But added te this is her own prejudices against the
local Africans 1 whirh serve t'J further al.Hmate her, socially and emotionally.
But the biggest obstacle for the exile lies neither in
the danger of physical dislocation, nor even the fear of
rejection, for lia human being will still survive amidst
terrible suffering" (qtd in Grant 1978: 44). Head suggests that 50
the principal barrier to the process of adaptation cornes from
wi~hin the consciousness of the exile himself. As Mphahlele points out, "involuntary exile implie;;; a rejection of place
and a hang-up about the place one has rejected and a deniai
for mu ch of the time of the possibility of a fit substitute"
(Mphahlele 1967:92). As such, the search for dsylum, physical
and spiritual, which follows the disheritance of onels
homeland may extend for years. In her novels, Head
demonstrates that internaI contradictions sear the exile 1 s
consc:ousness as he alternates between the desire ta belong
and the simu'taneous, almost instinctive rejection of the new
~ociety. In A Question of Power, Elizabeth veers precariously
between her desperate need for human companionshlp and her
personal },Jride which prevents her from forging meaningful
r~lationships with the local residents. Inevitably, as Head
shows, emotional, psychological, and mental deterioration
follow the physical displacement: "South Afr icans usually
suffer from sorne fOrIn of mental aberration" (~ 58), Eugene,
the principal of a Motabeng school, notes sympathetically as
he extends his friendship ta Elizabeth. Of the motley crew of
characters, the refugees are the ones who suffer acute mental
trauma; Makhaya and Elizabeth and to a lesser extent, Tom and
Gilbert, must wrestle w~ th the past ta muster suffi cient
strength and confidence for the present and future.
In his 105s of connection with his previous life, the
exile 1 s inalienable past continues to inVdde his present,
• 51 obtrusively and unrelentingly. Bath Makhaya and Elizabeth suffer "the tyranny of time, and the tyranny of place"
(Mphahlele 1974:68), as they attempt overcome their isolation and sense of placelessness. Silent, detached, and withdrawn, they are the scarred individuals of the modern novel, who must operate in the shadow of their pasto Of their pre-exile days, the reader is minimally informed, but the characters' bitterness and aversion for matters of politics in Africa and elsewhere, reveal much about the political oppression that have shaped thei~ present circumstances. Gilbert's idealistic advocacy of d dictatorship as the most appropriate form of government tor Botswana draws a wry and cynical response from the pOlitically-weary Makhaya:
Why ,ïot leave this country, even Africa, to trial
and error? This i5 only my opinion. l donlt think
l approve of dictatorsnips in any forro, whether
for the good of rn~nkind or not. Even if it is
painstakingly slow, l prefer a democracy for
Africa, come what may (WRCG 83). sirnilarly, when Elizabeth i5 pressed by Tom for comment on the future of African politics, she flounders for an answer:
Any heaven that existed for a few indlviduals
alone was pointless. It was the urge to throttle
everyone else to death. Didn't she know about it
in Southern Africa? Wasnlt she a part of it in
feeling when there was so much despair and 50 52
little hope? (QE 133-4) .
In the characters ' minds, the political viciousness of their native country lives on, a torture of mind and soul. ~
Question of Power plunges the heroine,Elizabeth,straight lnto the abyss of nightmares, terrifying visions, and mental hallucinations. In this purgatorial state, Elizabeth l ives out the horrors of her South African days as well as the period of
exile that follo~. Her psychological disintegration brought about by the enslavement of her mind to feelings of guilt,
fears, paranoia/and inferiority, is followed by her subsequent
1055 of sanity. In this novel, Head's third and most obscure,
madness provides the definitive symbol for the suffering of
the exile. The unfolding drama of the exile's anguish, enacted
through the suffering of Elizabeth whose mental condition
brings her in and out of the alternating states of physical
reality and the sel f-created world of phantasgomorical forros,
reveals in vivid images the turmoi l of the exile' s inn~r
world. Yet, the concept of sanity is itself a subjective one.
In A Question of Power, madness is the index of the heroine's
more perspicacious vision of life, for Elizabeth's depth of
experience and suffering has sharpened her perception and
understanding of life.
It may be noted that the nightmarish mental tortures of
Elizabeth closely corresponds with the author' s own precarious
psychological existence. Indeed, the physical details, the
psychedelic images, and the emotionally-charged passages can •
53
come only trom one whose writing is grounded in the knowledge
of personal experience. In an lnterview wi th Andrew Peek, Head
discloses: (A Question of Power) was 1ived for three years,
a whole chunk of living experience suddenly
compressed into a short novel ... I had lived so
precariously, and if I could know how to survive,
between gcod and evil, l would offer these
insights ~o mankind. How I could survive torture
and cruelty because this seems to be so much human
history (peek 1984:6).
Furtherrnore, in a letter to Janet Grant, she confesses that
"it was with desperatio"l that I recorded the horror ln A
Question of Power ... but my true position is a very detached
one ... I have my doubts about Africa being a home for people in
the real sense of the word" (qtd in Grant 1978:44).
But it is not Head's disillusionment with Botswana that
is the issue here; she remains stoic about the rej ection of "a
country that didn 't want me" (qtd in Marquard 1978: 51), or
"other horrors thrown at me here in Botswana as a kind of
added bonus" (qtd in Grant 1978: 44). More significantly, what
is cornmunicated is the disenchantment of an exile whose search
for fulf.illment in a foreign land has ended in failure, at
least, at that point in time. Despi te the great relief at
having escaped the clutches of her government, Head, as a J pol i tical exile, cannet, ir.~eed, she can never ferget the 54 country where she was born and bred, and has spent the greater part of her life. What Head is saying about the oppressive system of governrnent in South Africa is clear. The situation of the disapora 1 in which 50 many have been depri ved of a homeland, is the direct consequence of power abuse and political misrule. Of th..:! possibility of changes at the political front, she is pessimistic - "1 am afraid A Question of Power is going to dominate for long time" (qtd in Grant
1978:44) . The question cf power that Head seeks tn answer in her novels reemerges in her portrayal of tribalism, the old political system that once dominated the African continent, but which has been replaced by modern systems of social control mainly in the forrn of the state apparatus. As Williams observes, the transformation of the structures of feelings in a society takes place over a long period of time, so that as one social group looks back at another through time, constant reference is made to what seems ta be a past order, namely, a traditional society. He explains:
The structure of feeling within which this back
ward reference is to be understood is then not
primarily a matter of historical explanation and
analysis. What is really significant ls this
particular kind of reaction to the fact of change
(Williams 1973:35).
Thus, while there is no actual historical reference in the i 55 past, there is an idealisation of values identifiable within
the social order that is dominant at the particular time. The
remnants of the old culture whose values have been preserved,
and are now idealised, appear then as the residual culture. In
South Africa, the residual culture that has survived the
onslaught of imperial rule is tribalisrn, the political system
of the old African kingdoms, but whose structures have been
left relatively intact in neighbouring Botswana.
In her treatment of tribal politics, Head again departs
from the traditional approach adopted by most African writers.
While rnany are likely to display sorne kind of retrospective
regret in their celebration (If past orders, Head is convinced
that "we cannot return to the dark ages" (Transition 1964:6),
firmly maintaining that past traditions cannot be revived
amidst the changes tha~ have overtaken the African nations. In
When Rain Clouds Gather and particularly in ~ where the
political themes are more overt, the question of kingship is
explored against a background of social change and political
transformation. Remnants of the old political structure
coexist peacefully alongslde the changes wrought by the
modernising influence of westernisation. But towards the end
of ~aru, the winds of change are shown to blow through the
little village of Dilepe, even as the winds of freedom blow to
free the Masarwa people. Social progress, therefore, demands
a vision that looks forward into the future, and not backward J into the pasto This challenges Ravenscr,;:>ft's view which i 56 suggests that Head's use of present models provided by the
independent countries of Afr1ca allows the reader to see the
corruption of the present system "in meaningful relation to
South Africa's future" (Ravenscroft in Heywood 1976:174)"
Head' s overall attitude towards the tradi tional structures
of kingship is related to the kind of repression enforced by
the tribal leaders. While the form of political control
practised by ancient chiefs like the Great Karma or his son, Tshekedi Karma, is deemed acceptable, if not desirable, the
repressive rule of many other tribal leaders is considered
reprehensible. In this respect, one may say that Head approves
of "normative repression", but not "surplus repression,,7. This
may explain her seemingly ambivalent stand, for while she
displays acute wariness in relying on past history for
pol i tical models, she is awed by tribal chiefs who have proven
themselves "men of integrity" (Head 1979: 25). Head firmly
maintains that Bostwana's ability to preserve her political
uni ty during the era of the scramble for Africa is owed
largely to the personal integrity and ingenuity of Karma. The
state of relative freedom for Botswana is of utmost
significance because:
... the people of the land were never exposed to
or broken by the sheer ~tark horor of white
domination. They kept on dreaming as from ancient
tim~s and they kept alive the portrait of ancient
Africa ..• If the country is destroyed in the post 57
independence years, it will be by horrors within
itself and not by foreign powers (Head 1979:26).
Politicians like Karma saved Bostwana from what happened to
South Africa. In Maru, Dikeledi, Maru's sister praises Maru's
political stature: "Maru i5 a real chief. He is a little bit
like the chiefs we had in the old days, before the white man
arrived" (Maru 68), clearly invoking the image of African
chiefs in the tradition of Karma.
But as much as Head i5 drawn to the political model of
rule provided by the Karma administration, she is aware that
leaders like Karma are a rare and dying breed. On the whole,
the noe:;talgic reminiscence of Africa' 5 pa st is avoided. Rather
than ideali5e Africa's history, Head's main intention is to
expose the myth of the perfect and infallible political
kingdom of old Africa; the reality is that many of the ancient
rulers were neither benevolent nor benign. In the almost
ethnographical accounts of tribal societies in the first two
novels, she shows that contrary to the frequently posited
belief that political oppression did not exist until the
coming of the white man, exploitation and abuse were very rnuch
al ive in the ancient societies. When Makhaya cros,ses the
border fence into Botswana, little does he realise that it is
te the "illusion of freedom" (~ 1) he flees; his final
comprehension that "even in the African bush, there are too
rnany riddles and ironies" (WRCG 171) cornes only at the end of
the novel, when his own delusions are destroyed. Within the
h 58 structures of the rigidly stratified tribal society, the power, wealth, and status, concentrated in the hands of the royalty or the "totems", are not always put to benevolent use.
Most African chiefs regard political power and its attendant privileges as a natural right. Matenge or Sekoto in When Bain
Clouds Gather, and Moraf i in M.ru:.Y, demonstrate that the y pre fer to feed the cravings of their personal egos than the needs of their subjects. In their powerlessness, the ordinary people are the ones who fall victim to their chiefs' myriad
forrns of abuses - cattle-thieving, womanising, bullying, for which there is no recourse. Even moderate leaders like Moleka
and Sekoto, from tirne te tirne, engage in unworthy deeds. As
Maru surns up insightfully, "three quarters of this continent
are Iike Morafi, Seth and Pete - greedy, grasping, back
stabbing, a betrayal of aIl the good in mankind (Maru 68).
What Head aiso atternpts to show is that at the very heart
of tribal ism lies the very dubious institution of double-
dealing. In Maru, the reader learns that Pete, the school
principal, "could be stricken with conscience but he enjoyed
double-dealing greatly. African life in a remote village
afforded no other entertainment" (Mart! 90). Although Pete's
actions represent the contention for power and authorlty a~
the lower rungs of the administrative ladder, the political
intrigues he thrives on is the trademark that distinguishes
the whole system of tribal rule. Rivalry among the tribal
leaders themselves is rife: Morafi and Matenge, both future 59 contenders to the throne, plot and scheme relentlessly to undermine the power and authori ty of the present chiefs. Back biting, back-stabbing, political manoeuvring, belly-crawl ing - aIl forms of politicking exude their evil through every level of the kingship structure.
Yet, it is through the intensely ambiguous portrayal of
Maru himself that Head reveals the deeply-embedded nature of double-dealing in tradition11 African life. In Maru, the man,
Head invests the qualities of the future kings and queen5 of Africa wi th "goodness, compassion, justice and truth" (Maru
69): his vision is that of a free and just society where the kings "were those of the soul who could never betray their gods" (Maru 69). But if Maru is the dreamer of thi~ noble vision, he i5 also the skilled craftsman of double-dealing. It ls deeply ironie that in arder that Maru fulfils his dream, he must, like Pete, resort to triekery, insineerity, and deceit.
But what distinguishes Maru' s masterly strokes from Pete 1 s amateurlsh ones is the single-mindedness of his purpose and approach. As the master-minder of a most elaborate and
intricate scheme, Maru uses his talents, authori tYI and the people he loves to achieve his ends. As his plan unfalds, he skilfully manoeuvres his way through the lives of Moleka,
Dikeledi. and Margaret: he first manipulates village gossip to his advantage, then entraps Moleka ~nto marrying Dikeledi, before engineering his own marriage ta the socially-deprived
Margaret. The inconsistency between the man' s vision and 60 action is striking:
It was the kind of tangle and confusion of events
that Maru revelled in. Half-truths, outright lies,
impossible rumours and sudden, explosive events
were his stock in trade. He used them as a coyer
up for achieving his goals. People would thwart
otherwise and he never liked to be side-tracked.
He never cared about the means towards the end
and who got r.ùrt (Maru 86).
The moral arnbiguity, which approximates the double-sidedneso of Sello in A Question of Power, surfaces in the stark contrast between the nobility of his vision and the ruthlessness of his methods which he seems te thoroughly relish. On another level, Maru renounces political kingship
for the ideals of love, goodness,and equality, but the methods he employs to attain these goals are definitely those of the
crafty politician.
Head's depiction of tribalist attitudes and customs as
hindrances to social progress and technical innovation further
confirms her apprehensions about the old way of life. She
denounces tribalism as a "narrow, horrifie, exclusive world"
(qtd in Marquard 1978:53); tribalism may be meat and drink in
many African societies, but as an institution, i ts effects
are, in Head's view, as pernicious as apartheid's in South
Africa. In this respect, the Promotion of Bantu Self
Government Acte aimed at providing for "the full political 61 development of Africans" (Omond 1985:97) is viewed as an attempt by the South African government to reintroduce tribalism into the present social framework, and hence, regarded as yet another rcpressive measure to impose control over the people. The emphasis on ethnie differcnces wjll only enhance tribal diversity while consolidating white rule, a point that is implied in When Rain Clouds Gather:
AlI this was tribalism and a way of life to the
meek sheep wh\ submitted to it. And aIl this had
been highly praised by the colonialists as the
only system that would keep the fearful, unwieldy
incomprehensible population of "natives" in its
place (WRCG 45) 0
If there is an answer to her country's problem, it certainly doe5 not lie in its pasto The intrusion of colonisation in
South Africa has been so abrasive that the original fabric of the society i5 now torn and irreplaceableo
Both the dominant and residual political culture in South
Africa seem unable to provide a clear base from which the
country' s future development ean be worked out 0 Is there, then, an alternative solution to the present predicament? In
Williams' framework of social evolution, changes in society extend over a long period of time in a way that they are not sharply detectableo Nevertheless, these changes will slow]y transform the existing dominant culture so that with time, a new structure of feelings will evolve, and the new mode of 62 consciousness, or the emergent culture, will eventually replace the present one to become the dominant culture
(Williams 1973: 35). Does Head see the solution to South
Afrlca's problems in the newly-emerging lnovements that
dominate contemporary African politics?
Apparently not. In When Rain Cloud!;. Gather, where she
portrays that even rural reg ions l ike Golema Mmidi are not
spared the wave of chaùge, the motives of the new breed of political contenders are called te question. These "two-penny
ha'penny politicians" who have sprouted overnight like
mushrooms in Africa are depicted as opportunists, semi
illiterate and power-lusting. Unlike the "sons of chiefs" who
are the inheritors of the traditional sources of power, wealth
and status, these "sons of slaves" who lack political roots
and experience have simply risen trom the dust. Driv~n by
personal ambition and greed, they have jumped on the politic31
bandwagon, taking advantage of the new democratic processes
that have ~wept across the countries of Afrlca. In When Rain
Clouds Gather, Dinorengo expresses his doubts over the
political calibre and integrlty of these men:
Men like Joas Tsepe do not understand and speak
the language of the people. Who can understand
cheating and murder when SU ch things are not the
custorn here? (WRCG 67)
Th-a tt\ctical use of tlle potentially sensitive issue of
race as a means to secure more votes makes the intentions of
ka 63 these self-purported nationaJists doubly suspect. In A Question of Power, El izabeth who disapproves of pol i tical groups advocating any forro of racial exclusivity expresses her reservations:
rny concentration is on rnankind in general,
and black people fit in there, not as special
freaks and oddities outside the scheme of things,
with labels 1 ike Black Po\yer or any other rubbish
of that kind (QI: 13 3) .
Like the author, her South African Experience has taught her that "any heaven, like a Black Powe~ he aven that existed for a few individuals alone was ... an urge ta throttle everyone else to death" (QE 131).
These political developrnents with their anti-colonialisrn campaigns and support for African unit y are associated with
9 the larger Pan-African rnovement • In i ts ideolog ical formulation, the "iims of Pan-Africanism seern noble, but in practical application, it ushered ln new sets of problems such as the clamour for greater participation in the political life of Africa by the local candidates. The intrigues, falsities, and duplicity of the political contestants, inltially shrouded by the spirit of nationalisrn are unveiled once the country attains self-rule and independence. The narrator of When Rain
Clouds Gather comments:
To many, Pan-Africanism is almost a sacred drearn,
but like aIl dreams it also has its nightrnare side, \ 64 ~.
and the little men like Joa3 Ts~pe and their
strange doings are the nightmare. If they have any power at aIl it is the power to plunge the African
continent into an era of eh20s and bloody murder
(WRCG 47).
This horrifie vision of the future of Africa brings home the
point that the transfer of political leadership to the blacks
will net guarantee an end te the abuse ot power. ordinary
people will suffer for as long as those at the apex of the
politieal structure, regardless of their race, continue with
their rei~n of terror.
UI timately, Head traces the roots of political
oppression, as weIl as all other expressions of surplus
repression to the "arrogance of the soul, its pild flaring
power, its overwhelming lust for dominance and prestige" (QE
135). In her novels, she demonstrates repeatedly that the
questionable use of power by th0se in positions Jf allthorlty
is related to the question of evil that pours out of the human
heart. Al though the abdication of kingship, seen in the
political disengagement of Makhaya, Maru·s slIrrender of his
chieftainship, and the depoliticisation of kingship issues in
A Question of Power, seems to be a major therne in the novels,
it is not politics itself that Head i5 wary of. Rather, what
worries her is the unrestrained flaunting of power by those at
the helm of the political leadership. Therefore, the concern
with political power opens up the much wider metaphysical
• 65 consideration of the question of good and evil. In A Question of Power, the characters of Sello and Dan who represent, in an almost allegorical way, Good and Evil, symbolically bear out the struggles between the morality of God and the devil. As
Elizabeth cornes to realise "if things of the soul are real1y a question of power, then anyone in possession of power of the spi ri t can be Lucifer" (QE 199). Yet the shi ft of focus from the pol itical to the metaphysical realm does nct detract from
Head' s vision as a social real ist. Al though A Question of
Power is frequently abstract in its metaphysical engagements,
Head's final concerns are grounded in the finn rca11ty of social relationships. Thus f while El izabeth contemplates on the source of evil:
We know evil deeply and we know how to end it. We
know its roots. We know its creators. They're
nothing like the white fools shoving us around.
They aren't the source of it, the powerful factory
where it's actually manufactured ... (QE 134), she aiso realises its full significance in thé. context of everyday life:
... the real battlefront wa~ living people, their
personaljties, their treatment of eaGh othe~. A
real living battle of iealousy, hate and greed ...
(Q.f 66).
This, to Head, is the African reali ty. The question of power in the political domain is, thus, relocated in and expressed 66 through the world of social relations and human action. As
Head implie5, it i5 a question which must finally be answered by the individual persan, for as the ruler of his inner kingdom, each human being contraIs the power ta either create new worlds out of goodness or chaos out of evil. Ta those who still ins ist on the standard kind of pol i tical commitment from
Head, the response is:
Africa isn't rising. It's up already. It depends
on where or.e places the stress. l place it on the
soule If it's basically right there, then ether
thjngs fall into place. That's my struggle, and
that's blar.k power, but it's a power that belongs
te all mankind and in which aIl mankind can share
(~ 135).
These are Elizabeth's words to Tom, but it is a statement that
deeply echoes her creator's own political convictions. i 67 NOTES
1. Foucault discusses these ideas in his bùoks Discipl ine and Punish (1979) and Power/Knowledge (1980). Although Foucault is currently considered the authority in the field, his conception of power as a force that operates from "behind the scenes" is more abstract and, thus, less relevant ta this discussion on Head. Russell's concern with the morality of power manipulation cornes closer to Head's model.
2. Blacks constitute an overwhelming 73% (22.7 million) of the population, while whites fOrIn a mere 15% (4.5 million). Coloureds (9% or 2.77 million) and Indians (3% or 870 thousand) make up the rest of the population (Omond 1985:18) •
3. The term "form of conscicusness" refers ta a particular constellation of beliefs, attitudes, dispositions, etc. It is ideologically false, if manipulated ta perpectuate false beliefs or to stabilise or leg1timise domination or hegemony, that is, "herrschaft" (Geuss 1981:12-22).
4. The circumstances surrounding her birth, her brush with the South African government and her subsequent decisiùn ta leave the country attest ta this.
5. For the page references of the se two novels from this point on, the abbreviations "WRCG" and "Q.E" will be used ta refer ta When Rain Clouds Gather and A Question of Power respectively.
6. Both essays (Marquard 1978-9, 1979) suggest that the pastoral setting of the agricultural community offers the exile refuge and a sense of belonging in his new environment.
7. Refer Chapter One of this thesis for a discussion of these concepts.
8. The Promotion of Bantu Sel f-Government Act is based on the pol icy of the separate development of the races. According to the "Hornelands" policy, ten homelands clr "Bantusans" were created for the Africans who were grouped according to their ethnie orlglns, as in KwaZulu, Bophuthatswana, Traskeil or Ciskei (Omond 1985:97). J l
1 68 9. Refer Irele (1981) The African Experience in Literature and Ideglogy, London: Heinemann, p. 117. 69 ·l
CHAPTER THREE: RACE
As established in the previous chapter, the intimate
relationship between politics and race in South Africa is
expressed in the coinciding sources of political and racial
authori ty in the country 1 s system of power distribution.
Control in the political arena has given the white elite the power not only to maintain their right of rule, but also ta
def ine pol i tical relations as racial relations. In South
Africa, there are no political interests that are no~ at the
sarne time racial interests; the primary categories of race,
that is black and white, are mapped onto other differences.
'l'he totalitarian regime, which exercises a wide range of
controls over the intermediate and supporting institutions,
has complete comm~nd aver the country's affairs. In the area
of social relations, inter-racial behaviour is strictly, if
not singularly regulated by the principle of "apartheid", the
policy of racial segregatIon and separation. In this sense,
political power serves as the infrastructure for the
superstructure ot racial as well as other forms of inequality
(Kuper 1974:269).
The rigidity of the racial structure in South African
politics is supported by an equally elaborate social network
around WhlCh ethnie relations are woven. According to the
official system of stratification, the whites are designated 70 the uppermost layer of the hierarchy, while the "Coloureds": or citizens of mixed racial descent, usually of black and white parentage, are positioned in the next stratum. Native
Africans occupy the lower rungs of the stratification ladder, followed by the mixed group of minority races, mostly people of Asian descent. In this tightly-kni t racial structure, social rights and privileges are accorded to individuals on the sole basis of their ethnie background; preferential treatment is meted out on a descending scale with the whites endowed with the most entitlements. Theoretically, the
Africans seem to occupy a more advantageous position than the minority groups, but in reality, it was found that they suffer the highest level of discrimination and oppress.ion (Omond
1985:19).
In this operational model, the whites emerge as the most
favoured race and the blacks, the most deprived. To support the existing structures within the Colour Bar, laws which
dictate inter-racial behaviour have been passed; in 1950, the
three pillars of apartheid2 were legislated into the statutes
of South Africa. These laws and others which virtually govern
all aspects of a person's life, including marital partners,
sexual relations, residential choices, religious observances,
and political alliances are the vanguard of white superiority
and power. Combined with the severe penalties for civil
disobedience, the legal system aims to protect white interests while i t mair':ains the rac ial cleavages. Any change in status •
1 71 wi,~ ch may threaten to upset the social equilibriurn as in the
formation of new inter-racial structures through individual
mobility, is irnmediately counteracted by policies of racial
differentiation and cultural àiversity. As Head aptly
comments, "It. ls a law of life that (the Africans) rise up but
there are man-made laws to keep them down there" (WRCG 34).
The possible evolution of a common society is, thus, thwarted
by official measure~ which prevent future social or cultural
integration. At a deeper level, the politica1/racia1 strugg1e in South
Africa may be interpreted as an issue related to the human
contention for power. In his book, Race. Class and Power, Leo
Kuper suggests that although the situation in South Africa
seems to be dominated by race, ethnie differences in
themseives ho Id nc intrinsic significance. If people establish
domination over each other, it is because they are Il in pursui t
of qui te concrete interests in power and other resources"
(Kuper 1974:269). It i5 only by reason of "cultural emphasis
and structural elaboration" that racial difference appears to
assume independent significance as a maj or deterrninant of
social relations (Kuper 1974:144). ;herefore, racial
differentiation is in itself not the principal matter of
concern in South Africa: the more insidious intent of power
acquisition and exploitation is the real issue at hand. Race
merely provides a convenient platforrn for power manipulation.
, To justify discrimination and ensure its continuance, the l
72 perpetrators of racism often resort to Il ideologies of cultural differences" 3 in the formulation of racial pollcies. Because racism will never admit ta the truth of discrimination, the
Il ideologies" are usually used ta explain and rationalise prejudicial behaviour. The various forms of denial include the process of dehumanisation whereby members of the subject race are reduced to animalistic or bestial images, objectification where the subjugated party is diminished to the non-status of obj ects, and depersonalisation where the culture of the subordinate race ls devalued by the standards of the dominant group. These concepts of cultural inequality which legitimise much human injustice at the political, economic, and social
leveis are employed to provide the dominant party w i th
sufficient psychological justification for its acts of terror.
In South Africa where the ruling party happens to be the minority race, the ~ideologies of cultural differences" are
instrumental to the subjugation of the majority race. Besides
the implementation of policies which emphasise white unit y and
black diversity, the "ideologies" function as indispensable
tools in the maintenance of racial polarisation. To the
dominant white race, these methods of rationalisation are
usefui because they help assuage the conscience; indeed, white
morality seems unperturbed by the proliferation of apartheid
laws in the country. It should be noted, however, that
"ideologies of cultural differences" function most effectively
when the y are accepted by the subordinate race itself. But a 73 people undertaking a struggle for liberation has no reason to
justify its own persecution. Therefore, whether the
"ideologies" will be as effective as instruments of oppression
in the long run largely depends on whether the consciousness of the oppressed masses is awakened.
The purpose of this chapter is to examine the nature and expression of power in three sets of racial relationships common ln South Africa: between the dominant white minority and the subju gated black population, between different black tribal groups or among 'llembers within the black community, and between Coloureds and the two ma in racial groups. In each
instance, Head 1 s novels will be used to demonstrate the social dynamics and forces which underlie the relationships between people from different races. An attempt will be made to study the roots and sources of racial discrimination, especially in cases where raclal relations are of an unequal nature. The resultant impact of racial intolerance, as the chapter will show, is not limited to physical abuse, which is itself abhorrent; the victims of racism often have to suffer life
long emotlonal and psychological disorientation.
In her depiction of the oppositional relationships between the whites and blacks, Head, like sorne of her contemporaries, allows herself to indulge in the occassional
tirade against the institutionalisation of repression and oppression through apartheid. The trenchant passages which criticise the white man's abominable behaviour are not always 74 her best, but they do point to the severity of the situation in her country. Elizabeth, who recounts of the days of horror in South Africa before her enforLed deportation, reveals:
She did not care. She hated the country. In spite
of her inability to like or to understand political
ideologies, she had also lived the back-breaking
life of all black people in South Africa. It was
like 1 iving with permanent nervous tension, because
you did not know why white people thGre had to go
out of their way to ha te you or loathe you. They
were born just that way, hating people, and a
black man or woman was just born to be hated (QE
19) .
The truth of the matter is that under the apartheid system,
life is brutal, if one is black. As the narrator elaborates:
in South Africa ... they said the black man
was naturally dull, stupid, inferior, but they made
sure to deprive him of the type of education which
developed personallty, intellect, skill" (Qg 57) .
In this shrewd appeal to an "ideology of cultural difference"
combined with the deliberate deprivation of opportunities for
social cievelopment, the white man prevents the black man's
future rise to power. In Maru, Head examin(ls the truth of this
type of self-fulfiling prophecy through the social experirnent
conducted by the senior Margaret Cadmorei a young girl of
Masarwa origin is successfully brE>d and educated to her 75
rullest potential to prove the theory: "heredi ty, nothing f
environment, everything" (~ 15).
In When Rain Clouds Gather, the brutal circumstances
which have shaped Makhaya's life are disclosed when he
attempts LO explain to Mma-Millipede the conditions in South
Africa: He might have said it was much more than torture
torment, that it was an abysmal betrayal, a howling
inferno where every gesture of love and respect was
repaid with the vicious, snapping jaws of the
inmates of this inferno until you were forced to
build a thick wall of silence between yourself and
the snapping jaws (WRCG 128).
Mma-Millipede's inabiliLy ta comprehend the intensity of
Makhaya's hatred and bitterness provides a stark contrast to
the latter's background and knowledge of evil. She herself is
pitch-black too, but the crucial difference i5 that "having
had lived all her life inside this black skin with ~ qu~et and
unruffled digni'LY" (WRCG 129), she has not been tainted or
violated by the Whl ce man' s hatred. Likewise, Dinorego is
incapable of understanding the violence and oppression which
constitute Makhaya's past because his own enviranment is one
of relative peace and innocp.nce.
While the white man remains unexonerated of his guilt, he
is issued a warning by the author who alerts the oppressors as
to the moral con5equences of their misdeeds. Painting a moral
.. l
1 76 portrait of the oppressor as hideous as that of Dorian Gray' s,
Head cautions: The victim is really the most flexible, the most
free person on earth. He doesn't have to think up
endless la~s and endle~s falsehoods. His jailer
does that. His jailer creates the chains and the
oppression. He is merely presented with it. He is
presented with a thousand and one hells to live
through, and he usually lives through them aIl.
The faces of the oppressed are not ugly. They are
scarred with suffering.But the torturers become
more hideous day by day ... The victim who sits in
jail always sees a bit of sunlight shining through
... Who is the greater man - the man who cries,
broken by anguish, or his scoffing, rnocking,
jeering oppressor? (~ 84)
Oppression is like a double-edged sword; just as the oppressed
is physically slaln by hdtred, the oppressor is morally
slaughtered by the evilness of his deeds. Both the oppressed
and the oppressor become joint victims of the evil in "the
cau Idron of hatred" (J'ffiCG 45).
However, forcefui though the cri ticisl'lls against the South
African system may be, Head's assessment of the black-white
relations, in the country remains balanced. As Abrahams has
noted, Head departs from the traditional viewpoint in that she
refuses t.o see: 1
77
the root of evil as being firmly and solely embedded in the obdurate heart of the wrü te persan
and dismiss the corruption of blacks as being the
natural consequence o~ an evil which has been
manufactured by whites (Abrahams 1978:22).
Instead, she opts to boldly confront th~~ question of the black man's oppression, in search of an alternative answer ta the one frequently posited which condemns the white man for the
black man's lot. Head's general reluctance to romantic~se the
black man's fate is reflected in passages like this, ~~ere
Makhaya contemplates on how the blacks came te be subjugated
in the first place:
For he hated the white man in a ~trange way. It
was net anything subtle or sly or mean, but a
rowerful accumulation of years and years and
centuries and centuries of silence. It was as
~hough, in aIl thls silence, black men had not
lived nor allowed themselves an expression of
feeling. But they had watched their lives overrun
and everything taken away (WRCG 133) .
It is precisely because the ;c.lacks have chosen 1:0 remain
silent, and allowed themselves to become co-participants in
the r~cial conspiracy that things have turned out the way they
now are. The stern message is that the blacks are in part to
be blamed for their present condition. As collaborators
against their own race, they are now subjected te "the living a
78 death of humiliation" (WRCG 125).
In her treatment of racial relationships, Head does not att~:npt te resolve the tensions and cenflicts by simply heaping aIl blame on the white man's evilness of heart. In an essay printed in The New African, before any novel had been published, she records ter vision:
If l had ta write one day l would like ta say
people is people and nct namn white or damn black.
Perhaps if l was a good enough writer l could
write damn black and still make people live (qtd
in Barnett 1983:120).
What Head opposes here is the fundamental principle of seeinq things in black and white (literally!). The human tendency to reduce concepts to their rudimentary forms distorts and limits man's experience and vision of life. One cannot conceive of
life's myriad experiences in neat categories; ta perce ive the
complexities, of l ife in diametrlcally opposed terms is to deny
life its many imprsssions and abscractions, its awe and
mystery. The myth of polarity that constitutes "disintegrative
knowledge" is what Head seeks ta destroy in her writing (Beard
1979:268). Noticeably, the central movement in her novels lS
a progressive shift from absolutism towards the "total de-
mystifying of aIl illusions" (QE 86) •
Thp l1eed to dismantle the illusion of absolutism 15
stressed emphaticall) in the lessons that Makhaya and
Elizabeth must learn as they strive to reconcile the 79
contradictions beween their own pre-conceptions and the truth
presented by their new surroundings. When Makhaya first
arrives in Golema Mmidi, he is still under the delusion that
aIl will be weIl once he crosses the South African border. He
tells the old man he meets:
l just want to step on free ground. l don't care
about people. l don't care about anything, not
even the white man. l want to feel what it is like
to live in a free country and then maybe sorne of
the evils in my life will correct themselves (WRCG
10) •
While one is appreciative of Kakhaya's beleaguered 3tate of minci, one cannot help but be struck by his naiveté. The
und,erlying assumption behind his statement is disconcerting,
for in his scheme of life, aIl human beings are reduced to the
one simple formula: aIl blacks, good, aIl whites, bad.
However, this polari ty is quickly d ismantled by his
confrontation with Matenge, the black tribal chief and his
sidekick, Joas Tsepe, as weIl as his encounters the twn white
men in the village, Gilbert Balfour and George Appleby-Smith.
In their devious dealings with him, Katenge and Tsepe expose
him te the tact that black socleties, too, have their "merry
go-round". On the other hand, Appleby-Smith the British
bureaucrat, in his resolute support of Makhaya against the
village aristocracy, helps him attain a fuller understandjng
of hirnself and human relationships. But, it is Gilbert who 80 finally teaches him the lesson of "the mutual interdependence of all men" (WRCG 134). The initial barrier erected by
Makhaya's "distrust and dislike of white people" breaks down as he learns to "combine ... the good in Gilbert wlth the good in his own society" (WRCG 135).
Head' s determination ta demolish the myth of polarity becomes more evident in her treatment of Elizabeth's journey to self-discovery in her third novel. Like Makhaya, Elizabeth must discover her completeness as a person before she can attain a wholistic vision of life. But, unlike Makhaya who is able to enlarge his life vision through the steady incorporation of kindness, love/and generosity into his store of human experiences, Elizabeth must first undergo the process of mental disintegration. The novel is not void of social and political implications, but Head's concerns in ~estion of
Power are philosophical in nature; the main thrust of the book is Elizabeth' s struggle to attain an integrated vision of life, one that admits "the normal and the abnormal" (Q.f 15),
"the height of goodness" and "the depth of ev il " (~ 36) 1 the
"dem'1n" and t,he "goddess/' (~43), and Satan and God. For El izabeth, the journei \:.hrough disintegration ta whole health is a slow and excruciating ore. Sello and Dan represent forces that she must con front and banish from her consciousness if she is to attain the knowledge of Good and
Evil. But j ust as the div iding l ine between the worlds of waking reality and dream illusl.ons lS thin, the line that 81
separates the concepts of -,.'"' AileSS and evil is easily
confused. Elizabeth s f irst r - vous break-down occurs when she
finds that abso1utes do not hold in the metaphysica1 scheme of
things. Her greatest Shock is to discover that not only does
Sello Il al ternate l ives of sainthood wi th spells of debauchery"
(QE 175), but also that he is "both God and the devil at the
same time" (QE 176). The truth of the non-absolutism of life is what Elizabeth
must acknowledge if she is to regain her sanity. To restore
her equilibrium, she must resist polarities and move away from
racial stereotyping. The reader is told that, ~ith Elizabeth,
"human relationships were starkly black and white. She hated
in a f ina l way and loverl in a final way" (QE 77). rt i5
.. precisely this inclination towards absolutism that makes it
necessary for her education and soul evolution. Sello, the
allegorical incarnation of Goodness, lJUides her to a fti'ler
definition of her internaI conflict: "You have suffered a lot
in South Africa ... But you are not to hate white people ... Most
of the Gods are born among them (QE 29). Ber exposure to the
st range r.etwork of human relationships which include whites
from South Africa, England, and Denmark, in the Motabeng
Secondary School Froj ect ofters her an opportuni ty to re
evaluate and renew her perspective of the moral stature of the
white man. The humanity of Eugene, Tom, and Birgette forces
her to discard her pre- conceived notion that evil expresses
itself through the colour of one's skin. Elizabeth's 82 realisation is that as surely as there are whites like Camilla
"who don' t see the shades and shadows of li fe on black people's faces" (QE 82), there will be others like Tom whose sense of goodness provides a "creative ferment" ta the general sterility of life and human relationships. Elizabeth triumphs when she finally admits to the contradictcry qualities of mankind, embodied in the doC"tor at the asylum: " ... he might have been a quack doctor and a racialist, but he was also a magnificent human being with a kind heart" (QE 185). Thus, both author and character refuse ta dwell on the dichotomy of the races, preferr inq instead "to embrace all men into the
universal brotherhood of mankind" (QE 206) .
In her treatment of race relations between different
tribal groups or among members of the black cammunity, Head
restates her belief in the universality of racial prejudice.
Her second novel, Maru, which is a nthesis against racial ism" ,
(Nichals 1981:51) undertakes ta prove that prejudice is not
the prerogative of the whi tes i rather i t ts an ev il that
pC::::ü',cates all races. "Before the white man became universally
disliked for his mental outlook, it was there" (Maru 11), the
opening section of Maru reads. A quick review of the history
of the nations unfolds the recurring pattern of domination and
sub~/ugation as one race tries to exert i ts supremacy over
another. whites dominate the Asians who dominate the Africans
who domlnate the Bushmen. The cycle goes on, except that the
Bushmen who find themselves at the lowest end of the scale 83
have no one else to despise. Head shares her insights on the
nature of racial discrimination:
How universal is the language of oppression, they
had said of the Masarwa what every white man had
said of every black man: "They can't think for
themselves, they don't know anythlng" (Maru 109).
The structures of racial differentiation remain the same as
one race imposes i ts values and standards of j udgement on
another. As the whites exhibit their pre-conceived notions of
the group characteristics of the Africans, 50 too, do the
Africans display their biases towards the Masarwa. Regardless
of the social context, the layers of racial differentiation
remain essentially unchangedi only the ethnicity of the groups
which occupy them differ.
In Maru, Head demonstrates that even in black societies,
long before the first white man made his appearance, racial
prejudice and discrimination had pre-existed. Because tribal
societies are hierarchial in their social arrangements, tribes
of a higher social standing show a tendency to look down upon
and discriminate against those from the lower ranks. In Wh~
Rain Clouds Gather, the "superior" Batswana4 tribesmen are
shown to be not only intolerant but contemptuous of the
lifestyle and social habits of those whom they consider to be
their inferior counterparts. But such prejudicial attitudes
hinder technological innovation and progress, as illustrated
by the Batswana's resistance to growin~ crops traditionally
- 84 harvested by the rninority groups. ln Maru, the reader, like the young Margaret Cadmo~e, ~s i~itiated into life in Dilepe village, which is "the stronghold for sorne of the most powerful and wealthy chiefs in the country, aIl of whorn owned
Masarwas as slaves" (Maru 24). Dikeledi 1 s inst incti ve gesture to shield Ma~garet's racial identjty is at once suggestive of the intense degree of prejudice prevalent in the cornrnunity.
When Pete discovers that the new teacher is a Masarwa, his consternation i5 quickly replaced by contempt. His prejudices surface in his immediate change of attitude. In hjs sight,
Margaret is now an "it"; she ls no longer a human being.
The analogous relationship between the structures of racial differentiation in black tribal societies and those which exist in South Africa underscores once again the universal nature of racisrn. The race relations depicted in
Maru parallel those in South Africa; both societies practise discrimination against an ethnie rninority defined by physical appearance. But, the issue here is not WhlCh is the more evil system, for as rnuch as the malevolent disease of racism plagues the mentality of the South African whites, it affects the outlook and attitudes of black Africans. What is obj ect ionable i5 the deplorable pursui t of power by the perpetrators of racial oppression,expressed in the domination and subjugation of those weaker than themselves. That Head has chosen to set up the opposition between black and black rather than the usuai black-white dlchotomy in Maru is slgnificant; 85 it shows that she is not so much anti-white as she is anti racisrn and against power manipulation.
To expand on the thesis against racis~, in Maru, Head strives to prove, through the social experiment conducted by the aIder Margaret Cadn,ore, the theory, "environment everything i heredi ty nothing" (Maru 15). The aim is ta shatter the myth of racial differentiation, that one race is superior or conversely, inferiar to another. with the younger Margaret as the subj eet 0 f the experiment, Margaret Cad.nore Senior imparts to her aIl the knowledge, training/and education that a girl from a whlte background can possibly receive. Thus, with race held as a constant variable, the effect of personality change can result only from influences from the environment. Head shows us the success of the first half of this social investigation. At the end of seventeen years, young Margaret emerges fully-traine1 as a teacher, well-bred, intelligent/and talented. But whether the girl is able to stay alive in a situation where "no one wanted (them) ta, except as the slaves and downtrodden dogs of the Batswana" (Maru 18), is to be tested when she is thrown into the villaqe of Dilepe.
The extent to which the experiment successfully proves the irrelevance of race as the determining factor of one' s wholeness of being may be measured hy the reception Margaret receives from the inhabitants of Dilepe. Head shows that while there exists racial bigots like Pete who choose to stay blinded by their own sense of self-righteousness, there are ,
86 also individuals like Dikeledj, Moleka, and Maru who through
their sensitivity and enlightenment are able to recognise and
appreciate the qualities Margaret possesses. In a personal
extension of their figLt against social injustIce and
inequality, these members )f the royal elite offer Margaret
love, friendship, and protection. with her worth as a person
affirmed by her friends' loyalty and unequivocal acceptance of
her as an ecpal, Margaret stands out as one defined by her
individuality rather than her race.
But, as the narrator tells the reader: "Prejudice is like
the old skin of a snake. It has to be removed bit by bit"
(Maru 53). Whether Moleka's kingdom is one of love or power,
the author never confirms, but she shows us that even
Dikeledi is not always consistent in her perception of her
best friend. Only Maru who obeys the "voices of his heart"
completely overcomes the hidden prejudices of the human heart.
The acid test of Margaret's true acceptability i~ effected
when Maru executes his carefully concealed plans to marry her.
However, the novel's ending does not culminate in the "fairy
tale marriage" that Abrahams sU9gests (Abrahams 1978:23).
Indeed, the marriage betwcen Maru the heir-apparent of the
Batswana tribe, and Margaret the Masarwa girl, is loaded with
social and 00litical implications:
When people of the Masarwa tribe heard about
Maru's marriage to one of their own, a door
silently opened on the small, dark airless room,
1 j -----,------~----- 87
in which their souls had been shut for a long time. The wind of freedom, which was blowing
throughout the world for all people, turned and
flowed into the room (Maru 126).
At the same time, however, the reader is reminded of the extrernely deep-seated nature of prejudice. Head shows that while people are generally willing to accornmodate to changes, they rernain resistant to influences which rnay threaten their way of li fe. The winds of change are shown to be blowing through Dilepe, slowly transforming the rninds and attitudes of the village folk; the local residents have assimilated the idea of a Masarwa teaching "their children. But, when it com~s to the ultirnate test of crossing the racial barrier through marriage, the reaction is rejection and renunciation:
When everything was exposed, they had only one
alternative~ to keep their prejudice and pretend
Maru had died (~ 6).
Perhaps, the comment of the Dilepe diseased prostitute best surns up their attitude: "'Fancy, he has rnarried a Masarwa. They have no standa':ds" (M~ 126).
In contrast to this sense of utter denigration ls Maru's positive affirmation of Margaret's humanity. From the start,
Head is careful to stress the special mission in Maru's life.
Although Maru and Moleka are both depicted as equals, they are a' ~,'") kings of opposing kingdoms" (Maru 34). While Moleka displays a latent propensity for arrogance and violence, Maru 1
88 displays a latent propensity for arrogance and violence, Maru distinguishes himself through his sensitivity and acute perspicacity: "he treated everyone as a single, separate enti ty, and measured the length and breadth and depth and height of their inner kingdoms with one alert glance" (Maru
64). Unhindered by the narrow enclosures of race, creed, or tribe, Maru assesses and evaluates people in terms of their inner qualities. His fateful encounter with Margaret ends his search for a soul mate whose spiritual stature equalled his.
Unlike all his other women who had "no kingdoms of (their) own!l, Margaret had "lookeâ down at him, indifferently, at a great height, where she was more than his equal" (Maru 64).
Margaret's sense of confidence and self possession, r.eflective
of her ability te match his soul stature, emphasises their
] ikeness of spit"it. Their common vision of a new world of
freedom and compassio'l is symbolised by the coincidence of
their ideals and theic shared burden for mankind.
Head's final assertion of her firm belief in the humanity
of the oppressed i'3 succintly encapsulated in the simple
pronOllncement scraw::'ed beside the skétches of the dead Masarwa
woman " an unconscious gesture by the senior Margaret: "She
looks like a Goddess" (Maru 15). -ln this single sentence, Head
demolishes aIl mlsapprehensions cf distinctions by
elevating tne stature ()f the Basarwa race, and hence of all
oppressed races, to that of the d~vine.
The ~hird area this chapter will examine is t~e nature of 89 race relations between the Coloureds, or the 'mulattos" and the two dominant parent groups. Here, Head 1 s interest is narrowed to the study of the dilemmd of the Coloured person - his lack of identity and the resultant insecurity which marks his relat~onship with members cf the dominant races. In A
Question of Power, Elizabeth, the illegitimate product of the
Immorality Act (1927,1950), suffers the typical dilemma of the Coloured. Born of mixed parentage, she straddles precariously between two worlds, belonging to, nor dccepted by neither. At this point, it 15 necessarj to note that the problems of the
Coloured occur mainly as a direct consequence of thE multi categorical classification of people under the apartheid system. With its origins rooted in illegitimacy, the Coloured category often lends itself to problems of identification and identi ty. In the book, Western Coloured TO.tm§hip, Marianne
Brindley notes that although the label, "Coloured", is frequently assigned to those of black and white parentage, there is, in reali ty, much confusion over the racial and cultural definition of the Coloured person's identity
(Brindley 1976:73). The tact that the Coloured people are a heterogeneous rather than a homogenous group makes classification even more difficult. As a result, it is not uncommon for Coloureds to practise "passing" which invol ves light-toned Africans passing off as Coloureds or Coloureds, as whi tes, in order to recei ve more favourable trea tment. In
Maru, Pete rnakes reference to this phenomenon when he mistakes 90 Margaret for a Coloured:
He thought he'd have something to taik about, sueh
as that she must be the first of their kind to
teaeh in their sehools. He'd diso have to keep a
sharp eye on raclalism. Those types were weIl
known for thinking too mueh about their white
parent, not about their African side (Maru 39). Pete's opinions aSlde, the implicit message in this statement
is that if all population groups in South Africa reeeive equai
rights and opportunities there wou Id be little ine~ntive ta
cross the eolour-bar to adopt a talse identity.
The dilemma of the Coloured is directly related to the
marginal position he oecupies in society. Beeause of his mixed heritage, his biological split Is also a cultural one. with
one foot in each world, the Coloured, in effect, inhabits no
man's land, for he gains acceptance from neither world. In ~
Question of Power, Head depicts the predicament cf one whose
life is scourged by the bliqht of her Coloured background.
Elizabeth, the Coloured heroine, whose life circumstances and
experiences ciosely parailei Head's own, suffers rejecticn
from white society virtually from the time of her birth. As
her foster mother reveals:
First they received you from the mental hospital
and sent you to a nursing-home. A day later you
were returned because you did not look white. They
sent you to a Boer family. A week la~er you were 1 91 returned. The women on the committee said: "What
can we do w~th this child? Its mother is white"
(~ 17).
Like aIl Coloureds, El izabeth' s lack cf cultural or racial
definition causes confusion. The reality that physical
appearance does affect the level of onele social acceptability
is also emphasised here. Both factors contribute to her social
unacceptability.
The social stigma of her illegitimacy, which is to remain
for the rest of her life, is also reflected in the superior
and contemptuous attitude adopted by the rnissionary principal,
who tells her:
Your rnother was insane. If you're not careful
you'll get insane just like your mother. Your
mother was a white woman. They had to lock her up,
as she was having a child by the stable boy, who
was a native (QE 16).
Had it not been for the Immorality Act, Elizabeth would have
received the impartial treatmment of any other child. Abrahams
has pointed out thdt the act of declaring the white mother
insane i5 the outcorne of the inability of the white race to
understand the concept of love in the context of a black-white
relationship (Abrahams 1978:24). One suspects that the rnother
was not insane at all, rather she had been banished to the
asylurn as a punishment for breaking the Immorality Act. On
Elizabeth's part, she is to suffer the psychological trauma of 92 her bastardy status. Head's interpretation of the Immorality
Act iD that the Act negates the Coloured person's sense of val idi ty as pe!'son. In the surreal istic affrontat ions wi ch the dual personalities of the evil Medusa and Dan, the persistent theme is that she is not "genl.linely African" (Q.E 159). More accusations follow to denigrate Elizabeth's sense of personal worth: "You are infet"ior. Yeu are filth" (Q..E 47). Like a tune on a broken record, the fact of her "hal f-breed" (QE 104), mixed-breed" (QE 147) status is played out again and again, each time culminating in a pitch of high, s~reaming hysteria in her mine!: "YoU are inferior as a Coloured. You haven't got what that girl has got!! (Qf 127), "Your hair is not properly
African" (Q.E 127) 1 "Dog filth, the Africans will eat you to death" (QE 127).
The psychological horrors encountered by Elizabeth have a social cerollary: the encroachment of her mind and soul is a reflection of the denial of freedom, selfhoed and humanity wnich constitutes the Coloured's experience in South Africa.
Head explains Elizabeth's background:
In South Africa she had been rigidly classified
coloured. There was no escape from it to the
simple joy of being a human being ~ith a
personal i ty. There wasn' t any escapE: li :ce that for
anyone in South Africa. They were races, not
people (Q.E 44).
Apart from this, Head boldly irnplies that the confused 1
93
identity of the Coloured has resulted in specifie social
problems, one of which is homosexuality:
She had lived for a time in a part of South Africa
where nearly all the coloured men were homosexuals
and openly paraded down the street dressed in
women's clothes ... It was so widespread, so common
to so many men in this to~n that they felt no shame
at all. They and people in general accepted it as a
disease one had to live with. No one commented at
these strange men dressed in women's clothes (QE
45) .
An Afr1can man offers her the most reasonable explanation for
the social degradation and moral decay: "How can a man be a
man when he is called boy? l can barely retain my manhood" (Q.E
45). Head suggests that homosexuality, which she portrays as
a type of sexual perversion, results from the Coloured man's
sense of inferiority, which in turn is the outcome of his
degradation by the whites. However, the sad but grim reality
is that amidst these obscene social circumstances, the
Coloùred must accept his marginal identity. L~ke the Masarwa
girl who has to live with her appedrance for the rest ot her
life (Maru 18), the Coloured will have to endure his marginal
status for the rest of his life; there is nothing he can do to
change it.
In relation to the blacks, the Coloured must wrestle with
a different set of problems. Elizabet~ the "Coloured dog~ 94 struggles with feelings of superiority and pride intermingled with pangs of guilt. As Brindley has pointed out, Coloureds tend to veer away froID the lowest ethnie level of black people, whlle simultaneously aligning themselves with the whi~es (Brindley 1976:74). For Elizabeth, her difficulty lies not so much in the unsuccessful strife for acceptance by the whi tes, as in her lack of commi tment towards the black communi ty. Head hints that the social isolation that. El izabeth experiences in Motabeng village is largely self-imposed, the outcome of her own reluctance to communicate with the local residents:
Yeu donlt like Africans. You see his face? Itls
vacant and stupide Hels slow-moving ... You never
really liked Africans. Yeu only pretended to. Yeu
have no place here. Why donlt you go away ... (Qg 51).
That Elizabeth should possess such strong aversions for the blacks proves the extent to which the apartheid policies have been effective in their indoctrination. Except for the KenJsi woman whose sudden appearance miraculously sustains Elizabeth through a period of crashing depression, Elizabeth remains, on the whole, socially and emotionally detachedi her own racial biases and intellectual pride prevents her from forging any meaningful ties wich the African natives in Motabeng.
Yet, ln the rejection of the black portion of her cultural inheritance, Elizabeth becomes afflicted with guilt.
In her nightmarish visions, she con fronts her prejudices 95 through Medusa who taunts her: Africa is trouble waters, you know. l'm a powerful
swimmer in troubled waters. You'll only drown here.
You're not linked up to the people. You don't know
any African languages (~ 44).
Elizabeth' s short stint at the mental hospital during her second nervous breakdown increases her awareness of her hidden prejudices. As Larson has observed, Elizabeth's recovery in tha asylum is intended to be more than ironie, for i t is hardly the result of the Medication she receives. Rather, the
loony bin "brings out the strongest of her aversions", forcing
her "to acknowledge them for the first time" (Larson
1976: 170). The cries of indignation at being placed in a
madhouse roeant for poor, illiterate Batswdna, reveals her
hidden contempt for them: "l'm not an African. Don't you see?
l never wanted to be an African. 1I (Qf 181). The encounter with
the racist doctor forces her to come to a full realisation of
her own racial partialities: "The shock of being thought of as
a cornrade racialist had abruptly restored a portion of h~r
sani ty'~ (QE 184) .
Ultimately, in her study of racial relationships, Head
looks towards the survival of the victim of racial hatred.
Survival entails courage and resilience, qualities which
Head 1 s maj or characters are amply endowed w i th. But more
importantly, Head asserts ~hat the ultimate kind of survival
lies in the attainment of one's human identity. As Marquard 96
points out, Head's protaqonists eventually find thernselves by
incorporating "national and raClaI identity into a composite
extra-national humanity" (Marqua\,~d 1979: 306). In Wher. Rain
Clouds Gather, the question of \ denti ty 1s resel ved in a
fairly straightforward manner; Makhaya' s "arrivaI" is
signified by his integration into th\~ local cornmunity through
his rnarriage to Pa~lina at the end cf the novel. However, in
the last two books, Head's perspectivu assumes greater depth. Maru' s ideal of the universal oneneSt' nf mankind coincides
with Margaret's perception of herself: "in her heart ... (she
had) grown beyond any definitlon" (Maru 20). Indeed,
Margaret's identity defies the usuai type-casting:
It was hardly African or anything but sornething
new and universal, a type of personality that
wouid be unable to fit into a definition as narrow
as tribe or race or nation (Maru 16).
In A Question of Power, the narrator writes of Sello:
It seemed almost incidental that he was African.
50 vast had his inner perceptions grown over the
years that he preferred an identification with
mankind to an identification with a particular
environnent. And yeti as an African, he seemed to
have made one of the most perfect statements: "1
am just anyone" (QE 11).
In this implicit condemnation of the South African situation
1 where human beings "were races, not people" (QE 44) 1 Head 97
~eiterates the need to go beyond racial, tribal, or national classifications in the definition of one's selfhood and identity. It is only when all such artiflcially-created barriers are torn down tha~ one is able to recognise, appreciate, and embrace the humanity of others. For Elizabeth,
the final battle between evil with good is fought and won when she allows herself to fall into "the warm embrace of the universal brotherhood of man ... because when a people wanted
everyone to be ordinary it was just another way of saying man
loved man" (Qf 206) . 1 98 NOTES
1. The term "Coloured" is not favoured by those to whom it is officially designated. Unfortunately, there is no better word for common reference. It is increasingly used in quotes and with the lower case "c". But to avoid confusion with its more general sense as applied in sorne other countries, the terrn "Coloured" will be used in this thesis as it stands.
2. These include the Race Classification Act (1950), the Mixed Marriages Act (1927, 1950), and the Group Areas Act (1950).
3. Refer Kuper (1974) Race, Class and Power, London: Duckworth.
4. According to Head, Bantu languages use the following terms of refere'1ce: Botswana is the name of the country. The 3atswana are the people who live there. A Motswana is an individual member of the Tswana tribe ("Note" to WRCG) . CI 99
CHAPTER FOUR: GENDER
Aside from politics and race, the third area where power
emerges as the overriding eJement in the structuring of human
relationships is the category of sex and gender. As wi th
pol i tical and racial relations, the interactive processes
between the sexes in many societies are characterised by
polarity and inequalitYi male-female relationships are
structured according to categories which both assume and
dictate sexual polarisation, as evidenced by the common
dichotornisation of the sexes into oppositional divisions as in
male and female, culture and nature, and active and passive.
Feminist cr itics such as Kate Millet have noted that a
relationship of hegemony or "herrschaft" lies in the
unchallenged assumption of male authority over the fernale
population. As Millet observes, the imposition of the
collective male- will over females is i.mperialistic in its
manifestation; sbe identifies the relationship as "interior
colonisation" (Millet 1970:25).
~s a force of oppression, sexual domination i5 sturdier,
more rigorous, more uniforrned, and more enduring than other
forrns of social con':rol (Millet 1970: 25) _ In spi te of its
deceptively muted appearance, it cuts across national, ethnie,
linguistic, and religious boundaries, emerging as one of the Cl pillars of power structures of society_ Like other marginal 100
social groups, the numerical size of the female population
does not compensate for its lack of status. In fact, the power
structures of gender discrimination are so deeply entrenched
and the effects of socialisation so pervasive that sexual
domination is virtually institutionalised in the social order.
The aggregate consequence is that socif~ty as a whole, not only
the men, but women themselves have come to accept the myth of
femaie subordination as a universal occurrence.
As with other forms of hegernony, the social construction
of gender inequality seeks Justification through the appeal to
ideology. As Greene and Kahn have noted, women's oppression is
not merely "a material reality" which originates in physical
conditions; it is also "a psychological phenomenon" (Greene
and Kahn 1985:3). The oppreSSi)D of women, thus, exists in the
minds of people, in the way men and women percelve one another
as mueh as it assumes i ts reali ty in physical forros. To
facilitate as weIl as reinforce the beliei in female
oppression as a natural and "unjversal syndrome", Ideologies
such as biological differenees, edueational, soeiologieal or
economic distinctions, and psychological or religious
interpretations are used. In other words, icteologies are used
to suppress the truth of female subjugation rather than
present it as it really is - a cultural construet. Combined
with the processes of collective indoctrination and mass
social condltioning, ideologies of patriarchy uphold the myth
T of male supremacy, while controlling femaie sexuality. In this •
101 manner, the oppression of women i6 continuously and
permanently ensured.
In li terary circles as in elsewhere, patriarchal ideology
provides the dominant forro of justification for the
differential treatment of remale writers. Indeed, women
literary artists are not granted a respite from gender
discrimination. In the essay, "F9male Writers, Male Critics",
Femi ojo-Ade describes African writing as a "male-created,
male-oriented, chauvinistic art" (Ojo-Ade 1983:158). She
explains her statement:
An honour-roll of our literary giants clearly
proves the point: Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Senghor,
Soyinka, Achebe, Mphahlele ... The counterparts of
the Soyinkas are a rare breed.o. (Ojo-Ade 1983:158}.
Thi~ phenomenon of imbal~nce had earlier been pointed out by
Lloyd W. Brown who accurately notes that:
The women writers of Africa are the other voices,
the unheard voices, rarely ~tscussed and sel dom
accorded space in the repetitive anthologies and
the predictably male-oriented studies ln the field
(Brown 1981:3).
The traditionally chauvinistic attitude towards women in many
African societies seems to have been extended to the literary
field. While male writers and critics assume a relatively high
profile, their women counterparts remain perceptibly unseen
and unheard. Traditional prejudices have not only denied women 102 access to education: the y have also ensured that those who are
literate are kept socially immobile. Women writers, therefore, continue to suffer sexual discrimination, which partially explains why sa few have distinguished themselves in literary studies. Those who have broken through the barriers have won recognition and critical âccJaimi among them are Buchi Emecheta, Ama Ata Aidoo, Flura Nwapa and Bessie Head. But even then, this rare breed has to contend with challenges that are
"at once equal ta, and greater than those faced by (their) male 'masters "' (oj o-Ade 1983: 159) .
The effect of the highly disproportionate representation
of male and female writers is that the world of the African
novel tends ta bf~ "sexually defined" and "sexuall y po larised" , with "rigidly sexual roI es that deny androgynous
transcendence" (Frank 1984: 40) . The proliferat ion of male
artists in the field implies that literary works are often
created from within the restrictions of traditionally It"ale
cultural paradigms. As such, the image of the African woman
that appears in Many literary texte i5 projected, as it i8
perceived, from the male perspective. This situation, which
places severe limitations on the literary portrayal of the
African waman, has given rise to not only one-dimensional
characterisation but also biased depictions of the wornan' s
social role and contribution.
Two sets of misconceptions, both of which surround the
role and image of the woman in African society, need to be 103 corrected. The first relates to the autonomy of the African woman in traditional societyl. Many male writers subscribe to
the mistaken notion that "the African woman doesn' t need to be
liberated because she i5 already liberated" (Brown 19b~:6).
Among them are writers like Leopold Senghor who continue to
flaunt and perpetua te the image of the free and autonomous
African woman of pre-colonial days. However, a~; Brown has
pointed out, the question of need ~nd the idea of freedom are
relative concepts. Moreover, not all women writers believe in
the legendary status of the llberated African woman. Neither
do they share Ojo-Ade's vicw that women in old African
societies have "never been shackl€>d by any means" (Ojo-Ade
1983: 14). On the contrary 1 most female novellsts incl ud ing
Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emeche~a, and Bessie Head remain convinced
that women were never free, either in the past or the present
(Brown 1981:6). The need for women to liberate themselves from their traditionally binding roles is a recurring theme in the
works of these women writers. The second kind of misrepresentation concerns the concept
of ideal womanhood. Here again, the male writer in a typical
attitude of condescension writes with the unqualified
assumption that ideal womanhood can be attained only by way of
l marriage and motherhood • For tr is reason or the lack of
creativity, women are often cast into fixed and predictable
roles - wife dnd mother, girlfriend, gcod-time girl, or
3 prostitute • critics like Maryse Conde have shown that unlike 104 what is frequently imagined and depicted in male authored
texts, women do not always find fulfillment in their
traditionally sanctified raIes of wife and mother (Conde
1972:132). In fact, most wornen novelists, while showing that
personal fulfillment can be sought outside the realm of
domesticity, demonstrate a degree of ambivalence towards the
insti tutions of marriage and motherhood. More importantly, the
women writers portray members of their sex as more than mere
subjectsi the female characters exist as individuals in their
own right.
The need te reconstruct a female perspective arises
precisely because of the need to deconstruct traditionally
restrictive male cultural paradigms which have contributed ta
misconceived ideas about women su ch as those discussed. As Maryse Conde states:
... the personality and the inner reality of
African women have been hidden under such a heap
of myths, so-called ethnological theories, rapid
generalisation8 and patent untruths that it might
be interesting to study what they have to say for
themselves when they decide ta speak (Conde
1972:132) .
Among the wome'n writ:ers who have atternpted ta redress the
problem of female misrepresentation are Bessie Head, Flora
Nwapa, Efua Sutherlûnd, and Buchi Emecheta. In contrast to
their male colleagues whose portrayal of V/omen has served only
7 . 105 to marginal ise their position, the se female novel ists seek to redefine the woman 1 s role, identity and experience in the predominantly male order of African society. In short, they
\vri te wi th the intention of reinterpreting social reality according to their own terms - as women. Focusing on the social, cultural, or historical pressures and obstacles which have shaped the consciousness of her sex, the fernale author atternpts to convey creatively the wornan' s varied experiences - her bitterness and frustrations 1 her hopes and anticipations.
By recording her v ision of the wOJl'lan' s social role and special contributions to culture, the temale writer repudiate3 as well as revises all previously accepted notions of what it rneans to be a woman.
Bessie Head's writing reveals the author's commitment to feminist issues 1 ike t.hose above. However, of fundamental
interest to her is the ~lestion of sexual domination which is demonstrated by the depiction of the subtle interplay of the
forces of power whic~ shape male-female relationships. This
chapter will relat"e the tapie of women 1 s oppression to the power question, showing that apart from politlcal and racial domination, sexual dorninlon is yet another form of expression
for power and control. The first section which centres on
women's oppression in the context of the traditional African
society will explore sorne of the factors responsible for
female subjugation. The next section will focus on the
changir.g images of African men and women against the backdrop 1 106 of a transitional social order. The last part of the chapter
will discuss Head's vision of a new world of equitable human
relationships with men and women assuming sexually revitalised
roles.
Head' s portrayal of the African woman vastly differs from
the one depicted by writers like Senghor or Cyprian Ekwensi.
While the male writers continue to romanticise and perpetuate
the free and flowing image of the African woroan complete with
her glory and aura, Head dlsrnisses aIl such conceptions. In
her novels, she shows that within the structures of tribal
societies, wornen are a socially marginalised group, endowed
with few rights and limited freedom. Although the European
intrusion is perceived as destructive to the traditional
pattern of social life, it is not considered as the single
factor responsible for thE:' 71frican woman' s 10ss of
independence. With or without the invasion of wnite culture,
the woman's status in the old village warld is shown to be
inferior ta the man' s. The introduction of "sexist white
values" simply reinforced the sexual oppression which had pre
existed before the onslaught of colonialism.
What traditional lite has ta offer the African woman is
vividly captured in several carefully-detailed descriptions of
the woman's place in society. In the following passage which
describes women at work in their traditional role as the
tillers of the earth, Head writes:
They were capable of pitching themselves into the 107 harde st , most sustained labour ... No men ever
worked harder th an Botswana women, for the whole
burden of providing food for big families rested
with ~hem. It was their sticks that thrashed the
corn at harvesting time and their winnowing baskets
that filled the air for miles and miles around
with the dust of husks, and they often, in
addition ta broadcasting the seed when the early
rains fell, took aver the tasks of the men and
also ploughed the land with oxen (WRCG 104-5).
The description, reminiscent of Jean Millet's portrait, Thg
Gleaners which also celebrates rural labour, reflects the author 1 s admiration for the women 1 s capaci ty for hard work and physical labour. At the same time, however, we perceive that
Head is detennined to emphasise the tact that traditionaJ life for the African woman is tough and demanding.
with remarkable compassion and understandinc us the plight of the woman in a country where , protection for the female population are breakins this second passage, she poignantly encapsulates the pain and the loneliness a woman has to endure :
And there was sOlllething 50 deeply wrong in the way
a woman had to live, holding herself together with
her backbone, because, no matter ta which side a
woman might turn, there was this trap of
loneliness ... Women expected life ta give them 108 nothing. And if you felt the strain of such a life,
aIl the way down your spine, surely it meant that you were just holding on until such time as a
miracle occurred? (WRCG 119) The woman's ability ta survive the vicissitudes of life within an inherently alienating social order is itself a little
miracle. But" here rtgain, what str ikes us is not only the
woman's stoical outlook of life, which is admirable, but also the reality of her suffering - her emotional barrenness and spiritual desolation in a community which otfers little or no
support.
In the depiction of the relationships between men and
women in the traditional setting, Head shows us that tribal
societies are "shut-in and exclusive", dominated by a culture
that i5 patriarchal in ideology and practice. Within the
structures of a patriarchal system where males are the symbols
of absolute power and authcJri ty, sexual inequali ty expresses
itsel f through the differential status and treatment of women.
Head traces the source of the socially deprived position of
the Africar. woman to the "laws of the ancestors" which have
governed the nature and pattern of se>mal relationships sinee
time immemorial. Designed for social organisation and control,
these laws endow the male rnernbers of society wi th the power ta
command, while denying the female population their needs and
preferences. In A Collect0r of Treasures, Head states her 1 \ point: 1 109 The ancestors made so many errors and one of the
most bitter-making things was that they relegated to
men a superior position in the tribe, while women
were regarded, in a congenital sense, a5 being an
inferior forro of human life. To this day, women
still suffered from all the calamities that befall
on aIl of human life (Collector of Treasures 92).
The persistence of sexual exploitation as a practice in
the older communitie.s is revealed in Makhaya's encounter with
the old lady who tries to barter the sexual favours of her
ten-year-old grand-daughte.:- for pecuniary returns. With horror
and disgust, Makhaya reflects:
It was the mentality of the old hag that ruined a
whole continent - some sort of clinging, ancestral,
tribal belief that a man was nothlng more than a
grovelling sex organ, that there was no such thing
as privacy of soul and body, and that no ordinary
man would hesitate to jump on a mere child (WRCG
15) •
The constant perpetuation of such "false beliefs" is what has
led to the moral and spiritual corruption of both African men
and women.
Ancient laws and customs of tribal societies are
identified as the chief cause of the oppression of women. In
their unyielding persistence, age-oid customs and attitudes
are responsible for not only the unequal relationships that 110 exist between members of the opposite sex, but also the sexual v ictirnisation of women. In When Rain Clouds Gather, the display of traditional male pride and power is reflected in the ignominious treatment of Mma-Millipede, who having been
"terrorised into submission" (WRCG 69), is forced to marry the obnoxious Prince Rarnogodi. In her powerlessness, the victim is then abandoned by her oppressor and left to fend for herself.
Chief Sekoto's ravenous appetite for pretty girls, too, is telling of the widespread sexual exploitation that exists. In
Màl:1!, wamen are presented as no more than sex abjects ta gratify the base and carnai desires of the male; the amorous intrigues of Maru and Moleka provide proof of such chauvinism: "Moleka has nct missed sleeping with a woman since the age of twel ve" (~ 54). Seth' s statement about Margaret further reveals the sexist ûttitudes which predominate in traditionally male-oriented societies - "She can be shoved out. It's easy. She's a woman" (Mgrn 41). In A. Question of
Power, the brutalising force of male arrogance is enacted metaphorically through the actions of Dan and Sella, both of whom ravish Elizabeth's mind in a wilf ul bid to assume possession over the heroine's soule
As the controlling factor in the structuring of sexual relationships, patriarchai culture also binds the woman to predictable roles. Ancient customs and practices dictate that a woman must not only conform to her traditional role as mother and wife but aiso find fulfillment in them. But as Head " III ventures ':0 show, the image of the happy and contented wi fe or
mother exists merely as an illusory ideal. In a stroke of
realism that shatters all myths of marriage and marital life,
Head reveals the harsh facts:
SQI.,eone told her that she was inferior in every
way to a man, and she had been inferior for so
long that even if a door opened somewhere, she
could not wear this freedom gracefully. There was
no balance between herself and a man. There was
nothing but this quiet, contemptuous, know-all
silence hetween herself, the man and his
functionL'lg organs. And everyone called this
married li~e, even the filthy unwashed children,
the filth.y unwashed floors, and piles of unwashed
dishes (WRCG 126) .
Amidst the chaos of household chores and domestic clutter, the
woman finds herself ' rapped by her conjugal duties; where the
male figure is absent, she has to con front social pressures
and meet her matelnal obligations alone. Indeed, the oldeals
of Paulina and Elizabeth prove that the difficulties of child
rearing do not always co~~ensurate with the joys of
motherhood, partlcularly in the case of the single parent.
The separation of spheres ln the traditional paradigm of
sexual relationships is depicted dS another forro of sexual
inequality. Head shows that sex raIe differentiation 15 a
contributory factor to the general decline in female status; 112 not .:'lnly does it place unreasonable limits on the woman's participation in social and economic activi ties, i t also distorts the overall understanding of her contribution te society. In this respect, Head's fiction seems to demonstrate the general tension in ferninist scholarship tOday, that is, a tension between the celebrat ion of the "fernaIe" and the advocation of androgyny4. In When Rain Clouds Gat.her, the
ancient practice 0f delegating the task of cattle-rearing to the men and household chores and agricuiturai production to the womenfolk is shown to be inhibitive; it curbs initiative and creativity, exacting its final toll on society by
hindering econornic progresse Similarly, Paulina's insistence on role separation exasperates Makhaya who, Iike his creator, perce ives the debilitating effects of the custem. Head advocates the interdependence of sexuai roles as a prerequirernent for true equal ity. It is only when the artificiai barriers erected by society are eliminated that personal growth can be effected and common goals f()rged.
But if the narrow conceptions and practices of ancient
laws and customs are held ~esponsible for femaie bondage, the woman' 5 enslavement ls aiso shown to be the resui t o:f her own moral and sexual Indiscretion. Head depicts how traditionally warped values and attitudes combined with the woman's submission to her feminine wiles and cunning have distorted potentially viable sexual relationships:
It was as though a whole society had connived at 113
producing a race of degenerate men by stressing
their superiority in the law and overlooking how
it affected them as individuals. Things went on
smoothly as long as aIl the women pretended to be
inferior to this spineless species. The wornen had
been lying to themselves for so long ... (WRCG 93)
(my unàerline) .
As much as the myth of male superiority is sustained by the
biologically based constructs of patriarchy, it is aiso
supported by women who through their guile and deception have
pepertrated their own oppression. By rejecting the truth of
their subjugation, they have become "wil ting, effirninate
shadows of men" (~ 93) .
The power struggle marks the mutually exploitative sexual
relationships: " ..• people in their souls were forces ... the
insight to their own powers had driven them mad, and they had
robbed themselves of the natural grandeur of life" (AQE 35).
Head suggests that men and women are engaged in a power game,
the real battle is the struggle for control as one sex
attempts to dominate the other through gui le, falsehood, and
decei t. Men delude themsel ves of their superiori ty / while
wornen pretend to be the inferior sex. However, in this game of
deception, women, in effect, wield more power than is
apparent. Yet, both sexes prefer to hide behind the veil of
hypocrisy, denying thernselves of a truly vibrant relationship 1 based on humility and equality. 114 The extent to which the woman is respùnsible for her own fate i8 also related to the degree to which she submits to her
SOCl 'llly concei ved raIe as a female. Uniess she exorcises patriarchal ideology from her consciousness, she will be forever irnprisoned by the role society has imposed on her. While Head criticises the woman' s limited understanding of her sexuai roles, she a1so warns against members of her sex who allow thernsel ves ta stagnate in their "feminine one-track way of thinking" (WRCG 143) and thus, degenerate in cemplacency. In When Rain Clouds Gather, the IIbarefoot, illiterate women of Golema Mmidi" are shown te lead a limited and predictable existence - babies and domestic chores, malicious gossip and petty back-biting. Head hints at the discontentment that lies
ll behind their "constrained masks • But despite their lack of fulfil1ment, thjs group of faceless, formless women passively accept their inferior status as if it were a natural circumstance. According to Head, such acquiescence is tantamount to a betrayal of the feminist cause in seeking sexual equality. In Maru, Head shows that greed for power, wealth, and status leads ta the moral downfall of wamen. As Maru discovers, physical app earances do not necessarily correspond with inner qualitiesi the external beauty of his women belies their true nature, for not unlike others, they, too, were greedy and grasping "vipers", seeking anly "the social gains that would accrue ta them" (Maru 35). It is the woman's weakness of will, her lack of inner resolve, and 115 apathetic resignation to her fate that finally betray Head's vision of a society with sexually equitable relationships. In aIl the three novels, Head seeks to redefine the role of the woman in traditional and contemporary societies. In the context of social transformation, where the woman's changing role is i tsel f an index of social change, Head sees the possibi li ty for fresh choices and expanded raIes for the
African woman (Brown 1981: 166). In cantrast ta the other women - vague, shadowy figures which blend too easily with the village world, Head's heroines are headstrong and resolute, yet sensitive and compassionate. Imbu .... d with moral strength and a passion for life, they weather throuqh the sto~~s of personal pain and suffering and social abuse and oppression before developing into even stronger and wiser lndividuais. In
When Rain Clouds Gather, Mma-Millipede, the old lady from whom
Makhaya learns the meaning of love and generosity, is Head's
precursor of the modern woman. In her, Head invests the
ability to shrug off life's onslaughts and misfortunes, not
with bitterness or indifference, but with creative
resourcefulness. The author suggests the reason for her
resilience:
Perhaps Mma-Millipede was one of those rare
individuals with a distinct personality at birth.
In any event, she was able to grasp the religion
of the missionaries and use its message to adorn
and enrich her own originality of thought and 116
expand the naturai kindness of her heart (WRCG 68) .
Head 1 s female protagonists - Paul ina, Maria, Margaret t and Elizabeth " are individuals with a strong sense of selfhood: each has lia life cf her own" (WRCG 32), a necessary ingredient for survival in a society where women are treated as nonentities. Yet, Head's heroines are aiso arnhiguous figures. As Brown has suggested, Head 1 s femaie characters êlre more women in transition than full blown representations of the "new woman"
(Brown 1981: 166). For while they seek quaIi1:atively new roles based on equal sexual relationships with thE~ir male partners, they are also traditional and conservative individuals, inextricably b und to the ir social roles. In "the state of becoming", the women characters demonstrate "the influence of conventional roles" which "persists side by siue with a questi:>ning, assertive sense of se~_f and equality" (Brown
1981:166). A similar explanation to the contradiction may be found in Katherine Frank's essay, "Feminist criticism and the
African Novel" which iClentifies the fundamental problem confronting the contemporary African fictional heroine:
she is torn between two antagonistic identities,
her com~unally-bred sense of herself as an African,
and her feminist aspirations for autonomy and self
realisation as a wornan (Frank 1984:45).
Frank interpret s the predicament as a conflict of two separate cultural systems, one which advocates lia value of 117 submergence", the other which endorses lia theary af personhaed
Hhere the individual ~xists as an independent entity" (qtd in
Frank 1984:46).
Head's female characters aLe women in transition. Caught
between the need te adhere to social conventions and the
desire for personal freedom, the heroines hav~ to de:' J1e
themselves within a shifting social order. In When Rain Claude
Gather, Paulina Sebeso, fiercely independent, strong, and
fearless i5 the prototype of Head's liberated woman. Despite
hâving been fed on "the sarne diet of thin rnaize porridge" as
other women (WRCG 94); she distinguishes herself through her
originality of personality:
... throughout her life she had retained her fresh,
lively curiosity and ability ta enter an adventure,
head first ... She had travelled a longer way, too,
on the road of life, as unexpected suffering always
make~ a l,uman being do .. " (WRCG 94).
It i5 Paulina's streDqth of character, her spirited response
ta life r and her potential for leadership which establishes
her identity as a wornan in Head's terms. However, her tendency
ta revert to conventional sexual role models, particularly in
her relationship with Makhaya shows that her liberation is not
complete. In the case of Maria, the conflict bet-""een the
woman' s social and pe~'sonal identities is depicted in the
cantradictory qualities she embodies. Although a less forceful T character than Paulina, Marials depth of thought and feeling, 117
su~mergence", the ether which endorses "a theory ef personhood
where the individual exists as an independent entity" (qtd in
Frank 1984 :46).
Head's female characters are women in transition. Caught
between the need to adhere to social conventions and the
desirc for personal freedom, the heroines have to define
themselves within a shifting social order. In When Rain Clouds
Gathe~, Paulina Sebeso, fiercely independent, strong, and
fearless is the prototype of Head's liberated woman. Despite
having been fed on "the sarne è.iet of thin maize porridge" as
other wornen (WRCG 94), she distinguishes herself through her
originality of personality:
... throughout her life she had retained her fresh,
lively curiosity and ability to enter an adventure,
he ad first ... She had travelled a longer way, too,
on the roact v_ :ife, as unexpected sUffering always
makes a human being do ... (WRCG 94).
It is Paulina's strength of character, her spiritcd response
ta life, and her potential for leadership which establishes
her identity as a wornan in H~ad's terres. However, her tendency
to revert ta conventivôal sexual rolû modals, particularly in
her relationship wi th Makhaya shows that her liberation is not
complete. ln the case of Mar la, the confl ict between the wornan' s social and personal identitiel:; is depicted in the
contradictory qu,).l i ties she embodies. Al though a less forceful
character than Paulifia, Marials depth of thought and feeling, 118
combined with rugged common-sense marks her as a conventional
Head heroine. But like Paulina, she is prepared to play up to
social conventions, as demonstrated by her relationship with
Gilbert. similarly, in Maru, Dikeledi exhibits the uncerta~nty
of the woman's transitory roie. Despite the benefit of a
western education and an apparently modern l ifestyle, she
relies on the traditionally feminine tactic of seduction in
her relationship with the not-altogether-ummspecting Moleka.
Corresponding to the ambiguities of the woman's role is
a similar duality found ln the emerging image of the ideal
man. Just as the woman is not yet completely liberated, the
man 1s shawn ta be in a state of transition, having retained
traces of the old modes of thinking. Makhaya, as the fervent
advocate of sexual equality, represents the forerunner of the
truly liberated male. His f1rm conviction that respect must be
earned, not enforced, closely reflected in his relationships
with his sisters and the women of Golema Mm1di, as weIl as in
his love for Paul ina distinguishes him as a "new man". But
even then, his male pride betrays him from time to time, as
when he 1s relieved bi the discovery that he is taller than
Paulina, or when he undertakes, in a traditionally male
gesture, to offer leadership and protection when "she could
not face it a10ne" (WRCG 157). The marriage of Gilbert and
Maria operates on the principle of mutual love and respect,
but again, the occasional lapse into the traditional language
of male dominance - "it was the man who was the boss and who 119 laid down the rules" (WRCG 103), shows how deeply-etched traditional sexual conceptions are in the minds of men and women.
At a deeper level, male ambiguity, as represented in the duality of Moleka and Maru, mirrors the oppositional personalities of Sello and Dan in A Question of Power. Maru and Moleka are "kings of opposing kingdoms" (Maru 34) ; to Maru belongs the kingdom of love and to Moleka, the kingdom of power. While Maru personifies humility and compassion, Moleka is the epitorne of male pride and arrogance. But this is only one aspect of male ambivalence. The opposition established between Maru and Moleka is depicted as not necessarily antithetical for the two men share certain similarities:
Moleka looked up. At first Maru blinked, thinking
he saw a replica of himself before him. The savage,
arrogant Moleka was no longer there, but sorne other
person like himself - humbled and defeated before
aIl the beauty of the living world (Maru 57) .
For aIl his display of power and aggression, Moleka is shown to be capable of possessing a humili ty and lowU ness that matches Maru's own. Indeed, Moleka's ambiguity i~ one that even Maru for aIl his keenness in perception was not able to penetrate: "Was it a superior kind of love? Or was it a superior kind of power?" (MâI:Y 10). Although hls positive qualities remain largely unrealised, Moleka's potential for love, sensitivity and humility reflects the yet unresolved 120 contradictions in the male.
In A Question of Power, the ambivalence of the male, seen in his capacity for love and compassion and, conversely, his potential to dominate and exploit, acquires a diabolical dimension in the male's role as the chief executor of power.
In this novel, a most terrifying and brutal form of male aggression i5 enacted through the sexual exploits of Dan r "the power maniac" who "sets himself up before Elizabeth as the epitome of the African male" (QE 137). As Elizabeth realises:
The evils overwhelming her were beginning ta sound
like South Africa from which she had fled. The
reasoning, the viciousness were the same (Q~ 57).
Charlotte Bruner has suggested that the hostile male figure, which threatens Elizabeth's sexuality, wears down her
resistance, and eventually destroys her sani ty, "often becomes
Africa" {Bruner in Parker and Arnold 1980:270}. Here, the
close identification between male domination and political
control establishes the links with the power question in both
situations. In each instance, the indiscriminate manipulation
of power is depicted as evil and destructive.
The oppositional characters of Dan and Sella, represented
stylistically in the split ha Ives of the book, elaborates on
the aspect of male duality depicted in Maru. As in the case of
Moleka, the ambivalence of the male is symbolised by the twin
characters of Se110 - Sell0 in the monk robes and the man in
the brown suit. While Dan embodies the destructive male ego, 121 Sello is the benign male with the inherent potential to become evil. Sello' s shifting sense of self from the monk who sacrifices aIl for the ~ood of mankind ta the man in the brown suit who collaborates with Medusa to incite evil in the world reflects both the benevolent and invidious potential of the
~ale personality. In A Question of Power, the metaphorical struggle for the possession of Elizabeth's soul 15 translated into a battle of the sexes as each party strives to gain power and control. In the overall context of Head's fictions, the line of progression is towards the formation of equal and symmetrical sexual relationships based on mutual love, respect and generosity. This movement culminates in Head's portrayal of
Margaret and her relationship with Maru. If Paulina, Maria and
Dikeledi represent Head' s woman in the state of becoming,
Margaret is the woman in the state of being. As the embodiment of the quintessential qualities of ideal womanhood, Margaret stands out as an individual of deep sensitivity and remarkable perception. What protects her and enables her to survive in an environment which threatens her very existence as a human being ls her inner wholeness, her integrity and her strong sense of self. As we begin to realise, behind the apparently insignificant shadow lies the real Margaret:
If anyone approached Margaret Cadmore, she slowly
raised her hand as if to ward off a blow. Sometimes
she winced, but the raised hand was always there as 122
though she expected only blows from pecple. There
was something else funny about her. She was a
shadow behind which lived another personality of
vigour and vitality (~ 71) .
It is this second personality, vigo rous and vital in its self-expression, that constitutes the real Margaret. Oespite her obvious weaknesses - she is fearful, socially diffident and excessively withdrawn, Margaret is the ultimate survivor.
Metaphorically, the transcendence of Margaret's social oppression is achieved through her artistic imagination which transforms her aggregate experiences into moving works of art.
Margaret's relationshlp with her husband approaches the kind envisioned in Maru' s new world where "the human soul roamed free in aIl its splendour and glory (~ 67). In the complementarity of their personalities, the paired status as husband and wife and the steady flow and balance of power in the marital relationship, sexual equality i5 evident. The sex
role symmetry that ls present corresponds with Head's conception of the ideal sexual relationship founded on
humanity, compassion and tenderness. As she defines it, love
ia "two people mutually feeding each other, not one living on
the soul of the other, like a ghoul" (QE 13).
However, even here, the typical Head irony prevails for
Margar€t's freedom is effected, not through her own action but
through the wilful assertion of male power, that is, MarU'5 manipulations. Like Paulina and Maria who seek affirmation of 123 their identi ty through their male counterparts, Margaret, too, relies on convention by looking to the male figure for support. It is Moleka' s love which sustains her throughout her stay in Dilepe, which explains her collapse upon receiving the news of his marriage to Dikeledi. Also, one wonders if
Margaret could stay alive if Maru had not appeared at the crucial hour of need. Thus, even at this point where Head i5 at her most optimistic, the idealism i5 balanced by a realistic appraisal of life's unexpected situations. In the prologue to Maru, which i5 aiso the epilogue, we are given a glimpse of the everyday relationship between Maru and
Margaret: So quietly did he enter the house that his wife
looked up fearfully from her work ... He sometimes
had vicious, malicious moods when every word was a
sharp knife intended to grind and re-grind the
sarne raw wound. Most certainly, no mernory remained
in her heart and mind of previous suffering. Most
often she felt quite drunk and mad with happiness
and it was not unusual for her to walk around for
the whole day with an ecstatic smile on her face,
because the days of malice and unhappiness were
few and far over-balanced by the days of torrential
expressions of love (Maru 8).
Although it is a new world that Maru and his wife inhabit, it is not a life of perfection that they lead. Yet, because their 124 marital relationship has as its foundation, the principles of
"humility" and "equality", both husband and wife are content in their "freedom of heart".
In the final analysis, Head maintains that the African woman must free herselt from the social constructs that marginal ises her. The plea for sel f-help cornes wi th t-he
realisation of how easy it is for "people with soft shuffling,
loosely-knit personalities to be preyed by dominant, powerful
persons" (QE 12). To achieve genuine freedom, the woman must
act: first, by relinquishing her socially conceived roles,
those of the "old, tribal selves, docile and inferior" (WRCG
68), and second, by establishing her individual identity, not
through social, but self-definition. But the efforts of the
woman must be complemented by benign male action if new social
roles are to be created, that is, initiative must also be
taken by the male members of society. To achieve the vision of
a sexually equitable world, men and women must work together,
substituting the "arrogance of the human soul" for "humility
and "equality". Head suggests that the subtle flow and balance
of power between individuals is essential in maintaining
meaningful human relationships for "the real battlefront was
living people, their personalities, their treatrnent aL each
other" (QE 66). This is what will flnally free J"".ankind from
the forces of oppression that threaten hiq destlny, whether it
is in the realm of pOlitics, race, or gender. 1 125 NOTES
1. ln sociological studies, as in literary interpretation, the debate continues. See Hafkin and Bay, eds. (1976) "Introduction", Women in Africa: studies in Social and Economie Change, stan ford: Stanford University Pressl.
2. Wri ters 1 i) 3. Even critics tend to fall into this trap. An example is Kenneth Little (1980) The sociology of Urban WQmen's Image in African Literature, Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield. 4. Greene and Kahn suggest that this tension may be productive. (Greane and Kahn 1985:24). 126 BIBLIOGRAPHY l TEXTS Head, Bessie (1969) When Rain Clauds Gather, LondQn: Heinemann. (1971) Maru, London: Heinemann. (1974) A Question of Power, London: Heinemann. II WORKS CONSULTED Abrahams, Cecil A. (1979) "The Context of Black South African Literature", World Literature Written in English, 18.1: 8-19. (1978) "The Tyranny of Place: The Cantext of Bessie Head's Fiction", World Literature written in English, 17.1: 22- 29. Barnett, Ursula A. (1983) A Vision of Orderi A Study of Black South African Literature in English, 1914-80, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts. Beard, Linda Susan (1979) "Bessie Head's A Question of Power: Journey through Disintegratian ta Wholeness", Colby Library Qu~rterly, 15: 261-74. Beeton, D.R. (1980) "Preserving a cultural Heritage: A South African Pa st , Present and Future", communique, 5.:2: 1-10. Brindley, Marianne (1976) Western Coloured TownShip, 127 Johannesburg: Ravan Press. Brown, Lloyd Wellesley (1981) Women writers in Black hfrica, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. (1979) "Creating New Worlds in Southern Africa: Bessie Head and the Question of Power", ID1QJ.A, 3.1: 43-53. Bruner, Charlotte H. (1977) "Seen-to or Has-been: A Dilemma ll for Today's African woman , BA SHIRU, 8.2: 23-3l. (1979) "Child Africa as Depictea by Bessie Head and AIDa Ata Aidoo", Studies in the Humanities, 7.2: 5-11. (1980) "Bessie Head: Restless in a Distant Land", in Parker and Arnold, 3630, pp.261-277. Brutus, De..nnis (1981) IIEnglish and the Dynamics of South African Creative Wri ting", in Fiedldr and Baker, pp .1-14. Bunting, Brian (1969) The Bise of the South African Reich, Rev. ed., Harmondswûrth: Penguin. Campbell, Elaine (1985) "Bessie Head's Model for Agricultural Reform", Journal of African Studies, 12: 82-85. Chase, Joanne (1980) "'The Elegant Pathway of private Thought ... ': Bessie Head's A Question of Power: Romance or Rhetoric?", Qdù: Journal of West African Studies, 20: 94-103. Cocks, Joan (1989) The oppcsitional Imagination: Feminism, critique and Political The~, London; New York: Routledge. Conde, Maryse (1972) "Three Female writers ln Modern Africa: Flora Nwapa, Ama Ata Aidoe and Grace oget", PIésence 128 Africaine, 82.2e trimestre: 132-43. Connell, Dorothy (1975) "South Africa: Cultural Boycott - Yes or No?", Index on Censorship, 4.2: 5-9, 10-3B. Cott, Nancy F. (1986) "Feminist Theory and Femlnist Move~ents: The Past Befcre Us", in Mitchell and Oakley, pp. 49-62. Daymond, M.J., J.U. Jacobs, and Margaret Lenta, eds. 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