The Representation of the Self / Other Dialectic in Post-Colonial Drama: a Study of Selected Plays by Athol Fugard
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MINISTRY OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH UNIVERSITY OF AL-QADISIYA COLLEGE OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH THE REPRESENTATION OF THE SELF / OTHER DIALECTIC IN POST-COLONIAL DRAMA: A STUDY OF SELECTED PLAYS BY ATHOL FUGARD. A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE COUNCIL OF THE COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF AL-QADISIYA, IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE BY HAIDAR LAIQUE HASHIM SUPERVISED BY ASSIST. PROF. SAHAR ABDUL AMEER AL-HUSSEINI OCTOBER 2016 بسم اهلل الرمحن الرحيم صدق اهلل العلي العضيم )سورة البقرة: اﻻيت الثﻻثون( TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER. YOUR GENTLE SOUL AND STRONG WILL LEFT FINGERPRINTS OF BLESS ON MY LIFE. YOU WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN. TO MY DEAREST WIFE AND SONS, YOU ARE THE WORLD TO ME. THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE. TO MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and formost, I would like to express my deep thanks to my supervisor Assist. Prof. Sahar Abdul Ameer Al-Hussainy for her support, kindness and recommendations throughout writing of this thesis . She is always present to make things easier. Deep thank is to the staff members in the department of English, especially in the M.A courses. Your efforts will never be forgotten. Thanks are also extended to the head of the department of English Assist. Prof. Rajaa Mardan Flayih for her support and encouragement. Special thanks are to my wife and children who stood by me during the years of my M.A. study. My deep gratitude is to my brother Dr. Alaa for his support and encouragements. Also, I wish to thank the Amazon office at Al-Diwania city for the help to bring the necessary resources as soon as possible. Great thanks are to my brothers, sisters and friends. III IV V CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT-----------------------------------------------------------------III ABSTRACT--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Vii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION---------------------------------------------------- 1 1.1 Postcolonialism and the Structure of the self and other--------------------------- 1 1.2 South African Drama: Towards a protest Drama--------------------------------- 27 1.3 Athol Fugard: The Courageous Political Playwright---------------------------- 39 Notes---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 48 CHAPTER TWO------------------------------------------------------------------------- 55 2.1 The Blood Knot: The Reflection of White Guilt-------------------------------- 55 2.2 Boesman and Lena: “Man‟s greatest possible nightmare is the loss of his identity which is a result of a loss of memory”.------------------------------------- 87 Notes------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 113 CHAPTER THREE-------------------------------------------------------------------- 121 3.1 Sizwe Bansi is Dead: Man has to kill his name in order to survive-----------121 3.2 My Children! My Africa!: An Act of celebration------------------------------- 141 Notes-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 164 CONCLUSION--------------------------------------------------------------------------170 BIBLIOGRAPHY---------------------------------------------------------------------- 172 ABSTRACT IN ARABIC------------------------------------------------------------ 182 VI Abstract South Africa was a country invaded by the white man who came from the West and who tried, by all means, to subjugate the country and its people to his wishes and whims. Through the vicious laws of apartheid, which lasted for more than fifty years, the whiteman tried to create an ideology based on Eurocentric standards, which regarded all white people from the Great West as pure, self, civilized , masters and supported by God. Other people were the other, the savage, the marginalized black people who depended on the whiteman to live. What is important is that the whiteman, the previous enemy and the new citizen, becomes part and parcel of South African history and future. However, the physical as well as the psychological effects of that period allowed to the dialectic of the „self‟ and „other‟ to appear and to be apparent within the sphere of the colonized who is affected by the political, economic, educational and psychological situations surrounding him. This study is going to trace the dialectic of the „self‟ and „other‟ among a group of black and colored people chosen and presented in Athol Fugard‟s selected plays that were set against the apartheid regime. This thesis is in three chapters in addition to a conclusion. The first chapter is an introduction to the beginning of postcolonialism as a distinct field of literature. Section one is an attempt to give a complete definition of postcolonialism and the fields that it covers. There is also an explanation to the philosophical and psychological background of the terms of the „self‟ and „other‟. It also contains a survey of the major critics who try to define the relation between the „self‟ and the „other‟ on intellectual, psychological, educational basis or on the basis that can strength the relation between different races in one community. Section two of this chapter, is devoted to drawing a line for the development of drama in South Africa from the drama that depended on rituals, myths and oral stories to a modern drama affected by the European movements and able to VII establish the kind of protest drama that people of South Africa most needed. Section three is a trace to Athol Fugard‟s life and the important influences that affected the shape of his personality as a playwright who, in spite of all challenges, started to establish a theatre that totally depended on the blackman and his painful experiences in the world. Chapter two presents the dialectic of the „self‟ and „other‟ in two plays from the collection of Port Elizabeth plays by Athol Fugard. Section one of this chapter tackles with The Blood Knot (1961) which represents Fugard‟s real beginning . It is about the knot of humanity which is mightier than the knot between brothers. Boesman and Lena (1969) is going to be discussed in section two. This play will show the effect of violence made by the whiteman on the life of the abandoned coloured couple . Chapter three is a further explanation to the dialectic of the „self‟ and „other‟. It is also divided into two sections: section one is about Sizwe Bansi is Dead (1979), a play from The collection of The Township Plays, performed by the group of the Serpent Players. In this play, death might be better than life, because it will lead to a new and real life. Also, the best way to achieve self recognition is to survive and mock death caused by the apartheid laws.Whereas section two deals with My Children! My Africa! (1989) that simulates the period after the end of apartheid. It is an example of victory through the power of education. Finally, the conclusion sums up the findings of the thesis. VIII 1 CHAPTER ONE 1.1:- Postcolonialism and the structure of the self / other. As a major critical discourse, postcolonialism, in the last decades, has taken its place among theories such as poststructuralism, psychoanalysis and feminism in the humanities. As a result of its varied and interdisciplinary use, this body of thought has generated an enormous corpus of specialized academic writing. Nevertheless, although much has been written under its title, ‗postcolonialism‘ itself remains a diffuse and vague term. Unlike Marxism or deconstruction, for instance, it seems to lack an ―originary moment or a coherent methodology‖. 1 It is difficult to state when exactly the term ―postcolonialism‖ had been used to refer to a distinct trend in literary criticism. But, the term was first used in the early 1970s in political theory to describe the predicament of nations which had thrown off the yoke of European empires after World War II.2 By the time of Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin‘s The Empire Writes Back, the term was being used to describe ―all the culture affected by the European imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day because there is a continuity of preoccupations throughout the historical process initiated by European imperial aggression‖ 3 Robert Young declares that postcolonialism is a ―dialectical process‖ . It is the product of the twentieth century in which people of the three continents of Latin America, Africa and Asia have taken power and control back for themselves after a colonial history of imperialism during the nineteenth century. The term ―Tricontinental‖ was used by the attendants of the Organization of Solidarity of the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America in Havana in 1966. The Organization launched its first journal of the Tricontinental which initiated the first global alliance of the peoples of the three continents against imperialism. At this point, Young adds, the term ―post-colonialism‖ might well be better named ―Tricontinentalism‖ since it exactly captures the political identification of the Third world, as well as ―the source of its epistemologies‖. 4 At a time when the prefix ‗post‘ has been affixed to almost every concept, state of being, or theory, for instance, post-modernism, post-feminism, post-structuralism, post- 1 2 industrialism, the hazards of using a term with such a prefix are great. One of the hazards is to misunderstand postcolonialism and define it from a very narrow angle. Postcolonialism is often defined as a temporal concept meaning