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'To Eke out the Vocabulary of Old Age': Literary

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'To Eke out the Vocabulary of Old Age': Literary ‘To eke out the vocabulary of old age’: Literary representations of ageing in transitional and post-transitional South Africa by Antoinette Elisabeth Pretorius A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree D. Litt. in the Department of English at the UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA FACULTY OF HUMANITIES SUPERVISOR: Professor David Medalie September 2014 UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA FACULTY OF HUMANITIES RESEARCH PROPOSAL & ETHICS COMMITTEE DECLARATION Full name: Antoinette Elisabeth Pretorius Student Number: 27239234 Degree/Qualification: D. Litt. Title of thesis: ‘To eke out the vocabulary of old age’: Literary representations of ageing in transitional and post-transitional South Africa I declare that this is my own original work. Where secondary material is used, this has been carefully acknowledged and referenced in accordance with university requirements. I understand what plagiarism is and am aware of university policy and implications in this regard. ii Abstract This thesis investigates the depiction of ageing and old age in several key works of South African literature of the transitional and post-transitional period. The study covers texts set both in the transitional period prior to the 1994 democratic elections and in the years following that historical watershed. I examine how the literary representation of the ageing individual operates within the rhetoric of transition and new beginnings that characterizes the contemporary political and ideological climate of South Africa. The study includes a close examination of two novels (Age of Iron by J.M. Coetzee, and Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk), a collection of short stories (The Mistress’s Dog by David Medalie), and a volume of poetry (Body Bereft by Antjie Krog). My reading of these texts centres on exploring how the authors depict their ageing protagonists in relation to ideas of time, place and the body. Using Julia Kristeva’s theories on abjection, I analyse whether or not a degree of agency can be found in the abject depiction of older age. Similarly, I examine the ways in which reading older age through the lens of Mikhail Bakhtin’s idea of the grotesque allows for a liberation from reductive understandings of the embodiment of ageing individuals. Because both Agaat and Body Bereft are translated from Afrikaans, I also explore the ways in which translation intersects with the socio-political ideologies of the periods in which these texts are set, as well as how this may have an impact upon the representation of older age. Through examining the tension between the nostalgic, backward-looking perspective usually attributed to old age, and the progressive, forward-looking sentiment of modern South Africa, I investigate the ways in which these writers – Coetzee and Van Niekerk in particular – associate the ageing body with political concerns. I also show how, in their different ways, all four writers counteract stereotypes associated with senescence. iii Key words Older age; senescence; South African literature; abjection; the grotesque; embodiment; J.M. Coetzee; Age of Iron; Marlene van Niekerk; Agaat; Antjie Krog; Body Bereft; David Medalie; The Mistress’s Dog; transition; post-transitionality. iv Acknowledgements I dedicate this thesis to my grandfather, Louis Pretorius, and my grandmothers, Nellie Pretorius and Antoinette Roets. Their unconditional love for me stimulated the idea behind this study, and their belief in me aided in its completion. I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor David Medalie, whose intellectual rigour and kindness continue to inspire me as an academic and as a person. Writing this thesis would have been an arduous task indeed without his encouragement and enthusiasm for my work. Thank you to my mother, Elmien le Roux, for teaching me to love stories, and to Willem le Roux, for loving me as though I were his own daughter. I would also like to thank my father, Jopie Pretorius, whose academic career is something to emulate and envy, and Jackie Heaton, for her infinite compassion and love. Thank you, as well, to Johannes Pretorius for always reminding me to be subversive. I would like to thank Retha Knoetze, Georg Nöffke, Stephen Steyn and Farah Ismail, for putting up with my endless rants and doubts, and for reminding me that being an academic can be fun. And finally, thank you to Mario Garcia, whose love is the foundation on which all my dreams are built. v Table of contents Introduction: Mapping the contours of older age …………………….............................................7 ‘Giving birth to one’s death without anaesthetic’ Age of Iron, senescence and political transition …..…………………………………………………34 ‘My death is of me!’ Agaat, old age and impossible reconciliation ……………………………………………………..….89 ‘Let us live our degenerate old age to the hilt’ Body Bereft, language and unruly older bodies …………………………………………………...164 ‘One small minute, redeemed from a stringent hour’ Reconceptualising value in The Mistress’s Dog …………………………………………………....228 Conclusion ……..............................................………………………………………………………………….…271 Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………....278 vi Introduction: Mapping the contours of older age In her seminal work on gender, Simone de Beauvoir famously wrote in 1949 that ‘[o]ne is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’ (1949:267). Similarly, and almost too obviously, one might say that we as humans are not born old, but that we become old. This implies that ageing is an unfamiliar and unexplored experience that each individual has to undergo in his or her lifetime. What becoming old means, however, is a complex issue, as there are as many ways of growing older as there are older people. I would argue that in the same way that gender is taught, the construction of old age takes place in and is mediated by very specific socio-cultural contexts. To speak of older age means to speak of an immensely disparate variety of individuals, as this ‘stage of life […] encompasses a greater variety than any other’ and includes ‘people aged from their fifties to past one hundred; those possessing the greatest wealth and power, and those the least; those at a peak of physical fitness and the most frail’ (Thane:193). For all who do not die young, however, senescence is an unavoidable reality. Coined in 1903 by Élie Metchnikoff, the term ‘gerontology’ derives from ‘the Greek word geront meaning “old man” and “logos” meaning “study”’ (Harris:1988, emphasis in original). The most simplistic definition of gerontology is that it involves the ‘scientific study of the biological and social aspects of aging’ (Harris:1988). Chris Gilleard and Paul Higgs explain that old age ‘can be viewed from two conceptually distinct perspectives’ (2005:i). The first focuses on ‘ageing as a process or processes of biological change occurring after reproductive maturity has been attained’, while the second sees ageing from ‘the social and cultural position that later life and ageing occupy within society’ (2005:i). The first perspective 7 dominated earlier gerontological research as the earliest research into ageing focused primarily on the medical aspects of older age, while the second is a relatively new field of inquiry. As Michel Philibert (1982:321-322) explains: Gerontology was dominated in the first stage of its brief history by the doctors and the biologists. In a second stage a place was created for the psychologists and the sociologists, flanked by some economists and demographers. Now gerontology is at the threshold of a third stage, and a period of renewal, based upon the gathering of geographers, historians, linguists, exegates, hermeneuticists, and semiologists around the problems of aging. This multidisciplinary spread of the field could possibly be attributed to the fact that older age in modern society has come to be associated with a greater variety of complex sociocultural factors than ever before. As Gilleard and Higgs (2005:149) explain, ‘Later life seems to have become more diffuse, its parameters less easily demarcated and its social position too contradictory to pin down’. However, I would argue (as will become evident over the course of this study) that the social aspects of ageing are dependent on the biological process of growing older. This is because the physical manifestations of older age have a profound impact on the social position that an ageing individual occupies. It is possible to identify specific theoretical approaches in sociological research to understanding the formation of old age. One such approach is termed ‘disengagement theory’ and it ‘postulates that all people disengage from society as they become older’ (Gelfand:1). Disengagement theorists believe that in preparing for death, older individuals naturally withdraw from society and that this withdrawal makes death more acceptable and manageable for both the older person and society as a whole. In contrast, ‘activity theory’ holds that ‘older individuals who are involved in a variety of activities are more successful in 8 their ageing’ (Gelfand:2). Both of these approaches are highly problematic, in terms of the identity formation in older age which is the focus of this study. It seems almost too self- evident to point out that disengagement theory denies the older individual any opportunity for positive growth in older age, as it is based on a rhetoric of decline and loss. There are countless examples of older adults still occupying a vital social role and making the decision not to succumb to this rhetoric of deterioration. One
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