REINVENTING AND REIMAGINING JOHANNESBURG IN THREE
POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICAN TEXTS.
By
ANNE PUTTER
Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS (ENGLISH) in the Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg.
Supervisor: Dr Ronit Frenkel
Date: February 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Abstract iii
2. Declaration iv
3. Acknowledgements v
4. Introduction 1
5. Chapter 1: Trends in Writing the City 7
6. Chapter 2: Constructing Memory in Contemporary Johannesburg 24
7. Chapter 3: Gendered Representations of the City of Johannesburg 70
8. Conclusion 113
9. Works Cited a. Primary sources 117 b. Secondary sources 117
ii
ABSTRACT
‗Writing the city‘, particularly writing the city of Johannesburg, in post-apartheid South African fiction can be considered as a new approach to interpreting South African culture; a new approach that takes into consideration and reflects the changes taking place in present-day South African society. By means of close textual analysis, this study examines the ways in which the city of Johannesburg is in the process of being re-imagined and reinvented in post-apartheid South African fiction and, therefore, in the post-apartheid memory. Particular attention is paid to narrative techniques utilised in the primary material as a means of not only re-writing the space of the city, but the space of South Africa as well. This is essential in order to reveal how transformation is narrated in post-apartheid, transitional texts and how this narration changes in post-transitional South African fiction. The chosen texts are read and interpreted as a type of cultural history or memory – as a means of constructing South African culture and history through textual production. In particular, this dissertation illustrates how texts written on Johannesburg, such as Phaswane Mpe‘s Welcome To Our Hillbrow (2001), Ivan Vladislavić‘s The Restless Supermarket (2001) and Kgebetli Moele‘s Room 207 (2006) are utilising the subject matter and every day life of the city as an ‗idea‘; as a means of expressing societal concerns and other important changes taking place in the country as a whole. This study focuses on how each of the three chosen novels contributes to South African culture and history by narrating its transformative history. Topics such as the depiction of Johannesburg as a palimpsest and as a cultural archive of historical moments in present-day South Africa are explored. In this regard, themes and representations of movement, transition and transformation in the city of Johannesburg, as well as attempts to memorialise this space, are dealt with. In addition, the representation of a ‗gendered‘ city as a means of narrating such transformation is also discussed. Here, reference is made to concerns such as the shifting position of men and women in the city, changing gender-related city consciousness, and altered gender discourse surrounding the city. This dissertation identifies and considers how depictions of the city of Johannesburg are being altered and modified in contemporary South African literature and contemplates the ways in which the narratives reveal how transformation is narrated via the Johannesburg landscape.
Keywords: Johannesburg; post-apartheid; post-transitional; fiction; reimagining; re-writing; transformation; history; memory; gender; Mpe; Vladislavić; Moele
iii
DECLARATION
I, the undersigned, hereby declare that ―Reinventing and Reimagining Johannesburg in Three Post-Apartheid South African Texts‖ is my own original work. Where secondary material has been used, this has been carefully and fully acknowledged and referenced in accordance with the University of Johannesburg‘s Department of English and Faculty of Humanities requirements. I do not presume to receive any credit for such acknowledged quotations, and there is no copyright infringement in my work. I declare that no unethical research practices were used or material gained through dishonesty, that all the sources I have used or quoted have been properly referenced and that I have not previously submitted this dissertation, in its entirety or in part, at any other university for a degree.
…………………………………………….. ………………………….. Anne Putter Date Student Number: 200608223
iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The completion of this MA dissertation would not have been possible without the unwavering support and guidance from a number of people. Above all, I am indebted to my supervisor, Dr Ronit Frenkel for her patient, in-depth and honest critical insight and assistance in encouraging me to read, research and work beyond my limitations. I would also like to thank Prof. Karen Scherzinger and her colleagues in the Department of English at the University of Johannesburg for their encouragement and support throughout the duration of this study. I am especially grateful to the Department of English for the financial support that it provided for me to attend the AUETSA Conference at Rhodes University in Grahamstown in July 2011, at which a paper based on a chapter of this dissertation was presented. I am also thankful for the feedback that I received at this conference, as well as from participants and panel Chairs at other conferences at which I presented extracts of this dissertation including; the Second Es‘kia Mphahlele Postgraduate Colloquium and Arts Forum held at the University of the Witwatersrand in September 2010, the Cities, Cultures, Knowledge Societies Virtual INST World Conference conducted in September 2010, the English Academy of South Africa Golden Jubilee International Conference hosted at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in September 2011 and the Memory and City International Conference held at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Johannesburg also in September 2011. I am particularly appreciative of the views expressed at the Memory and City International Conference, which inspired the formulation of what is now my second chapter. I thank Prof. Craig Mackenzie at the University of Johannesburg for his suggestions regarding referencing techniques and the use of the Harvard referencing method in particular (which I use throughout this dissertation). Thank you also to Andrew Carolin for constructive comments made on earlier drafts of this dissertation. I express thanks, too, to Prof. Anette Horn and Prof. Peter Horn for their interest in and enthusiasm for my research. I am also extremely grateful for financial support provided by the University of Johannesburg‘s Next Generation Scholarship, as well the National Research Foundation, without which this MA dissertation, as well as my attendance at conferences at which I had the opportunity to present my research, would not have been possible. Regardless of the financial, intellectual and personal assistance that I have received during the writing of this dissertation, all views and opinions articulated are my own unless otherwise stated.
v
INTRODUCTION
This study will examine the ways in which the city of Johannesburg is in the process of being re- imagined and reinvented in post-apartheid South African fiction. I focus particularly on Phaswane Mpe‘s Welcome To Our Hillbrow (2001), Ivan Vladislavić‘s The Restless Supermarket (2001) and Kgebetli Moele‘s Room 207 (2006). Because my dissertation is concerned with questions of representation, particular attention is paid to narrative techniques utilised in the primary material as a means of not only re-writing the space of the city, but the space of South Africa as well. This is essential in order to reveal how transformation is narrated in post-apartheid transitional texts and how this narration changes in post-transitional South African fiction. According to Ronit Frenkel and Craig MacKenzie (2010: 2), ―[l]inguistically the term ‗post-transitional‘ indicates something occurring after a period of change‖. They further maintain that ―[a]s a referent [the term] cannot but highlight the passage of time that has passed since South Africa‘s transition into a democracy, yet it also points to the period before and after this formal transition as an unbounded period and discourse‖ (Frenkel & MacKenzie 2010: 4). Considering the narrative and thematic changes in the movement from transitional to post- transitional fiction thus helps to reveal certain knowledge about the variable nature of post- apartheid, post-transitional South Africa and the ever-present influence of the events and concerns of previous and subsequent time periods in current cultural works.
Another method important to this study is that of reading the three chosen texts as a type of cultural history. I read and interpret these texts as a means of constructing South African culture and history through textual production. In this way, this dissertation itself comes to form part of a South African archive of cultural discourse as it contemplates how the memory of the country is constructed in representations of one of its major city centres. I interpret the texts in this manner in order to contribute to the record or memory of transition in South Africa by analysing how these texts reflect and map transformation through a fictional social landscape. I do this by means of outlining current themes in city writing, analysing attempts at memorialisation in the texts, and considering how transformation is interpreted through fictional characters‘ lives and experiences in the city. Although my research is informed by important theories relating to urban studies, this dissertation is not concerned with the construction of Johannesburg as an urban system and the fictional representations of this. Rather, the focus of this study is on how each of
1 the three chosen novels contributes to South African culture and history by narrating its transformation and history.
Each novel considered inscribes new and different subjective experiences of the city, drawing the reader into the lives, voices and stories of those living at the heart of central Johannesburg, exposing the hardships, violence, as well as beauty that the characters experience in such a dynamic, fast-paced city. In this way, these texts seem to be doing what Liz Gunner (2003) calls ―writing the lives of people into the space of the city‖ and can therefore be seen as new methods of writing not only the city, but South African space in general. Johannesburg, particularly the area of Hillbrow, in these texts is also never a stable space. Hillbrow in these novels cannot be a permanent home for any character: in Welcome To Our Hillbrow few characters survive, in Room 207 all of the characters dream of escaping and eventually leave Hillbrow, while in The Restless Supermarket Hillbrow is in the process of being abandoned by its white residents. In sharing the above characteristics then, it becomes evident that these texts are indeed contemplating new approaches to interpreting South African landscape and culture by narrating transformation. The texts do this by depicting a state of constant flux and ambiguity in the space of the city, thus contemplating the impermanence of time and space. The purpose of this dissertation is thus to reveal contesting perceptions of Johannesburg based on the fictional narration of change and transformation taking place in the city space. This argument is established in the form of three sections: chapter one outlines trends in fictional works on the city with regard to city texts globally and locally, with a particular focus on the representations of Johannesburg; chapter two consists of a consideration of how the texts deal with and reflect the workings of memory and how these constructions ultimately come to be viewed as memorials of Johannesburg; while chapter three deals with the gendered representation of Johannesburg and how the present transitional period in South Africa is reflected in the changing depictions of gender issues in the city. The arguments in this dissertation reveal that the attempts at restructuring the city of Johannesburg that are evident in the three novels under consideration are in line with Sarah Nuttall and Achille Mbembe‘s (2008) call for new ways of reading South African culture and history. I show that the three texts discussed in this dissertation re-imagine and reinvent the city of Johannesburg in two distinct ways; through a memory framework, in which the texts reflect the workings of memory and also attempt to record the transitional history
2 of the city and country by means of this, as well as through the depiction of a changing gendered discourse.
This dissertation considers recent trends in city writing in terms of both fictional and non- fictional works from across the globe, as well as in South Africa, with a particular focus on Johannesburg. I show that the popularity of writing about cities has occurred due to the fact that constructing an image of a city in writing, whether fictional or non-fictional, is a means of recording history in terms of changes evident in the social environment of urban space. Common tropes and themes evident in representations of the city globally appear to be; the isolation of the individual, the city as a subjective entity (and literary character in its own right), the city as an apocalyptic space, as well as the city as representative of power relations in its country of origin. Yet, the danger in depicting all cities in the same manner has been stressed, especially with regard to comparing Western and European cities with African cities, since such a comparison risks labelling and reinforcing an image of African cities as ‗other‘. Popular themes in writing about South African cities, and the city of Johannesburg in particular, include a focus on the ambivalence of the city space as both apocalyptic (with an emphasis on decay and violence) as well as hopeful and innovative (with the depiction of possible progress), which ultimately reflects the multi-dimensional, disordered nature of the city as well as the state of the country in its transitional period after apartheid. Other themes revealed in this discussion, which also reflect these concerns, are topics such as the city and its relationship to issues of time and space and the construction of identity and memory. Ultimately, the first chapter of this dissertation reveals how there has been relatively few studies conducted concerning reimagining and reconstructing the image of African cities in the public memory, thus exposing a gap in research which this dissertation has aimed to fill. In chapter one, literary representations of Johannesburg during apartheid are discussed in order to show how such representations have been altered in contemporary cultural works. The depiction of Johannesburg as an African cosmopolitan space is also considered in this regard, focusing particularly on how much literature on the African city tends to compare such cities to Western and European urban systems. This is discussed in order to reveal how contemporary writings on Johannesburg are changing this perception by reimagining the city as a unique cosmopolitan hub of Africa. This chapter thus takes the form of an overview or survey chapter in which I consider what some of the trends are or have been in city writing, not only with regard to South African texts but city texts globally as well. In
3 addition, this chapter also consists of a consideration of the bourgeoning interest in the city of Johannesburg and the increasing curiosity in writing about the city, not only in terms of fiction but non-fiction as well. With regard to the latter, non-fictional texts such as Ivan Vladislavić‘s Portrait with Keys (2006) and a mixture of fictional and non-fictional works such as those compiled in Heidi Holland and Adam Roberts‘ (2010) collection of stories about Johannesburg, From Jo’burg to Jozi: Stories about Africa’s Infamous City, are discussed in order to reveal common themes in these works and how these themes reveal a conscious consideration of transformation through reimagining the city.
In chapter two, I consider the ways in which the transitional period of South Africa is being memorialised in fictional representations of Johannesburg. By means of close textual analysis, I discuss how the novels consciously reflect the fragmentary nature of memory, but also, in turn, construct the cultural memory of Johannesburg and South Africa by recording its processes of transformation. In the analysed texts, a concern with the workings of memory and its relationship to the construction of space, time and identity is reflected in the depiction of the lives and experiences of the people who live and work in the city of Johannesburg. The texts effectively memorialise the transformation of South Africa by treating Johannesburg as a site of memory. The texts achieve this in numerous ways, which include mapping changes taking place in the city‘s streets; providing different itineraries of the city and city life for the reader to follow; revealing ties between memory, place and identity; considering the human body as a site of memory; exposing historical silences; and by recording transformation in the changing use of the city‘s spaces. Chapter two considers the themes and tropes of memory in the city of Johannesburg that are evident in the texts. I examine how these texts ultimately aid in conceptualising the diverse and fragmented images of post-apartheid Johannesburg and, in effect, come to be seen as memorials of this city space. In the context of this chapter, it should be noted that I am not arguing that the texts serve as alternative forms for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), as Oscar Hemer (2009: 8) discusses, but rather that they are sites for attempting to reveal and house the workings of memory. I argue that representations and memorials of the city serve to reveal the daily lives of its inhabitants and the transformation that South Africa is witnessing. The aim of this chapter is to read the texts as a supplement to history;
4 as supplementing other accounts of truth.1 I thus consider, through the analysis of contemporary South African fiction written about Johannesburg and the literary devices used, the portrayal of the city in terms of the present. In this regard, I contemplate how the texts acknowledge change and transformation and reflect on how this comes to form public discourse, which in turn ultimately assists in highlighting and memorialising cultural transition.
Lastly, the final chapter of this dissertation considers how the city of Johannesburg, and by extension South Africa, is re-imagined and reconstructed in terms of the representation of issues of gender. Critical analysis applied to Mpe‘s, Vladislavić‘s, and Moele‘s texts reveals that transformation taking place in the wider political, economical and social concerns of the country are being mapped by means of the treatment of gender, especially in depictions of the ways in which men and women are portrayed as utilising the space of Johannesburg differently. Although the city is often described as being a patriarchal space, with a reliance on gendered stereotypes and discourse to perpetuate this image, a critical reading of the texts indicates that such representations are beginning to change. The transformation of such views is evident in the incorporation and empowerment of female characters in the texts who, it is revealed, are portrayed as having equal (or more in some cases) freedom of movement in the city space when compared to male characters. The ways in which the texts depict transformation taking place in South Africa through gendered representations of the city of Johannesburg is thus considered. Here, the ‗gendered‘ city of Johannesburg is discussed, focussing on the predominantly male or masculine perspective of the city narrated in the texts and the depiction of the inaccessibility of the city to female characters. All three texts appear to be written, as well as view the city, from a predominantly patriarchal perspective. None of the texts considered are narrated by female characters, yet it should be noted that a different perspective of the city is provided in terms of female characters such as Mpe‘s character, Refilwe. This seeming negation of a woman‘s perspective is discussed as being of particular significance in terms of South Africa‘s notoriety as a patriarchal country, well-known for violence against women. The ways in which the texts depict the position of men and women in the city, gender-related city consciousness, and gender discourse surrounding the city are discussed in order to reveal how such representations of the
1 See Hemer‘s (2009: 20) discussion of Antjie Krog‘s Country of My Skull (1998), in which he discusses her text as an example of a supplement to other, more traditional, accounts of history.
5 city are being altered in contemporary South African texts, thus portraying a changing, not so clear-cut, gendered landscape so as to reflect transformation and transition.
In this dissertation, I consider the effect that cultural works, specifically fiction, have on reimagining the space of the city in public discourse and how this, in turn, can benefit other areas involved in the reconstruction of the image of Johannesburg and even South Africa. The city, as an ambivalent space enables the contestation of boundaries, be they of identity, time or space. This dissertation argues, then, that writing the city has to account for, and reflect, this ambivalence.
6
CHAPTER 1: TRENDS IN WRITING THE CITY
The city has become a popular topic with regard to how this distinct type of space has or should be represented in both fictional and non-fictional works. Since the city defies any concrete definition, undermining any set form or structure of representation, it is the perfect subject to utilise in the discussion and exploration of various topics, ranging from identity to politics. According to Abdoumaliq Simone (2004: 9), ―the nature of cities is that they are endlessly remade‖. This characteristic thus makes cities the ideal subject for imaginative works dealing with the topic of rapid change taking place on a global scale. Stephen Rachman (1997: 656) argues that city fictions in particular offer ―fresh access to an experience of the city, to a historical, urban, or cultural consciousness‖. No wonder then that countless writers have attempted to capture the city in works of prose, poetry, fiction and non-fiction. David Frisby (2001: 6) notes in this regard that there are different forms of portraying the city. He states that the city is usually depicted as being ―embedded in landscape, as landscape, street-scape or within streets themselves (Frisby 2001: 6, author‘s emphasis). Yet there are many other methods that writers make use of in order to depict city space. In reviewing Robert Alter‘s Imagined Cities: Urban Experience and the Language of the Novel (2005), David Spurr (2007: 371), for example, provides a survey on how different novelistic techniques are employed in a manner which ―attempt[s] to incorporate or mediate the city‘s material reality‖.
In light of the above, this chapter takes the form of a critical overview or survey chapter in which I consider trends in city writing. This chapter also considers the bourgeoning interest in the city of Johannesburg and the increasing curiosity in writing about the city in fiction and non-fiction. Non-fictional texts such as Ivan Vladislavić‘s Portrait with Keys (2006) and a mixture of fictional and non-fictional works such as those compiled in Heidi Holland and Adam Roberts‘ (2010) collection of stories about Johannesburg, From Jo’burg to Jozi, are discussed with regard to this. Literary as well as other cultural representations of Johannesburg during apartheid are also discussed in order to show how such representations have changed in contemporary cultural works. The depiction of Johannesburg as an African cosmopolitan space is also considered in this chapter. This is important since much literature on the South African city, as well as other African cities tend to read and compare such cities to Western urban systems, therefore only looking at what African cities lack when compared to other ‗World class‘ cities such as New
7
York, London and Paris, amongst others. The liminal and in-between spaces or states which arise as a result of cosmopolitanism form a significant part of this discussion, especially due to changes that have arisen as a result of the end of apartheid. This concept of liminal space is important in discussing texts from a post-colonial, post-apartheid context as liminal space is defined as ―an in-between space in which cultural change may occur [...] a region where there is a continual process of movement and interchange between different states‖ (Ashcroft, Griffiths & Tiffin 2000: 130). It is in this space then that change and transformation – important themes for contemporary South African texts dealing with the city of Johannesburg – take place. The space in which transitional and post-transitional cultural works are produced can thus be considered liminal space since it is a space that is in constant flux, always being transformed in terms of political, economic and social concerns. Cultural works created in this time-space, particularly the works set in Johannesburg which I consider, acknowledge the unbounded nature of time and space by mapping and depicting states of ambiguity that are never resolved into a position of certainty. The liminal time-spaces of transitional and post-transitional South Africa are therefore reflected in the fiction created in this period.
Exactly what constitutes the area of Johannesburg needs to be delineated at the outset of this study. This is because many theorists have acknowledged the complexity in specifying what area of Johannesburg can be distinctly defined as part of the ‗city‘. For example, Nuttall and Mbembe (2008) discuss the problem of whether the townships and suburbs, which are often referred to as being on the periphery of the city, can in actuality be considered as essential components of what they term the ‗city-ness‘ of Johannesburg. Nuttall and Mbembe consequently call for new readings of the city, which recognise the importance of places such as the township and suburb in dealing with the city-ness of Johannesburg as well as ―in the making of the city‘s many identities‖ (Nuttall & Mbembe 2008: 13). However, it should be noted that it is not only the city of Johannesburg but rather cities in general that are seen as complex to define. According to Mark Gottdiener and Leslie Budd (2005), the term ‗city‘ is an indistinct label. They state that ―[t]he term ‗city‘ is much overused and is often merely a shorthand designation for [...] massive areas of continuous urbanization‖ (Gottdiener & Budd 2005: 4). In addition to this, they argue that what is known as the ‗city-region‘ is often a result of false demarcations as ―many city limits are artificially maintained by government regulations‖ (Gottdiener & Budd 2005: 5). Similarly, George Gmelch and Walter Zenner (2002) draw attention to the dilemma involved in defining
8 the city. They do so by questioning the use of terms such as city and urban, the differences involved in using such terms, as well as by questioning where one can or should ―draw the line between town and city; between rural, suburban and urban‖ (Gmelch & Zenner 2002: 61, authors‘ emphasis). It thus becomes evident that defining the specific area of the ‗city‘ is essential in order to discuss or analyse such a space. The difficulty of demarcating or delimiting the area of Johannesburg is therefore of essential consideration in this chapter, especially since although the texts discussed focus more specifically on inner city Johannesburg, and Hillbrow in particular, they also refer to suburban and rural township areas which form part of, and impact on, relations and activities in the city.
The increasing curiosity with regard to writing about cities could have something to do with the fact that writing about urban landscapes enables one to make sense of or come to terms with one‘s surroundings. Lindsay Bremner (2010b: 61) for example argues that ―[u]rban writing is a re-subjectivising process and a way of examining social reproduction in a more immediately concrete way than through statistical, economic or socio-political study‖. In addition, Edward Soja (2003: 272) also maintains that ―writing the city can contribute to an understanding of urban life in an era of globalization‖. In other words, writing the city becomes an almost tangible record of history and the constant changes that take place in the social environment. One of the reasons for this is that the image of the city is relatively easy to construct in fiction. For example, the naming of existing city structures or popular city places in fictional texts immediately produces a full image of the city in the mind of the reader (Bílek 2006: 250). The space of the city being described in fiction is thus already constructed in the reader‘s mind. As Petr Bílek (2006: 254) states, the ‗character‘ of the city in fiction ―has many features produced before the narrative constrains some shifts or limits‖. However, it is important to note that one of the effects of narrating space is that secondary or more readings of the same space are possible. Eynel Wardi‘s (2004) argument concerning the act of simultaneously reading ‗old‘ space and creating new space illustrates this point: Wardi (2004: 194) states that ―[b]y entering a story, one generates its space – one spatializes it, while undoing the proper place that it has been before its symbolic appropriation by the reader‖. The ‗real‘ city is thus altered by individual readings of representations of this city in fictional works. In addition to this, Bílek (2006: 255) also maintains that writers can alter one‘s perception of actual-world city space. The ‗real‘ image of the city can therefore also be distorted in fiction. As Bílek (2006: 255) argues, a writer may use
9 the concrete real-world image of the city ―in completely different ways and assign quite a different function to it in a particular fictional world‖.
Most theorists tend to agree that the city can be viewed as one of the characters in works of city fiction. The literary city, as theorists call it, thus becomes just another character in a story, a story which has particular goals or processes in order to reach a certain conclusion. William McClung (1988: 33) maintains that
literary cities, like literary characters, are usually caught in a narrative movement or process towards some desired end. To the extent that they induce us to ‗read‘ actual cities as moralized texts, engaged in a historical dynamic of movement, by means of a dialectic of contrary forces and values, towards some ultimate historical stasis, literary cities may inhibit as much as improve our understanding of the potential and achieved good qualities of their concrete counterparts. In this way then, the literary image shapes the actual city in the mind of the reader. However, McClung (1988: 35) also notes that the aim of any literary text is to tell a story, which means that the city as an element or character in a story is thus employed to bring the story about. McClung (188: 35) therefore states that ―their [stories about the city] reliability as guides to the success or failure of cities is limited by their own function, which is not to tell the truth but to tell the story‖. He furthermore argues that literary cities are ‗mythic‘ as they are ―images not of cities but of ideas about what cities might be‖ (McClung 1988: 35). The representation of fictive cities as symbols of ‗real‘ cities can thus become problematic in the sense that some might come to read the fictive cities and the ways in which they are depicted as representing the ‗real‘ world. Referring to Rob Shields‘ (1995: 245) study of urban theory and representation, Ash Amin and Stephen Graham (1997: 417) discuss how ―when we analyse the ‗city‘, our depiction is itself a representation, a partial perspective with ‗treacherous selective vision‘ which, in turn, becomes embroiled in the social production of the urban‖. Jie Lu (2004) similarly argues that writing the city creates the city, but maintains that this also works vice versa. Lu states that
the specific ways in which urban fiction and the (post)modern city interact [...] re-structures urban experience and urban complex, which in turn both complicates the urban representation and demands a new structure of vision/representation. By writing and analysing the city then, writers and theorists construct this urban space (2004: 326). Lu thus posits that ―city and story mutually write and transform each other in a discursive praxis‖ (2004: 326). By writing and analysing the city then, writers and theorists construct this urban
10 space. At the same time though, it is important to note that the city itself influences and transforms urban fiction.
Themes that tend to arise in city writing across the globe include topics such as the isolation of the individual, the city as a subjective entity (in that it is what the mind or urban individual makes of it), and also the city as an apocalyptic space. In addition, most writers trying to capture the city focus primarily on street life. As Joshua Barker (2009: 155) states,
a focus on the street serves much the same function as does the broader focus on city life. Even when the street is studied in its particularity and not taken to stand in for the city as a whole, it may still provide a route into the shifting social and cultural terrains of urban life.
The street thus becomes a synecdoche for city life in general. In the streets of city fiction, the isolation of the individual is one of the many popular themes that such works consider. For example, William Burton (in Karan & Stapleton 1997: 221-242) discusses the predominant focus on residents‘ feelings of detachment and alienation in literary representations of Tokyo, Japan, specifically in Soseki‘s fictional works. Similarly, Lu (2010) considers how Shen Congwen‘s urban fictions, based in the city of Shanghai, also depict a sense of personal as well as historical loss due to changes taking place in, and the transformation of, the modern city. In relation to focusing on the isolation of the individual, writings on the city also regard such space as subjective. Peter Goheen (1998) has noted that public space in the modern city has always been viewed as a space of contestation in which both people and institutions compete to be acknowledged, and in the process create their own ideas of what the city is and should be. However, two main contrasting images of the city that are most evident in city fiction are the depiction of either impending disaster or its complete opposite – the portrayal of sanguine urban reconstruction and reformation. Amin and Graham (1997: 412) argue that perspectives on the city tend to oscillate ―between dire predictions of urban doom and optimistic portrayals of an urban renaissance‖, while McClung (1988), in his analysis of the city of Los Angeles, similarly notes how cities in literature have been described in terms of rival images of good and bad. Nigel Thrift (2005: 134) also admits to this binary reading of cities in the ‗real‘ world as he states that he alternates ―between hope and then pessimism‖ in his own discussion of urban spaces.
City fictions also tend to focus on urban space as a place that both defines and also influences its power relations. Barker (2009: 160) discusses the exploration of city streets as ―a space that
11 produces its own kind of law that can challenge conventional boundaries between the public and the private‖. He further maintains that ―street life can be both a terrain pre-structured by political and economic forces and a terrain for democratic or oppositional politics‖ (Barker 2009: 159, author‘s emphasis). Cities in fiction are thus utilised in order to depict power relations as well as question, reinforce or undermine these power structures. In relation to this, Soja (2003) argues that representations of cities have certain social responsibilities. He states that
[i]f human society, social relations, sociality itself can only be realized in urban life [...] then surely writing the city spatially cannot remain simply a useful add-on, a flashy new interpretive approach, or a metaphorical gold mine. It must take precedence in writing the city, and, through the city, in making sense of globalization and other complexities of the contemporary world (Soja 2003: 273, author‘s emphasis). Yet arguments have been made against the problem of reading a single city as a representation of all urban areas. Amin and Graham (1997: 411) contemplate how ―[t]oo often, [...] single cities are wheeled out as paradigmatic cases, alleged conveniently to encompass all urban trends everywhere‖. They discuss the example of the city of Los Angeles and how it has often been utilised and depicted in a way that homogenises urban life and experience. Amin and Graham (1997: 411) also argue that
[t]he bulk of the disparate range of perspectives and approaches toward the city tends to concentrate exclusively on one element of urban life and city development: ‗culture‘, social polarization, housing, industrial districts, politics, transport, governance, property development, planning and so on. They thus state that the true nature of the city, the intermingling and entanglement of diverse activities and elements of urban life (i.e. everyday street life), are likely to be ignored when assuming that all cities‘ experiences are the same (Amin & Graham 1997: 411-412). Each city therefore needs to be read in terms of its unique attributes and cultural characteristics. Amin and Graham (1997: 418) further argue that multiple readings of the city space should exist, particularly readings that take into account heterogeneity in the city. They maintain that in any representation or analysis of city space, ―the ways in which contemporary cities tend to be concentrations of multiple rationalities, multiple socio-spatial circuits, diverse complexes of cultural hybridity and the interlinkage of complex ranges of subjectivities and time-spaces‖ needs to be emphasised clearly (Amin & Graham 1997: 419). However, regardless of this desire for an emphasis on urban heterogeneity, Amin and Graham recognise that the homogenisation of city space is at times necessary or at least beneficial in a sense. For example, they note that urban
12 renewal sometimes consists of, or relies on, an emphasis on sameness or the illusion of ‗shared‘ space (Amin & Thrift 1997: 422). This is particularly important with regard to globalisation, which relies on an emphasis on, or promotion of, shared values and desires.
However, recognising differences between cities also becomes challenging especially when comparing Western and European cities with African cities. Emma O‘Shaughnessy (2008) argues that a new reading of African cities that does not only compare these cities to those of European or Western cities is needed. She states that this view is damaging and problematic as it presents the African city as other (O‘Shaughnessy 2008). This is because, in comparison to European and other Western cities, African cities such as Lagos and Johannesburg, among others, always come to be criticised and perceived in terms of destabilisation with regard to the state of their economies, war, crime, poverty and disease; problems that European and Western cities appear to have greater control over. A view of African cities as struggling economic, political and social urban spaces in the global imaginary is thus inscribed. Similarly, in a conference proceedings publication appearing under the heading of ―Platform4_Documenta11 - Under Siege: Four African Cities, Freetown, Johannesburg, Kinshasa, Lagos‖ (2002), theorists argue for the reinvention of African urban imaginaries in terms of a global political, social and cultural economy. They also call for new, innovative means of interpreting African cities, which acknowledge increasing industrial and economic expansion and advancement taking place, as well as the rise of cultural and social growth and opportunity in African urban spaces. The title of this publication is significant here as the phrase ―Under Siege‖ points to how research on, and the representation of, African cities has been cut-off, so to say, with regard to recognition of such cities‘ advancing development in favour of studies that suggest comparing or modelling these after their counterparts in more developed countries. Arguments in the publication further propose that African cities no longer be examined as deriving from or being in opposition to cities of the West but that they should rather be studied as alternatives to Western and European cities, with a particular focus on these African cities‘ unique understandings and dealings with modernity and globalisation.
Since this thesis is focused on representations of the city of Johannesburg, it is imperative that the nature of writing on South African cities, in particular writings on Johannesburg, be discussed. According to Sarah Nuttall (2004: 740), cities in South African fiction have largely
13 been read in terms of the political. Fictional writings on Johannesburg in the past, specifically during the 1980s were focused more on Johannesburg as a site of resistance and as a place where one of the main goals or activities included the transgression and undermining of authority. Fiction set in Johannesburg during this period focused on issues of segregation and oppression and the effects that this had on urban lives, identities and experiences. Irikidzayi Manase (2007: 44), for example, talks about how in earlier fiction set in Johannesburg, such as the short stories published in the journal Staffrider, ―subordinate and inhibited identities were created within the segregated characters resident in literary Johannesburg‖. Similarly, in The Drum Decade stories (Chapman 2001), set in Johannesburg in the 1950s during which many of apartheid‘s laws were at their most restrictive, the city is cast as a space of deprivation and oppression in which characters desire and need to find entertainment in order to deal with and escape the pain and suffering that they experience. However, trends that tend to arise in literature based in Johannesburg in the present include topics surrounding the image of a decaying city, fragmented urban identities, fear, and the root causes thereof including racism and xenophobia, as well as the description of the continuous and growing construction of an almost ‗fake‘ security in certain suburbs, which shield such spaces from the dangerous, ‗unclean‘ city. The term ‗unclean‘ in this regard refers to both the literal dirt in the city, such as litter and poor maintenance, as well as the xenophobic attitude towards the influx of foreigners and the consequent establishment of informal trade setups and networks in the city. In other words, writings about the city of Johannesburg depict the city as a hybrid, ambivalent space that merges two different types of cities – the apocalyptic, hopeless, dirty and dangerous inner-city, and the manufactured safe haven of the city‘s suburbs. Manase (2007: 15-16) notes that the city of Johannesburg is viewed in this way because ―Johannesburg‘s transition into a democratised space has resulted in the formation of hybrid and ambivalent spaces that are marked by the existence of totally different social and economic worlds‖. In addition to this, Manase (2007: 19) also states that in recent fiction set in Johannesburg, ―the use of tropes of the migrant, memory, disease and even death are very prominent‖. Thus, as Manase (2007: 19) argues, there are ―multiple and unstable images of post-apartheid Johannesburg‖ being conceptualised in present Johannesburg city fiction.
Landscape and the issue of space have become increasingly popular, and important, topics in contemporary South African fiction. Shameen Black (2008: 10) states that, ―[g]iven the deformation of collective space under apartheid, physical place and urban infrastructure have
14 played particularly important roles in modern South African literature‖. Certain South African sites such as the spaces of the city of Johannesburg have thus become an important means of representing or discussing the social spaces and nature of the lived experiences of South Africans during the transitional period. It is important to note that although the focus of this dissertation is concerned with the city of Johannesburg, other South African cities such as Cape Town and Durban are being explored in a similar manner. For instance, Shannon Jackson‘s (2003) work considers how ‗coloured‘ people in the city of Cape Town are utilising urban space in order to negotiate and contest boundaries of history and identity, while Niall McNulty (2006) and Lindy Stiebel (2010) both investigate the relationship between the construction of a particular South African Indian identity and the ways in which the city streets and even buildings of Durban have affected and continue to influence this production of identity in the past and present. With regard to Johannesburg though, as a ‗character‘ in fiction, it has been viewed as a place consisting of contested boundaries and as a fragmented, yet at the same time, fluid, indefinable space. Black (2008: 13) argues that Johannesburg is a divided city as it is ―divided between the predominantly white northern suburbs with free-standing houses and the predominantly black southern townships‖, yet she also acknowledges that this same city refuses to adhere to such boundaries. According to Black (2008: 13), it is these contradictions that make Johannesburg a place which allows interconnection across such a fragmented space, ultimately encouraging, and thus enabling, new possibilities for community in post-apartheid South Africa. Writing about the depiction of fictive Johannesburg during the transition period, concerning the changes taking place from apartheid to post-apartheid democracy in South Africa, Manase (2007: 109) maintains that
ambiguous readings of the city regarding urban character‘s double perception of the residual racism and the emerging signs of freedom and pride as they relate to the transformed public and social institutions in their post-apartheid city [...] is one of the major sources of tension and contradictions found in fictive Johannesburg as its public institutions and different characters grapple with the transition. These ambiguous readings illustrate a refusal to treat the city of Johannesburg as a one dimensional space. In addition, the tension between these simultaneous perceptions of doom and hope in Johannesburg also encompass what it means to be a South African during the transition.
The image of an apocalyptic Johannesburg, a city in which fear abounds, is evident in both Vladislavić‘s (2006) non-fictional Portrait with Keys and Holland and Roberts‘ (2010) collection
15 of non-fictional and fictional stories in From Jo’burg to Jozi. In Portrait with Keys, Vladislavić describes Johannesburg as a disaster-stricken space, a space where criminals can strike at any second and where residents need to be ready to defend themselves at any given moment. He describes how high walls, gates, alarms and other safety mechanisms characterise the city of Johannesburg (Vladislavić 2006: 25 & 32) and how these devices are utilised in order to provide a sense of security and alleviate residents‘ fear of being victims of crime or harmful attacks. For example, Vladislavić describes his father‘s complete faith in the ―Gorilla‖ (Vladislavić 2006: 20), an instrument used to lock the steering wheel of a car and thus prevent car theft. In addition to depicting fear of crime in the city, Vladislavić also describes the deterioration of the city‘s streets and iconic buildings and parks. The disintegration of the Carlton Centre in Johannesburg is of particular interest to Vladislavić as he focuses on the gradual decline in visitors to the Centre and the resultant closing down of shops that once thrived in a bustling city (Vladislavić 2006: 28-30). Furthermore, Vladislavić illustrates that the decline of the city extends to people and their actions in this city space and that such destruction is not only confined to its built structures. This is evident in his description of violent cannibalistic behaviour of criminal residents in the city who, not only hijack their victims‘ cars, but physically bite into their flesh as well (Vladislavić 2006: 41). Vladislavić continues with his portrayal of the apocalyptic image of Johannesburg by describing the city‘s streets as barren, destroyed and deserted. He portrays the city as if it has recently been bombed or witnessed a terrible war. He describes the following:
A stranger, arriving one evening in the part of Joburg I call home, would think that it had been struck by some calamity, that every last person had fled. There is no sign of life. Behind the walls, the houses are ticking like bombs. The curtains are drawn tight, the security lights are glaring, the gates are bolted. Even the cars have taken cover (Vladislavić 2006: 54). The representation of Johannesburg as a city defined by fear and destruction is therefore once again evident here. It appears that Vladislavić does this not only to highlight this stereotypical image of the decline of inner city Johannesburg, but also to subvert this popular representation by sensationalising and over-exaggerating the fear Johannesburg residents experience, thus making readers question such dramatic responses and understandings of the city. This is achieved through the use of hyperbole and by depicting the city as an apocalyptic space; a space that is far removed from the assumed and embellished safety of the suburbs.
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In Heidi Holland and Adam Roberts‘ (2010) collection of stories about Johannesburg, From Jo’burg to Jozi, this pessimistic view of the lack of safety and order in Johannesburg is also evident. In her contribution to the collection, Lindsay Bremner (2010a: 65-69) contemplates the growing trend toward constructed spaces of security in the city of Johannesburg and a rejection of the inner city for ‗safer‘ urban areas in her contribution entitled ―A Quick Tour Around Contemporary Johannesburg‖. In a similar vein, Bongani Madondo‘s (in Holland & Roberts 2010: 158-163) story ―Tatty Whore with a Heart of Gold‖ compares the deteriorating inner-city of Johannesburg with the clean, safe Northern suburbs. He contrasts ―the Himalayas of dirt and grime permanently layered on the streets, balconies and just anywhere‖ in Hillbrow with the ―[s]panking-clean suburbs. Protected and clean‖ just a few kilometres away in the same city (Madondo 2010: 160). In addition to this, Madondo also describes the decline and decay of inner-city Johannesburg with its ―rot and dirt, the spilling sewage, drug-infested needles, piles of vegetables and fruit composting on street corners‖ (Madondo 2010: 159). Such descriptions of chaos in inner-city Johannesburg characterise many of the stories in From Jo’burg to Jozi, thus emphasising the representation of the city as a fearful, hostile, rapidly deteriorating space in Johannesburg fiction. Similar to Vladislavić‘s Portrait with Keys, the exaggeration of the fear experienced in Johannesburg portrayed in these stories can also be viewed as a means of undermining this stereotypical depiction of the city as these representations are also overly exaggerated descriptions of the inner city compared to the suburbs. In this way then, such representations are revealed as one-sided, embroidered images that are often amplified by the mere tales and gossip of suburban residents who have removed themselves from the city.
This undercutting of stereotypical representations of the city is furthered underscored in the simultaneous presentation of an almost Utopian view of Johannesburg that is depicted in these texts. Regardless of descriptions of fear, crime, and poor, dirty streets, a sense of acceptance and optimism is evident. Descriptions of negative aspects of the city are also presented in a manner that reveals the original beauty of these qualities. Vladislavić‘s account of the deterioration of the Carlton Centre and Hotel in Portrait with Keys (as discussed above), for instance, is romanticised as he likens its fall to ―a crime scene in an American TV series‖ (Vladislavić 2006: 29). He also dramatises the magnificence of its destruction by emphasising the harsh ‗closed‘ signs placed around the building and the ―fierce white light‖ (Vladislavić 2006: 30) that catches his eye as he walks past welders sealing off the entrance to the Carlton Hotel. To Vladislavić then, there seems
17 to be a violent beauty or hope in such disintegration. Perhaps this hope relates to the idea that often when structures are destroyed, there is always immediately the possibility of reconstruction and excitement at the prospect of the creation of something new. In From Jo’burg to Jozi, Shawn de Waal (in Holland & Roberts 2010: 82-85) also describes Johannesburg in terms of this violent beauty in his view of Johannesburg in ―Horizontal City: Notes on Johannesburg while in Los Angeles‖. Writing about Johannesburg from his position in Los Angeles, a popular American city, De Waal compares the city to Johannesburg with its chaotic, seemingly disordered, confusing streets. Yet De Waal explains that he loves this frenzied quality of Johannesburg: he states that he ―love[s] Jo‘burg‘s ups and downs‖ and writes about the ―thrill‖ he feels when driving through the ―curve[s]‖ and ―curls‖ of Johannesburg‘s roads (De Waal 2010: 84). In fact, De Waal seems to compare the city of Johannesburg to a wild, African jungle as he relates how he ―swings‖ through the city‘s streets and also discusses how Johannesburg roads feel ―like a great big river, Jo‘burg‘s concrete Congo‖ (De Waal 2010: 84). This dual nature of representing Johannesburg in terms of using both stereotypical images of its decay, as well as utopian, hopeful images describing its raw beauty, not only underscores the ambiguous, boundless characteristics of the city, but can also be utilised as a frame in order to deal with and discuss the complexities of the city beyond such clear-cut definitions and representations as has been presented in the past.
In relation to this, there seems to be a movement towards dispelling fear in the city in recent works on Johannesburg. In his short story entitled ―Sports and Cars‖, Darrel Bristow-Bovey (in Holland & Roberts 2010: 82-85) provides an interesting glance at one‘s expectations and fears when living in the city and subverts these, questioning the validity of such feelings. This story illustrates the progression towards acceptance and the depiction of hope in Johannesburg fiction as it undermines the idea that the majority of Johannesburg‘s inner-city residents are violent criminals. In the story, Bristow-Bovey relates how he parks his car in inner-city Johannesburg to watch a football match and accidentally leaves his keys in the car. Although the car guard who told him where to park promises that he will look after the car, he still expects that when he returns from watching the game his car will no longer be there. However, he is shocked to find that it is still parked safely in the same place that he left it. The image of Johannesburg as a dangerous place is thus destabilised here. Works based in the city are therefore beginning to consider the ambivalence of Johannesburg. Andrew Molefe‘s story entitled ―Jo‘burg Idolised and
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Scorned‖ (in Holland & Roberts 2010: 192), for example, illustrates that people see Johannesburg in two different ways – either as a place of hope and opportunity or as an unsafe, treacherous city. Molefe explains that mentioning one of Johannesburg‘s many names to people ―attract[s] both negative and positive attention. Some people will look at you with admiration and envy; others might be scornful‖ (Molefe 2010: 192). Molefe also calls attention to the fact that for every person who finds joy and success in the city (like his uncle Joe who refers to Johannesburg as the ―promised land‖), ―there are thousands of others to whom the streets of Johannesburg have been nothing but boulevards of broken dreams‖ (Molefe 2010: 194). Molefe therefore does not completely dismiss the nature of fear, danger and negative qualities in and of the city, but rather highlights its complex, multifaceted character, again emphasising the indefinable, contradictory quality of the city.
Another trope that is evident in South African city fiction concerns a link with writing the city and the formation of a post-apartheid national identity. In fact, this is a common theme in most South African literature, not only in city fiction. There tends to be a focus on the city in South Africa as a cultural, political and social ‗melting pot‘. In other words, the city is often depicted as a blurred space, in which the multiple races, cultural and political beliefs existing in South Africa are subsumed under the one goal or ideal of nationalism. Annie Gagiano (2004: 813-814) argues that depicting city life or the country in this sentimental way becomes challenging since ―the rich variety of cultural expressions, political preferences and social formations in a ‗national‘ territory might be subordinated to a legitimised, ‗official‘ and reductive master narrative‖. Gagiano (2004: 812) also states that such a focus on nationality ―may involve enforced homogenisation‖ (author‘s emphasis). However, contemporary South African works set in the city focus more on highlighting difference than on enforcing an image of a homogenous South African national identity. Vladislavić‘s The Exploded View (2004), and more recently Double Negative (2011), for example, consider the ways in which multiple cultural and racial groups traverse, make a life and interact in the urban space of Johannesburg. On the other hand, Zinaid Meeran‘s Saracen at the Gates (2009) considers the ties between the city space of Johannesburg and identity from the standpoint of a very particular racial, cultural, gender and even spatial perspective: the novel is narrated by a young, Indian, Muslim girl from Mayfair, Johannesburg – Zakira – yet simultaneously questions the authenticity of her race, religion and even gender in terms of sexual orientation. This is because her movement through, and experiences in, the city gradually reveal
19 the fluidity of her identity, which continuously wavers. This, then, ultimately mirrors and reveals the porous and ever-evolving nature of the city space. By depicting how the multifarious landscape of the city of Johannesburg reflects the varied identities and cultures of its inhabitants, the texts indicate a reworking of the representation of the city and, in effect, portray a more realistic image of transitional South Africa. This transformation in representation indicates an attempt at celebrating the country‘s diversity after apartheid, instead of a harmful focus on trying to establish a homogenous South African national identity. This concern with the link between city space and identity is also discussed in works regarding other cities in South Africa such as Durban, Cape Town, and even East London (Bank 1999, 2001; Bank & Minkley 1998), especially with regard to the relationship between the urban spaces of Durban and Cape Town and the construction of Indian and Coloured identities respectively, as mentioned previously with reference to McNulty (2006), as well as Stiebel‘s (2010) and Jackson‘s (2003) studies.
The relationship between city and memory is also an important topic in ‗Johannesburg fiction‘. Manase (2007: 197) notes that history and the nature of memory are recurring concerns in contemporary representations of Johannesburg. This is often articulated through imagery related to mapping the landscape, as well as the destruction or creation of memorials and monuments and the reminders of apartheid that still seem to exist within these streets and structures. Writings on Johannesburg frequently depict characters naming and providing the reader with an explanation of the streets they walk (or drive) through and the memories and thoughts that these evoke. Descriptions of Johannesburg‘s streets and structures are layered with references to the apartheid past as well as to how the city can reconstruct new memories without forgetting this past. Portrait with Keys for example consists of constant references to landmarks in the city and the certain memories these evoke in Vladislavić‘s mind and the mind‘s of others who he comes across. For instance, Vladislavić describes the hospital where people were born near his house and the excitement that they feel at this recollection (Vladislavić 2006: 14), his memories of his youth spent roaming around the Carlton Centre (Vladislavić 2006: 26-29), as well as the various stores and streets in which he traces the development of his ‗Joburg‘ identity and previous journeys through the city. In this way, the city comes to be seen as a storage space of memory or, rather, a memorial in itself for not only Johannesburg but South African history. This topic of memory and the city will be discussed further in the second chapter of this dissertation in which I examine the ways in which the texts that I consider deal with memory and the city landscape.
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One theme that seems to have remained in writings on Johannesburg is the idea that the city space is ever-changing: it can be re-made and adjusted to suit the needs of individuals in this urban setting. Manase (2007: 188) argues that ―the city is continually remaking itself, which results in the creation of new imaginings and experiences‖. The ambivalent, liminal nature of Johannesburg is again evident here as the depiction of the city seems to fluctuate between an image of disordered chaos and fear and a hopeful picture of renewal. Manase (2007: 140) notes that
[e]ven if the restructuring of the city‘s institutions and monuments will be characterised by organisational and cultural tensions, haunted by reminders of past racial prejudices and other uncertainties, this overwhelmingly reveals an attempt at creating an all-inclusive image of Johannesburg‘s triumphant transition into a multiracial urban space. This hopeful image of renewal is evident in both past and present fiction set in Johannesburg. In Portrait with Keys, Vladislavić deals with the new ways in which Johannesburg city space is being utilised and how the traditional use of such city spaces are being altered to suit the diverse needs of its inhabitants. For example, Vladislavić discusses how the poor, homeless people in the city transform the spaces below the iron covers on pavements in the street where meters for electricity and water usage are housed, into ―cupboards‖ for the safe-keeping of their personal belongings (Vladislavić 2006: 50). This knowledge changes Vladislavić‘s idea of the city and the use of its structures as it makes him question city space. He considers the following:
Any iron cover you passed in the street might conceal someone‘s personal effects. There was a maze of mysterious spaces underfoot, known only to those who could see it [...] Blind and numb, we passed over these secret places, did not even sense them beneath the soles of our shoes. How much more might we be missing? (Vladislavić 2006: 50). Similarly in Vladislavić‘s The Exploded View (2004), characters are depicted as learning to adapt to constant change in the city by utilising such changes for their own needs or survival. In the chapter entitled ―Villa Toscana‖, Budlender contemplates the ever-increasing construction of faux European styled homes and ‗secure‘ public spaces in Johannesburg and the impact that this has on the discontinuous nature of the city; in ―Afritude Sauce‖, Egan is thrust into a culture so different from, yet practiced in the same space as, his own, which forces him to confront the contradictory aspects of the transforming city; in ―Curiouser‖ S. Majara, an artist, makes innovative use of tourist culture in Johannesburg by utilising curios such as masks and carvings of animals sold to tourists in order to construct new pieces of artwork; while in ―Crocodile
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Lodge‖, the protagonist uses crime as an excuse to overcome his childhood humiliation in the boxing ring by fighting back instead of falling and being defeated as he had been in the past. Such interpretations of the city are thus exposing readers to more complex imaginings of Johannesburg and insist on reading the city in a way that acknowledges multiplicity and the opportunity for growth, which occurs as a result of continuous changes taking place in the transitional space of the city.
A topic which has yet to be considered in detail in representations of Johannesburg is imagined spaces and structures within the city. This is a concern that troubles Bremner (2010b: 106) who is interested in (particularly architectural) portrayals of the city, which are based on forecasting the future. Although Johannesburg city fiction has focused on the appropriation and creation of new social space, these fictions have tended to gloss over the idea of imagined space. In other words, fiction regarding Johannesburg has rarely focused on depicting or interpreting the city ―not only as it is, but how it could be‖ (Bremner 2010b: 106). Nevertheless, there is a gradual movement toward imagining the city as it perhaps should be. Contemporary, post-apartheid fictional works set in Johannesburg such as Room 207 by Kgebetli Moele (2006), Welcome To Our Hillbrow by Phaswane Mpe (2001) and The Restless Supermarket by Ivan Vladislavić (2001), for example, contemplate the increasingly cosmopolitan nature of the city, as well as its perception as a decaying space characterised by destruction, crime and fearful residents, but also envision new social possibilities in this space such as a complex temporal existence in the city. These texts thus form the perfect basis for a discussion on city fiction, which grapples with these transitional themes. The purpose of this dissertation is therefore to reflect on these multiple literary representations and readings of contemporary Johannesburg, as well as the importance of changes in the portrayal of the city with regard to the desire for reinvention in the city and country in the post-apartheid transitional time period in South Africa. This shift in the portrayal of an African city is also important with regard to the call for new readings of African cities since such changes in representation emphasise the complex, cosmopolitan character of these cities. This therefore encourages one to interpret African cities in their own right, instead of comparing them to their Western or European counterparts. Edgar Pieterse (2010: 208), referring to Jennifer Robinson‘s (2006) argument regarding the understanding of cities, maintains that although a more rounded conceptualisation of what constitutes cityness is missing in our perception of what African cities are, a more particular focus on ―the development challenges of
22 and absences‖ in these cities is imperative. This dissertation therefore attempts to rectify, to a certain extent, this gap in the understanding of African cities.
The reasons for my selection of texts to be considered in this dissertation pertain to the fact that the chosen texts deal with themes of change and the issues that arise due to ongoing transformation and growth in the developing African cosmopolitan city of Johannesburg. Such themes thus relate, and are essential, to the goals and aims of my research. All three texts under discussion form a type of biography of Johannesburg by mapping its streets and routes, as well as the changes taking place in the city in different ways. Mpe‘s Welcome To Our Hillbrow maps the changes taking place in the city from the standpoint of the after life; from the perspective of those in heaven, Moele‘s Room 207 narrates the transformation taking place in the city through the eyes and lives of six roommates living in a small room in Hillbrow, while in Vladislavić‘s The Restless Supermarket the gradual alteration of Hillbrow is charted in terms of the main protagonist, Aubrey Tearle‘s, system of keeping records of ―errors‖. With regard to previous analyses of the texts, it should be noted that, while there has been some critical analysis applied to Mpe‘s Welcome To Our Hillbrow (Clarkson 2005, Hlongwane 2006, Hunt 2006, Samin 2009) and Vladislavić‘s The Restless Supermarket (Graham 2007, Marais 2002), relatively little has been written on Moele‘s Room 207. Furthermore, although some scholarly assessments of The Restless Supermarket have been undertaken (Graham 2007, Marais 2002), few of these assessments focus on the representation of city space and the depiction of the transformation of this space in the text. The paucity of critical attention in this regard, and also to Moele‘s Room 207, thus suggests that a study such as this one may fill a gap in scholarship.
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CHAPTER 2: CONSTRUCTING MEMORY IN CONTEMPORARY JOHANNESBURG
As alluded to in the previous chapter, there is consensus in much urban theory that movement through the city and the act of one moving or walking in city spaces enables one to ‗remap‘, redeem, as well as create ‗new‘ space. Theorists (Amin & Thrift 2002, De Certeau 2000, Kruger 2001, Soja 2000, Southall 1998) acknowledge the changing nature and shape of the city, as well as the ways in which cities are actually constructed and exist precisely because of this constant movement and transformation of urban life. In addition, there is an abundance of literature that focuses on movement in the city as facilitating one‘s knowledge of the self and others. As discussed in chapter one, writings on the city of Johannesburg have tended to only acknowledge the need for drastic transformation in the structure of the city and have rarely recognised that such transformation is already taking place. Critics such as Nuttall and Mbembe (2008) and Jyoti Mistry (2009) have consequently argued that it is essential that the multifaceted layers of the city of Johannesburg be explored, especially in the post-apartheid context. This multifaceted, layered, ambiguous nature of not only the city but also the country of South Africa has gradually begun to be explored by literary critics, theorists and novelists alike. Critics such as Jordache Abner Ellapen (2007), James Graham (2007), Shane Graham (2008), Liz Gunner (2003), Alan Lester (2003), and Pallavi Rastogi (2008) have all noted that discourses and structures that belong to and represent the apartheid past in South Africa cannot simply be erased and forgotten but should rather inform and merge with the memory of the present. These theorists also contend that city space in South Africa is porous and permeable, and that past uses and structures of such spaces cannot be obliterated. It is evident then that South African urban space is in the process of being studied as a palimpsest, as a layered space constituted and constructed in terms of its past, present and future, which are all superimposed upon each other.2 Capturing this indefinable quality of the city in literature thus becomes both an act of memory-making with regard to national history, as well as a means of mapping the memory of the city itself.
A method important to this study is that of reading the chosen texts as a type of cultural history or memory. In this chapter, Phaswane Mpe‘s Welcome to Our Hillbrow (2001), Ivan Vladislavić‘s The Restless Supermarket (2001) and Kgebetli Moele‘s Room 207 (2006) are read
2 In his article entitled ―Walking in the City‖, Michel de Certeau (2000: 103) also discusses the ambiguous temporal nature of cities, noting that they project and consist of both an ―opaque past and an unclear future‖.
24 as a means of constructing or representing South African cultural history through textual production, specifically through the representation of Johannesburg. In the course of this discussion, themes and representations of memory, movement, transition and transformation in the city of Johannesburg are dealt with. Topics such as the conscious consideration of the act of remembering, as well as the representation of Johannesburg as a palimpsest and as a conflation of historical moments – of the past, present and future – which indicate a contemplation and attempt to memorialise the past in the present, are discussed. This is particularly noteworthy in the context of South Africa‘s transitional period because, according to Hemer (2009: 1), ―[a] transition period is especially interesting from the perspective of literary and cultural production, since the dialectic between culture and society comes in the open – literature‘s ability of looking back and looking forward simultaneously, reinterpreting the past and forecasting the future‖. The effect such remembering has on cultural identity is also considered with particular reference to depictions of Johannesburg as undermining or subverting the myth of ‗oneness‘ or unified nationhood (a common theme in works of fiction after apartheid).
Essentially, I consider how a recollection of the past inspires further discourse. Richard Kearney (2007: 51) captures this sentiment in his argument that
[t]he recounting of experience through the formal medium of plot, fiction or spectacle permits us to repeat the past forward so to speak [...] In the play of narrative re-creation, we are invited to revisit our lives – through the actions and personas of others – so as to live them otherwise. We discover a way to give a future to the past (author‘s emphasis).
Kearney (2007: 51) thus views remembering and narrating the past as a method of catharsis. In addition to this, Jonathan Boyarin (1992: 63) claims
textuality as an aspect of cultural practice; time, loss, and dislocation as inevitable determinants of culture; the ceaseless traffic between oral and written modes of communication. All of these phenomena are exploited and resisted in the continuous work of reconstructing [any cultural/collective identity], as in the postmodern work of searching for reasons to live and ways to communicate those reasons. Furthermore, Boyarin (1992: 64) also argues that
[any cultural] ethnography [...] contains an as yet-unrealized potential to make a unique contribution to an anthropology which aims to stimulate memory rather than sating the urge for nostalgia, to provoke contingent awareness rather than add to a static "store" of dominant knowledge.
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Using these arguments as a foundation, this chapter establishes how the texts discussed and the city of Johannesburg that they consider, work as stimulants of memory and social discourse in the present as opposed to archives of the past. I argue that these texts are active responses to the changes of the present and the workings of the city of Johannesburg as it is now, today, as a result of what has occurred in society in and around it. This is in contrast to stories that provide a glorifying grand narrative of the past or, alternatively, a complete erasure of this past. I discuss how the chosen texts serve as sites of the memory of the city of Johannesburg, specifically as sites which acknowledge the ever-present act of working through memory and the past. Elements of the texts that come to reflect, or refer to, certain aspects of conventional records of memory to be used as a resource for future use are also considered. With regard to this topic, reference will be made to Pierre Nora‘s (1989) article entitled ―Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire‖, which considers the act of recording or, in relation to Jacque Derrida‘s theory,3 archiving memory.
What this representation of the changing nature and use of space and time in Johannesburg achieves is a creation of a sort of mapping of memory and history of the city itself. My argument is that these texts are creating a kind of fictional, cultural archive of history in the present. The texts are thus about memorialising the past in the present, about actively making or creating public memory and how this affects memory of place, events and people both in the present and future. I have considered literature as providing a framework and new points of departure for future research on the role of memory and the importance of its effects on personal and national identity and history. This dissertation is an attempt to document how different forms of memory including novels, journal articles, film and architecture contribute to literary and national history or memory. Although I have only considered fictional texts, other cultural and art forms such as film and music also need to be considered in this regard since Johannesburg needs to be re- imagined in the national memory across all types of cultural representations. Studies of film (Mntambo 2009) and architecture (Bremner 2010b), as well as print, visual and electronic media (Bremner 2010b; Gunner 2003; Nuttall 2004, 2008; Mntambo 2009) have been conducted on the perception of Johannesburg, but few of these studies consider such modes of representation in
3 For a more in-depth understanding of Derrida‘s definition of the origins of the word, and function of, the archive, see Derrida‘s (1995) ―Archive Fever‖. Also see Derrida‘s (2002) discussion of South Africa‘s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in relation to his theory of the archive, which he provided during his talk at the ―Refiguring the Archive‖ conference held at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1998.
26 terms of how they can be viewed as sites of memory. As has been discussed previously, the city of Johannesburg has largely been viewed as a negative public space in social discourse. It is the purpose of this analysis to indicate that the texts considered, which are, like the city, also public space, come to form a more positive space, albeit the works‘ acknowledgement of the bad, in South African discourse. This is because, as Liz Gunner‘s (2005: 5) discussion of Manase‘s (2005) analysis of articles in Staffrider reveals, such works form ―a crucial space for counter discourses‖. This dissertation, then, can also be viewed as part of this discourse since it too is a consideration, and thus a memorial or record, of the memory of Johannesburg in discussing and contemplating the construction of this memory. In line with this argument, the theoretical framework surrounding the ways in which memory and space are, and should be, narrated needs to be considered.
Due to the complicated, conflictual nature of history and the fact that history is made up of and interpreted in terms of multiple voices and is also recorded in diverse forms, there are many views with regard to the effectiveness of such various means of preserving the past, especially concerning the reception of these in the present. According to Homi Bhabha (2004: ix), although the analysis of a text may be informed or shaped by history, it is essentially concerned with engaging with the present, or at least concerned with how history is narrated and interpreted in the present. Any text then, whether referring to past events or not, relies on its relationship to the present. To Bhabha (2004: ix), a book (or any cultural product) survives the passing of time by serving as a historical or theoretical archive. These books can thus be viewed as a type of archive of knowledge and come to signify an alternative type of record or preservation of events and memories in time.4 A text can thus be seen as a type of memorial in the same way that sculptures, buildings or photographs are.5 However, such texts are not only concerned with recording the past but are also interested in the impact that the past has on the present, and subsequently with providing an interaction with memory as it is located in present time and space. The central concern that needs to be considered here, then, is that the ways in which things are remembered
4 Robert J.C. Young (2001: ix) considers how various forms of texts, including photographs, can be viewed as a form or means of containment - as a tool for containing memory and the traces of traumatic events and change in order to ensure the presence and knowledge of this in the memory of others. 5 A text such as The Joburg Book edited by Nechama Brodie (2008), for example, considers and incorporates all of these representations in its makeup. The Joburg Book (Brodie 2008) is also advertised as ―[a] guide to the city‘s history, people & places‖ on its front cover, which underscores its consideration of multiple forms of records of the city.
27 depends on how they are ‗memorialised‘ in the present. As Efraim Sicher (2000: 59) states, ―[t]he past can be pliable and adaptable, fluid and opaque, polysemous and deconstructed, but it has achieved an importance which has shifted from remembrance of time to memorialization in sites of memory‖. I therefore argue that these sites of memory, such as the texts I consider, are essential not only with regard to remembering the past, but with creating a collective memory, or even identity, through recollection.
It is important to note then that the texts under consideration are not so much historical works or direct reflections of the workings of memory, but should instead (due to their negotiation with the present) be viewed as recollections of memory. This is because, as Boyarin (1992: 66) articulates,
‗Memory‘ is natural, so to speak, in an unreflecting and ‗happy‘ flow of generational continuity, now available only as a horizon of absence [while] ‗[r]ecollection‘ is the work of doubling back after the initial break, reconstructing, always retrieving and reassembling in new combinations fragments of the past which are the fragments of our selves. In reading the chosen texts as attempts to memorialise the past in the present, the fragmentary and thus unreliable nature of such recollection needs to be acknowledged. It is also evident from Boyarin‘s statement that the recollection of memory, and fragments of the past that form memory, are linked to how we construct identity. Thus identity, whether personal or collective, is constructed in the process of constructing, or rather reconstructing, memory of the past. In his discussion of Jewish history and collective identity, Boyarin (1992) maintains that by constructing history based on memory, identity begins to be established. Boyarin (1992) argues that history is essentially based on memory and, hence, that history is a collective construction of it. This construction of the past is influenced by, but also influences, both personal and collective identity. Boyarin (1992: 67) also states that ―[t]here is no ‗raw stuff‘ of history separate from articulated history, nothing out there that simply, objectively, ‗is‘ history prior to human conceptualization‖. Thus, there is always a link with the construction of history and memory and the establishment of identity. In the context of the argument of this chapter then, this link therefore means that a construction of history, which records transformation in society, and in this case the transformation of Johannesburg, will thus reflect a similar transformation in identity in that same society.
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This link helps to highlight the concept that narrating memory or history is involved with admitting to, and filling in, the gaps of the past – either in terms of an ambiguous or unreliable memory or with regard to the ‗other‘ who has been marginalised in both the events and discourses of history.6 Amy Novak (2004: 207) writes that as a result of these gaps, there is a need for the ―present to reconsider the text of history from the place of silence‖. This silence then can almost be viewed as the present itself, since the present is the space and time from which reconstruction can take place. However, Novak (2004: 216) goes on to state that
[c]reating a narrative of the past with the fragments of memories does not move the past towards coherency or closure. Rather, the translating act staged by memory ruptures the narrative, creating a spectral narrative economy that draws attention to the silences of the past. Only by refusing a stable and singular narrative structure can the present come close to listening to these silences. It is evident then that Novak (2004: 2008) understands ―the work of memory [... as] an act of ‗translation‘‖. If one thinks of memory as translation, then it should be acknowledged that such translation will have gaps and inaccuracies. This is because in the act of translation certain meaning will always be lost.7 Any translation never retains pure or complete accuracy. Furthermore, Novak (2004: 208) argues that there is an ―inability of memory to translate within the present direct stable information about the past‖ and asserts that the ―relationship of past to present is not solely one of causality, nor is the past finished and left behind‖. Regardless, although memory can never be translated precisely, the past, and the act of remembering that is responsible for its recollection, is experienced in the present. This is why a present narrative or discourse is needed in order to deal with the impact of the past on the present. A narrative written from the perspective of the present is important because, as Boyarin (1991b) argues, ―[s]ince time and space are both constantly being reinvented, we need to subject our inventions of them to constant questioning‖. This questioning can, for obvious reasons, only occur in the present. Similarly, Sicher (2000: 66), referring to Geoffrey Hartman‘s (1999) study of public memory, argues that ―[m]emory, which can be preserved only by being encoded in narratives whose meaning will endure, requires a narrating consciousness who makes sense out of the confusion of history and makes the reader imagine being there‖ (author‘s emphasis). In addition to the interpellation of the reader, narrating the past from the perspective of the present also ―partially
6 Robert J.C. Young (2004: 1), amongst many other postcolonial scholars, maintains that the fact that ―[h]istories can be told in many forms, argued in different ways, thought through from different perspectives‖ highlights new absences each time they are written or reconstructed. 7 See Walter Benjamin‘s (1968) discussion regarding the unreliable and imperfect nature of the act of translation.
29 constitutes the shape and meaning of memory‖ (Novak 2004: 209). Therefore, since memory is an activity that is enacted in and affected by the present, a narrative that considers the past from the standpoint of the present is necessary in order to mirror and communicate the act of remembering, as well as provide a contemporary understanding of events of the past. This is especially important in a country like South Africa, which is in the process of grappling with its present, and ongoing, transition and transformation from apartheid society to a post-apartheid democracy to the current post-transitional time period.
With regard to time-space concerns, Novak (2004: 211) writes that a ―narrative of memory contests the conviction that the past can be pinned down and acknowledges the ambiguity of the past‖. Narrating from the position of the present therefore enables recognition of the porous nature of the so-called distinct time-spaces of the past, present and future. Hence, one is made aware of the interconnections between the past and present. By narrating the past in the present, the past is made ‗unstrange‘ in fiction (Novak 2004: 225), thereby facilitating another site from which to understand history. In fact, Novak (2004: 212) is adamant that there is no other means of expressing the past: she argues that ―conventional ways of representing the past enact a trauma upon the text of history‖ (Novak 2004: 212). The necessity of a present narrative, or any literary or fictional technique for that matter, is thus of utmost importance in representing the past and recollecting and reconstructing memory. This is because ―[m]emory remains within the realm of the symbol – in the conversation involving different, discursively produced viewpoints – without exposing the universality of that realm as a necessary and groundless fiction‖ (Eisenstein 1999: 21). Thus, memory can only be communicated through imaginative works. This standpoint is further underscored by the fact that ―writing, texts, and reading operate as systems of symbolic exchange‖ (Leibsohn 1994: 90), where the author, reader and critic always already come to the text with their own histories, past, memories and experience before engaging with the text. With regard to the texts considered in this study, I argue that imagination is always at play, constantly facilitating creation and engagement with the construction of an understanding of the past from memory in the present.
Sicher (2000: 57) uses the term ‗postmemory‘, a word Marianne Hirsch (1997: 22) makes use of, to refer to the idea that history and the past can only be accessed through imagination, which acknowledges that memory is always incomplete and mediated by the stories, lives and
30 recollections of others. In his discussion of memorialising the Holocaust, Sicher (2000: 57) uses this idea of ‗postmemory‘ to question what kind of memory and identity representations of this history such memorials help to create. Sicher‘s (2000: 57) argument appears to be that reconstructing the past imaginatively through fiction encourages a more objective, distanced representation and reading of history; a representation that accounts for the fragmented, conflictual nature of memory and which, in effect, enables a more ‗fair‘ re-examination of history due to its recognition of multiplicity. This fairness is further underscored by the fact that works of fiction are not always read in terms of whether they reflect accurate historical ‗truth‘.8 Kearney (2007: 55) also underscores the role of fiction in enabling society to deal with past events in his statement that ―[m]yths enable us to experience certain otherwise inexperienced experiences – that is, events that were too painful to be properly registered at the time but which can, après coup, be allowed into expression indirectly, fictionally, ‗as if‘ they were happening‖ (author‘s emphasis). Postmemory, or the imaginative reconstruction of the past in the present, is thus a very important means of archiving memory as it reflects the ways in which memories and experiences of the past are influenced or mediated by time, space as well as the stories of others. Fictional works that consider or reflect rudiments of memory and the past are interspersed with these conflicting elements and in effect, reveal themselves to be works of postmemory regardless of any overt reference to actual events or people. In this sense, the works considered in this dissertation are works of postmemory, as events in the texts are narrated as if they are taking place in the present time space in which the reader reads them. Thus, although these works do not deal with absolute historical truth, they are constructed in a manner that fictionally reconstructs a history of the city of Johannesburg, which imitates the sporadic nature of memory.
However, it is essential to note that the reconstruction of the past incorporates invented memory in order to memorialise both events and identity. In this way, novels that consider the past (fictional or real) from the position of a fictional present, develop into texts concerned with the recovery of lost spaces – of a lost past, memory, identity and also lost time and space. Such narratives thus become a space of sharing (Rapport & Hartill 2010: 22). Frances Rapport and Graham Hartill‘s (2010: 22) discussion of Holocaust memory and testimony helps to indicate how fictional storytelling assists in memorialising the past from a position of the present and the
8 Unless when taking a new historicist approach to literature, which considers the interplay between the text and its historical context (See Abrams 2005: 190-197).
31 way in which this aids understanding with regard to the historical present. They argue that testifying to experiences of the Holocaust
is both social interaction and social history [that] makes relevant the past by giving personal relevance to the present, and through the storytelling process, offers participants new self- understanding and self-awareness that are transformative for the storyteller, researcher and audience alike (Rapport & Hartill 2010: 22). This emphasises the idea that memory and identity have been, and always need to be, tied to time and space in order to remain relevant in social history. Sicher (2000: 70), also writing on remembering and memorialising the Holocaust, stresses that this type of time-space recording of memory is a crucial element in bridging the gap between knowledge regarding generational history and experience and the transmission of narratives of identity to future generations.9 Sicher (2000: 70) maintains that ―identity needs to be anchored in a time and place, a country of the mind which reclaims as one‘s own the past that has been violated or erased‖. The past therefore needs to be reusable, a word which immediately suggests present usage (Pierre Nora in Sicher 2000: 70), in order to be successfully memorialised. Thus, how and what we remember depends on the time and space in which we choose to take part in this remembrance. This argument is supported by Bertram Cohler (2011:1) who draws attention to the understanding that narratives of memory and the experiences of the past, and the meaning attached to these, ―changes over both the time and the place in which these [...] are written and read‖. This is of particular significance in the context of analysing contemporary South African transitional texts as these works consider the past, namely the experiences of apartheid, in a space and time after this past. Such works therefore contemplate history from a post-apartheid and even post post- apartheid standpoint and thus from a time space that is itself in transition. The recognition of this assists in highlighting the way in which such texts narrate the past from a different time frame from which these events took place. This, in turn, underscores that these narratives are influenced and determined by the understanding of past events and experiences in, and through, these changing temporal and spatial frames. Reading the chosen texts in this study from this perspective thus enables an understanding of these works in terms of how their narratives – and the thematic concerns that are used to memorialise the city of Johannesburg as it existed in the
9 Similarly, Boyarin‘s (1991b, 2002) studies also ground identity in metaphors of territory, time and space.
32 past – are mediated by present time-space issues. This, in turn, reflects a concern with mapping transition in the present for the purposes of recording memory of the city.
Yet, since ―it is through narrative that memory is inscribed‖ (Sicher 2000: 60), the reception and understanding of such texts also depends on how and by whom the past is remembered. Seeing memory as being constructed by narratives incorporates personal and collective identity and the readjustment of these. A text that considers historical memory therefore comes to be viewed as a creation and search for identity through memorialising. According to Sicher (2000: 60), in the case of narrating memory, the personal and national story are always connected since ―there is no division between the public and private narratives of formative events when the collective identity inscribed in the rituals and texts of memorialization is scorched by family or personal memory‖. Again, it becomes evident that narratives of memory, regardless of whether they are fictional or historical, are always tied to identity. Consequently, it is imperative to note that storytelling involves reconstructing the self. In addition, since self-identity depends on the determination of what is remembered, how and by whom, this, in effect, ultimately influences collective identity (Sicher 2000: 80). This is beneficial though since ―[i]t is the shared practice of recollecting the past that dialogically leads to an ever revised understanding of the past within the present‖ (Cohler 2011: 4). It is thus not only the reader‘s understanding or relationship to a text that creates this understanding or representation of the past, but also the interpretive practices of the originators of this dialogue (Boyarin 1991b). With regard to the argument of this chapter then, it is important to note that the memory of the city being constructed in the texts considered both influences and is influenced by several identities and beliefs. For example, influences include those of individual identities such as the author, the reader and critic (such as myself), as well as broader collective identities for example, particular racial, cultural or gender groups, as well as national South African identity. As sites of the memory of Johannesburg, then, the texts discussed in this dissertation illustrate this relationship and interconnection with personal and collective identity and the impact that such identity has on the recollection and reconstruction of memory.
Conclusively, a recollection of the past inspires further discourse. In relation to this public discourse, Bremner (2010b: 240) asserts that the term ‗Post-apartheid‘ refers to both a desire to distance ourselves from the past but also to remember it, to recognise its crucial impact on the
33 present. Again, it becomes evident that this dissertation, in considering post-apartheid representations of the memory of Johannesburg from the standpoint of the present, also forms a part of this discourse. In her article entitled ―Memory, Nation-Building and the Post-Apartheid City: The Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg‖, Bremner (2010b: 240) discusses the role of architecture in the present with regard to ―memory-making‖ and dealing with its ―relationship to a conflictual and divided past‖. This role of architecture can be extended to any cultural or art form (such as the texts considered in this dissertation as well as this dissertation itself) with regard to how such creations enable the telling of the multiple stories in South Africa inherent in Johannesburg. Bremner (2010b: 249) further considers how the design and structure of such creations become responsible for styling apartheid memory in a certain way, thus intimating that ―[a]partheid memory belongs, in a sense, to [the creators] more than it belongs to the collective‖. In analysing the Apartheid Museum, which is situated adjacent to Johannesburg‘s Gold Reef City theme park, Bremner (2010b: 249) also notes that ―very few material objects ‗presence‘ the past‖. She argues that apartheid is almost always considered ―at a distance‖ and is concerned that ―very few individual stories are told‖ (Bremner 2010b: 249). Her argument thus seems to be that problems arise due to objectifying apartheid as there is danger in simply understanding it as something purely in the past. She explains that the ―problem with museological apartheid is that it obscures the fact that apartheid is not dead‖ and asserts that as apartheid‘s memory solidifies, its ongoing history needs to be traced‖ (Bremner 2010b: 249). In fact, post-apartheid, transitional literature in general is still very much concerned with the relics of apartheid. Johan Geertsema (2007: 2) argues that ―Apartheid is still a major presence in texts produced during the transition, as surely cannot but be the case given its persisting legacy‖. Geertsema (2007: 2-3) further maintains that this contemporary, transitional fiction is
a literature of passage, passing and the past. It makes explicit the struggle through the passage from an unjust system, through a difficult present, and into a new, uncertain future; often, it is a passing into death; these passages, finally, are marked by the attempt to deal with and come to terms with the past. These transitional texts are thus essentially about time, about history and how the nation‘s desire to overcome an unforgivable past should not necessarily be about forgetting or obliterating the memory of this important history. Notably, Geertsema (2007) asserts that all literature is concerned with the past. He states that
34
[l]iterature is a way of dealing with history, of coming to terms with the inaccessible otherness of time that has passed and therefore is the past [...] It is a textual mediation of the past, a passage towards the future through the past (Geertsema 2007: 8, author‘s emphasis).
It is the contention of this chapter to show how contemporary South African transitional fiction does this by tracing the country‘s ongoing history by means of representations of the city of Johannesburg.
Before this discussion however, issues that arise with regard to the arguments established concerning narratives of memory need to be acknowledged. Firstly, there is the problematics of language. One is subjective while writing and reading. Authors, readers and critics all need to be aware of the ―transformative effects of language, effects that open onto the themes of subjectivity, pleasure and desire‖ (Leibsohn 1994: 90). Also, as Eisenstein (1999: 12) states,
[e]very historical narrative appears now, to use Hayden White‘s10 familiar term, an emplotment, and every artistic representation must be regarded not as the product of an essential, transhistorical vision but rather as the product of a limited, discursive, subject position. History, so the saying goes, has become memory.
Similarly, Sicher (2000: 81) notes that ―[a]ll narratives of past events require emplotment to tell their story and therefore are subject to interpretive judgment of their truth value‖. The passage and passing of time also affects how one remembers events. As stated previously, fiction is also a work of imagination; hence, stories are not necessarily to be taken as truth. The novels studied in this dissertation are not personal or historical memoirs, such as letters, diaries or journals, and thus do not claim to be factual records or documents of history and memory. Fictional narratives of memory simply add to the diversity of history and do not claim to be truth. In relation to this, Eisenstein (1999: 12) maintains that there is a movement away from knowing or learning history by means of master-narratives to an understanding of the past based on a plurality of narratives. There is thus a crucial need to acknowledge difference. This is imperative since a reconsideration of history is needed from the perspective of the groups that were previously excluded or ignored from this history, especially when we consider that such narration is not only tied to personal identity, but also collective identity as well. This is of particular importance in the case of South Africa, which appears to only have two distinct types of narratives of collective or national identity: ―The first of these is that of resistance, struggle and triumph – a narrative of loss,
10 White (1987) defines ―emplotment‖ as the reformulation of historical events and memories into narrative form, which has a certain plot.
35 heroism, and victory [...] The second is a narrative of forgiveness and reconciliation‖ (Bremner 2010b: 242). However, analysing texts in the manner of such multifarious diversity becomes problematic as it brings the concept of history into question, causing one to query the nature of ‗truth‘ itself (Young 2001: 390). In chapter two of this dissertation, I provide a more in-depth discussion of gendered perspectives in this regard.
Due to the conflictual nature of history, there is also a certain responsibility involved, especially on behalf of authors in the creation and reception of imaginative works dealing with the past and memory (Sicher 2000: 84). There are always risks involved when working with memory, one of these being the risk of fetishising the past. In narratives of memory, the past often becomes objectified or fetishised, which tends to encourage nostalgia and also either a blatant hatred or disregard for historic events. This fetishisation results in an insistence upon the reclamation of the past or an obsession with constantly looking backwards, which, in turn, affects any possibility for progress in the present. There are also always questionable issues with regard to a writer or interpreter‘s social motivation or agenda in terms of what their aims are in writing or critiquing a text, as well as the framework of understanding on the part of the reader.11 Problems could also arise with regard to readers in the case that if they do not live in the place or time- period in which these memories are narrated from, they are strangers to the story and can be distanced from its content and message not only in terms of knowledge, but time and space as well. Furthermore, Kearney (2007: 63) writes that ―[h]istory-making and story-telling can just as easily result in propaganda and distortion as in healing and release‖. Texts, like museums, which Bremner (2010b: 240-241) discusses, are thus not neutral with regard to reflecting, interpreting or housing memory. In fact, Bremner (2010b: 241) maintains that when history is memorialised, some aspects of the past are chosen to be remembered, leaving others to be forgotten or erased. This, then, links back to the role of narrating memory in the formation of identity because these memorial sites are ―partial memory, a formalised agreement between past and present‖ and can thus be viewed as ―site[s] in which past, present and future intersect, enabling us, as individuals and societies, to construct and anchor our identities and envision our future‖ (Bremner 2010b: 241).
11 Boyarin (1991b, 2002) for instance, considers barriers to interpretive access.
36
According to Richard Tomlinson, Robert Beauregard, Lindsay Bremner, and Xolela Mangcu (2003: xi), the way in which South Africa‘s premier industrial city, Johannesburg, is viewed or develops is perceived as ―indicative of the success or failure‖ of the country as a whole. This is because, since Johannesburg is considered to be the economic and business centre of South Africa, the city‘s achievements and downfalls reflect on the state or progress of the country, its rulers and citizens. The representation of this success or failure thus becomes very important in terms of how the progression of the city after its past (and still relatively present and ongoing) struggle against apartheid is portrayed. Manase (2007) writes that the way in which Johannesburg is imagined affects our image and memory of the nation. As the ―site of many of the most important struggles against apartheid‖ (Tomlinson et al. 2003: xi), Johannesburg has become the signifier of South Africa‘s desire to move on from its painful history. The success or failure of Johannesburg and thus South Africa does not simply only depend on the restructuring of institutions, economics and politics. Rather, Tomlinson et al. (2003: xi) argue that
[t]he forging of these institutions is more than a matter of allocating resources and organising tasks, it also requires a shift in the way we think about cities. Discourses and representations have to change with material conditions, if not before. The city has to be reimagined in ways that both remember the past and resist the modernist logics of states and capitalist markets. Similarly, Henri Lefebvre (1991) has expressed the importance of reflecting social change in cultural expressions. One way in which we can shift how the city of Johannesburg, and by extension South Africa is viewed, theorists note, is by exploring and presenting Johannesburg differently to how it has been portrayed in the past12 – ―as an African city, leaving behind its Euro-American focus of the apartheid years‖ (Tomlinson et al. 2003: 276). Furthermore, Johannesburg needs to be depicted in terms of the everyday lives its residents lead and representations of the city need to deviate from focusing merely on political and economic concerns. There is thus a call for contemporary texts dealing with Johannesburg to move away from replicating portrayals of the city as it was in the past, and rather to focus on what it is now. Bremner (2010b: 262) argues that ―writers have used the city and its transformation as one of the key tropes through which to interrogate post-apartheid society‖. The image of the city can thus be said to highlight essential characteristics and concerns of post-apartheid South Africa. With regard to how the city reflects time concerns, Nuttall and Mbembe (2008: 17) note that all metropolises are caught up in an ambiguous time-space situation. They write that in city spaces
12 Refer to chapter one for a more in-depth discussion regarding past depictions of the city.
37 there is always ―ceaseless birth, destruction, and reconstruction of forms, the aim of which is, on the one hand to, distinguish nature and landscape, and on the other hand to testify to the presentness of the past while making way for the ‗new‘‖ (Nuttall & Mbembe 2008: 17). Nuttall and Mbembe (2008: 17) further maintain that these characteristics are all evident in Johannesburg ―at different phases of its history‖, emphasising the necessity of a present narrative of the city that acknowledges these different phases and changes.
Tomlinson et al. (2003: xi) also write that ―[t]here are now as many Johannesburgs as there are cultural identities. Each group experiences the city differently and all of these differences are valid‖. The way Johannesburg is written and memorialised, then, needs to account for such multiplicity. One of the effects of narrating such fragmentation in the city is that ―the notion of a homogenized, holistic and a totalizing experience of the city is not simply challenged but subverted‖ and hence, ―[s]uch a position makes it possible for the experience of a city to be inscribed with subjectivity‖ (Mntambo 2009: 16). The texts that I consider can be seen as three different views and recollections of lives and experiences in the city, regardless of their similarities. While acknowledging this diversity of experience in city space, Mbembe (2008: 63) notes that the fact that ―the fabric of the racial city‖ is being destroyed in the present enables people to construct their own stories, retellings and memory of place. Mbembe (2008: 63) maintains that ―[t]he rupture between the racist past and the metropolitan present, between here and there and between memories of things and events, renders possible the production of new figural forms and calls into play a chain of substitutions‖. Fragmented and multiple stories are thus necessary to represent this active reconstruction of memory (Mbembe 2008: 63-64). These multiple stories also underscore the ambiguous time-space situation in Johannesburg, which is, according to Mbembe (2008: 64), ―made up of different layers of historical time superimposed on one other‖. Mbembe (2008: 64) also writes that in times of change and transformation ―these layers [...] become elusive and precarious‖. During such times, architecture and design then tend to become acts of forgetting (Mbembe 2008: 64). The novels I discuss represent a way of counteracting this forgetting since the texts appear to create their own, separate, distinct sense of time and space of memory – an ‗other‘ time and an ‗other‘ space, which is focused on the impact of events of the past as well as the continuous presence of the past. I therefore argue that these texts create a sense of a unique, personal and collective history. This is especially since fiction is capable of recomposing, reinterpreting and reinventing history but also because these texts tell
38 the everyday histories or stories of individuals, their ancestors and communities, regardless of being fictional.
Also of importance is that Johannesburg not only serves as a symbol of the past, but also as a metaphor for the changes needed in South Africa (Tomlinson et al. 2003: 277). The memory of events in South Africa and the city of Johannesburg have been altered due to societal changes and political transformation and our memorials need to be transformed in a similar manner. Our perception of Johannesburg and how we remember it in history needs to be altered as changes take place in society. In other words, transformation taking place in the country needs to be replicated in our cultural works. This is because the way in which the past is remembered affects the discourse surrounding it. It is imperative to note that language and the terms used to recollect the past affect how things are remembered and therefore shape and define the memory of both the city and the country. This, in turn, has certain effects on popular memory since the manner in which the past is told enables people to think about and deal with their history (Wilson 2009: 254). Narrative representation is thus of utmost importance because ―it is through narratives that a group‘s history, memory, pain and trauma are recognized and are seen to be accepted‖ (Wilson 2009: 254). The representation of Johannesburg from the perspective of the narrative present is thus essential since such a narrative standpoint works to construct the present memory of the city based on the viewpoint of a present space and time, thus enabling the production of both an individual and collective identity of contemporary Johannesburg, South Africa.
The narrative structure of the novels I consider, all appear to reflect the construction and recollection of memory, as all three can be considered as non-linear narratives. The texts are also all concerned with constructing the individual or collective self, which, as discussed previously, is tied to, and results from, the narratives and discourses of memory. This is further evident in the fact that all three texts discussed imitate the form of either biography (Welcome to Our Hillbrow) or autobiography (Room 207 and The Restless Supermarket), or elements of both, which are modes of life-writing that are involved with the construction of the self as well as the community in which this self is formed. In South Africa, autobiographies and other forms of personal writing have been centred on the drama and stories of South Africa‘s experience of apartheid and its journey towards democracy (Harris 2002b: 1). During apartheid in particular,
39
the terrain of social memory, as with all social space, was a site of struggle. In the crudest sense this was a struggle of remembering against forgetting, of oppositional memory fighting a life-and- death struggle against a systematic forgetting engineered by the state (Harris 2002b: 1).
Autobiographies written during apartheid were therefore often written as a means of remembering and expressing the experiences, views and memories of those who were marginalised and oppressed by the state. In this way then, an autobiography is, in a sense, very similar to Jacques Derrida‘s (1995) notion of the ‗archive‘ because, as Verne Harris (2002b: 4) states (summarising Derrida), archives speak ―to [one] through the specificities of particular relations of power and societal dynamics‖ and ―at once express and are instruments of prevailing relations of power‖ (Harris 2002a: 63). Autobiographies may therefore be seen as attempts to create an archive of memory, as a means of asserting, re-establishing or re-ordering relations of power in society. Imitations of such modes of narration will thus share similar characteristics.13 However, the texts discussed in this dissertation are not so much concerned with subverting power relations, but rather with reflecting what and how these relations are played out in everyday life.
According to Harris (2002b: 4), social memory is characterised by a struggle of ―narrative against narrative, story against story‖. Since none of the texts considered here are linear narratives (they are all structured in terms of looking back and forth between the past and present), they imitate the natural workings of memory and thus highlight the existence of multiple voices and stories evident in the construction of history. Also, although the texts I discuss are imaginary, fictional constructs of memory, they reflect the hesitancy inherent in the articulation of memory and, as a result, mirror the shifting and discontinuous nature of history. Already in the title of The Restless Supermarket, the reader is provided with an indication of the fragmentation involved in the construction of memory or narration of the past and memory. This is because the title refers to Tearle‘s observation of the incorrect use of the word ‗restless‘ in a supermarket‘s name. Tearle tries to explain to the manager of this store that the word ‗restless‘ means something entirely different to what the manager is trying to convey – that the store is open for 24 hours a day (Vladislavić 2001: 83-84). The title of the novel then emphasises that the relationship between language and meaning is not always clear-cut and, in effect, indicates that the text is about experimenting with this meaning and understanding and revealing the
13 Sicher (2000: 80-82) discusses how the differences regarding content or the ‗truth‘ factor in defining or distinguishing between works such as biography, autobiography and memoirs and fiction are often blurred.
40 construction of this. The structure of these narratives is also important in that it underscores the fact that time, space and memory are fragmented, porous, permeable and, hence, cannot be represented or related in a structured, chronological fashion. Such a mode of narration is therefore essential in attempts to memorialise the past. This is emphasised by Wilson (2009: 254- 255) who, in comparing the use of linear narrative to alternative forms for memorialising the events of the Western Front between 1914-1918, writes that although ―the linear chronological narrative remains essential in much of historical discourse‖ in order to map events in terms of chronological time as they occurred, ―[s]uch a position inevitably prohibits a consideration of the effect the events [of the past] have on contemporary society, it neglects the overwhelming public response to continue talking about the events and it closes off the past‖. In this regard, The Restless Supermarket draws attention to the fact that memory is a construction in terms of its narrative time frame as Tearle narrates the story of his experiences from the point of view of the present in order to relay events of his life in the past. Furthermore, The Restless Supermarket, which is narrated by a white male, also seems to imitate the voice of the ‗official‘ history laid out in apartheid records, which, according to Harris (2002a: 68, 69, 73), privileged the voices of mainly white, Afrikaans people. However, Tearle‘s narrative eventually breaks down as it is interrupted by the stories and opinions of others. This, then, subverts the idea of a singular construction of official history, as well as the notion of a single national identity, and at the same time mirrors the breakdown of the city.
In addition to replicating the non-linear framework of memory, the difficulty experienced in recording memory, a topic most post-modern texts often deal with (Sicher 2000: 80-82), is also reflected in the structure of the novels. This use of fragmented narrative is important in my discussion as it not only reflects the disjointed nature of memory, but also mirrors the fragmented nature of the city. The structures of the novels thus underscore the impossibility of retelling stories of the past, as well as the difficulty in defining the city as a result of this. In The Restless Supermarket, as Tearle‘s narrative is broken down, this reflects his loss of signifiers for what Johannesburg used to represent (controlled civilisation and progress, which is associated with proper language use) as opposed to what it represents now (disintegration and chaos, emphasised by the grammar errors that begin to appear more frequently in the city as time passes). The breaking down of Tearle‘s narrative occurs especially through the constant interruption of the voices and stories of the other characters in the novel, which serve to undermine Tearle‘s
41 authority and reliability. For example, other characters draw attention to Tearle‘s faults and racist, stereotypical views and disagree with his desire to correct everything according to his seemingly self-righteous standards. Spilkin, for instance, remarks that Tearle‘s ―obsession with raising [others] up to [his] level shows exactly how little [Tearle] think[s] of [others]‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 259) and confesses that Tearle‘s ―European affectations were always nauseating‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 260). In this way, the fact that there is never only one, single view or understanding of space, time and memory is revealed. This is further evident in Spilkin‘s accusation that Tearle has ―a memory like a sieve. [He] shake[s] out the bits that don‘t suit [him]‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 260), as this comment underscores the subjective quality of memory and understanding. Tearle‘s narrative therefore maps the memory of Johannesburg, and South Africa by extension, by means of a metaphor of the breakdown of not only language but meaning and understanding in general as well. What Tearle deems to be the grave destruction of Hillbrow, Johannesburg as he has known it, leads him to reconstruct his story of what he thinks the city should be through what he calls the ―The Proofreader‘s Derby‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 183-228), a document in which participants would be required to correct grammar errors in a story about the restoration of an imaginary city called Alibia that very much resembles Johannesburg. The structure of the narrative in this novel thus seems to be a comment on the failure of language to serve as a true record of history as well as the limitations of memory with regard to conveying a truth of experience. The fact that this narrative is interspersed with the stories of others, as well as the idea that anyone who wishes to participate in The Proofreader‘s Derby can assist in ‗correcting‘ the text, and the city of Johannesburg by extension, also emphasises that memory and history are constructed. This is because there are multiple voices who participate in forming the memory of both Tearle‘s story and the reconstruction of the memory of Johannesburg. However, the story of the ―The Proofreaders Derby‖ in the novel also depicts a colonial fantasy of the existence of only one authorial voice in history (Peters 2009: 49). This is reflected in Tearle‘s desire to be the one authority in terms of matters relating to correct grammar, as well as the implied belief that English is the only acceptable and accurate means of communication and order. Yet, the novel also possesses magical realist elements, which disrupts this view (Peters 2009: 49). Hence, this story becomes an allegory for apartheid, emphasising its fragility and thus encouraging an acceptance of alternative world views (Peters 2009: 49). Furthermore, the
42 structure of the text emphasises that the text itself exists in a liminal state as the lack of closure indicates what is taking place in the city and country (Marais 2002: 114-115).
Although Moele‘s Room 207 is also narrated in the present, similar to The Restless Supermarket, David Chislett (2008), in his review of the book, states that it
is visceral and chooses not to obey too man[y] of the traditional literary tenets when it comes to story telling, plot and linear progression. Instead it is as Hillbrow is: manic, kaleidoscopic, and sometimes violent. Our narrator tells his stories and those of his friends with passionate detachment, lurching slowly towards the point where enough is enough is enough already. The structure of this narrative thus also reflects the fragmented nature of memory but at the same time depicts the disjointed state of the city as well. This is further emphasised in the narrator‘s rapid use of speech, which vacillates between fast-paced recollections of parties and the social scene of the city and slower, more lethargic descriptions of conditions of poverty, which serves to capture the energy of the city as well as its deterioration and waste. Like The Restless Supermarket, Room 207 also alludes to the act of recording history and memory. This is emphasised in the epigraph of the novel, which refers to the autobiographical fiction of T.E Lawrence. Lawrence‘s Seven Pillars of Wisdom is his own personal account of his experiences during the historical events that occurred in the Middle East during the Arab Revolt against the Turkish Ottoman Empire between 1916 and 1918, and has been defined as a fictional novel parading as autobiography (Hill 2010: 8). The use of this epigraph thus indicates that Moele‘s text intends to embark on a similar account of experience, albeit a different topic, of war against, not the Ottoman Empire like Lawrence‘s text but, one could say, the injustices of South Africa‘s apartheid past. In addition to this, the narrative also indicates a memorialising of the city from the viewpoint of the present by means of imitating the language and lifestyle of those who inhabit the city. Sam Raditlhalo (2007), considering Bheki Peterson‘s analysis of the novel, writes that
Peterson shows how, unlike Senegalese youth, who will riot when there is no state employment open to them, South African youth, stuck between an immediate past where, for many, very little meaningful education was possible, and a ‗transitional‘ present where the ‗fruits‘ of post- apartheid society seem a rumour by the upper classes, young blacks in the ghetto use the notion of hustling, ‗ukupanda‘, or to ‗make life‘ as their armour.
Room 207‘s frenzied narrative, which seems to be stuck between this very past and present, thus reflects this life of the hustler in the city in its structure, pace and rhythm. This is further
43 underscored in the use of local slang terms, which evoke the tough lifestyle of a hustler and emphasise the creation of a ‗new‘ language to reflect a developing existence in the city. Another way in which the narrative reflects its engagement with the present is through the depiction of the character‘s preoccupation with the present. Both Molamo and Matome express the need to focus on the now, although they have different opinions on what one should think of the past. While Matome tells the narrator to forget the past and only focus on the present – he states that ―We are here now, forget the past, and think about now, today and tomorrow, which is where we are going. You can only say sorry about the past, and it doesn‘t matter whether you are sorry or not. It has passed‖ (Moele 2006: 25), Molamo‘s favourite quotations, which he pastes on the wall of room 207, emphasise the continuous relationship with and interlinkage of the past, present and future – the quotations ―We are the people of the day before yesterday‖ and ―You should have twenty rands that you used the day before yesterday and used yesterday, use it for today and still use it tomorrow and all the other tomorrows‖ (Moele 2006: 19) indicate that the past is always impacting on the present and can never be forgotten.
Mpe‘s Welcome To Our Hillbrow, although also narrated in the present but looking back to the past, differs from the other texts discussed as these past events are narrated from heaven, from which the narrator comments on the lives of the inhabitants of Hillbrow with reference to their activities both in the past and present. The narrative, therefore, seems to imitate the state of limbo that the city of Johannesburg and its residents appear to be trapped in: like the city of Johannesburg, which seems to be wedged between its traumatic past and its uncertain present and future, the narrative structure of Welcome To Our Hillbrow fluctuates between life and death, between the events of the past on Earth and how these are viewed in the present in Heaven. Unlike the other novels, Welcome To Our Hillbrow is also written in second person narration. The effect of this is that it engages the reader in the community (Clarkson 2005: 451) and the reader thus takes part in constructing the memory and identity of Hillbrow, Johannesburg. This is further emphasised in the use of the word ―Our‖ in the novel‘s title. This serves to distance but also simultaneously incorporate the reader into the construction of who ‗we‘ (the residents of Johannesburg as well as South Africa) are. Thus the answerability extends to the reader as well (Clarkson 2005: 452). It can then be said that the disjointed structure of these novels also highlights how the issues involved with remembering the past affect how the self, collective and other are defined or created. These identities are no longer clear-cut in post-
44 apartheid South Africa as the constructed boundaries and identities established during apartheid are continuously being broken down. This type of fragmented narrative is therefore necessary to emphasise this. It is essential to note though that ―[t]he quest for identity within the fluidity of memory, however, itself forms a narrative of self-definition and is the beginning of coming to terms with the past in ways that are meaningful for the future‖ (Sicher 2000: 84). This self- definition, in turn, affects, and is affected by, collective identity and memory since the relationship between collective and individual identities are reciprocal – the individual is ultimately influenced by the socially constructed collective and vice versa. Individual and collective memory are thus connected (Cohler 2011: 3) and this, in effect, shows the influence or effects of constructing memory on others.
In Welcome To Our Hillbrow then, the word ―Our‖ in the title and all through the novel, as well as the constant use of the collective pronouns ―us‖, ―we‖ and even ―them‖ and ―they‖ throughout the text also implies an attempt to create a collection of memories and experiences of a certain collective – the residents of Hillbrow, Johannesburg. This is because the use of such pronouns ―call[s] up expectations of a community‖ (Clarkson 2005: 455). However, there is a continuous interchange between the use of ―I‖, ―you‖ and ―we‖ throughout the narration, which indicates the various standpoints and views from which memorialisation can take place at the same time as showing an understanding of the individual self as a crucial component of cultural continuity and community (Clarkson 2005: 453). Furthermore, Welcome to Our Hillbrow also shows a consciousness of the ways in which memory is constructed by being presented in the form of an elegy. The novel is narrated almost as an elegiac address to both Refentše (since he has passed away) and the reader (as the reader is incorporated into the text through the use of pronouns such as ―our‖, ―we‖ and even ―you‖). An elegy, in itself, is about remembering and therefore the imitation of this form of writing shows that the novel‘s content also considers the act of memorialisation. It is evident then that the narrative structure of these texts reflects not only the faulty nature of constructing history and memory, but also the fragmented state of the city of Johannesburg in the present. This therefore constructs and recomposes the image and memory of the city by imitating the form in which the past is remembered and memorialised. This, in effect, indicates the presence of the past as the texts continuously mirror and consider the impact of the past on the present and the ways in which these events are cemented in memory and history.
45
In addition to reflecting the act of memorialisation in structure, the texts I analyse also attempt to map the presentness of the past in terms of recording the transformation of South Africa by depicting its biggest industrialised city, Johannesburg, as a site of memory. In the texts, the city is given shape in some of the most dangerous and dirty places, indicating a concern with memorialising lost spaces and the recovery of these. Mapping and remembering are linked in the novels, indicating an awareness of the impact and importance of remembering the past in the present. One of the ways in which this is achieved is through the continuous reference to existing street names in the novels and the emphasis placed on naming these. In the event that the streets retain their original names that were established during apartheid, the texts indicate a reworking or remapping of these iconic apartheid streets, transforming how these have previously been used and perceived. In The Restless Supermarket, Hillbrow‘s street names and landmark buildings remain the same, while the rest of Johannesburg seems to be in a constant state of movement. For example, although Errol and Floyd (fellow customers at Tearle‘s favourite coffee shop the Café Europa) steal the miniature replica of the Hillbrow Tower from Miniland, the real tower stays very much intact, much to Tearle‘s great relief: he laments that ―At least the Hillbrow Tower was still there, the real thing I mean, ugly as it is‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 122). The streets also retain their original names in Room 207 and Welcome to Our Hillbrow and buildings such as Ponte remain the signifiers of Johannesburg (Moele 2006: 160). This apparent stasis is very significant, since as Richard Samin (2009) states, ―the names of places [and perhaps the places themselves] [...] still sometimes carry connotations of the past‖. The reference to real streets and places in fictional representations of the city of Johannesburg thus emphasises the texts‘ concern with narrating and memorialising the past in the present. However, these same apartheid streets are shown to be used very differently in the present. In The Restless Supermarket, Tearle‘s narration highlights how black people are now able to use the public space of the city and its streets, an act previously prohibited due to the establishment of separate amnesties for white and black people as well as pass laws that restricted black people‘s freedom of movement in the city. For example, Tearle constantly thinks back to the ‗good old days‘ when there were ―benches for whites only‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 15) in the city parks and cafés in the street (Vladislavić 2001: 16) and seems upset that everyone is now able to use city space equally. In Welcome to Our Hillbrow and Room 207, it is black characters who walk the city‘s streets, mapping its transformation through the very act of being able to do something that would previously have not
46 been allowed or restricted. For instance, when Refentsè walks past Hillbrow Police Station in Welcome to Our Hillbrow, he takes ―only minimal interest‖ in it (Mpe 2001: 11). This is significant since black people would have avoided coming close to any police station during apartheid for fear of being asked for a pass or being arrested for any minor infringement of apartheid law. Similarly in Room 207, the narrator and his friends are depicted as being able to move freely and live anywhere in the city they wish or are able to.14
Furthermore, the texts also provide different itineraries of the city since each text maps different routes for the reader to follow. These ‗itineraries‘ of the city thus provide a mapping of the city in terms of the life of this urban space in the present, as they enable the reader to ‗walk‘ through, experience and even recreate the streets and everyday happenings of the city as it is and occurs from the time-space in which these texts have been written. Nduka Mntambo (2009: 27) discusses Nuttall‘s (2004: 743) analysis of Welcome To Our Hillbrow within which she notes that ―Mpe‘s writing of the city captures [...] a revised inventory of the city, comprising a path along its streets, and breaching historical constructions of the city space‖. The line ―come up with your own story‖ (Mpe 2001: 6) addressed to Refentše as he arrives in Hillbrow in Welcome To Our Hillbrow is especially important with regard to this argument as it refers to the construction of a new memory of place, which is reflected in the mapping of the city space and streets in which he walks. Similarly, the paths the characters walk in the city in The Restless Supermarket and Room 207 also provide present itineraries of the city as the trails these characters choose to walk outline the ways in which the city of Johannesburg is lived in and experienced in transitional South Africa.15 For example, while the routes mapped out for the reader in Room 207 provide a view of life in the city from the perspective of young black men struggling to make a decent living in the city, the course Tearle travels through the city in The Restless Supermarket presents an itinerary of the city based on an older, seemingly racist, white male‘s standpoint. The depiction of these different itineraries thus provides the reader with
14 This is most evident in the ‗hustler‘ lives that the characters lead, as discussed previously, which provides them with a sense of independence, power and freedom. 15 Vladislavić‘s Portrait with Keys (2006) takes this idea of providing the reader with an itinerary of Johannesburg‘s streets to a greater level. In this text, Vladislavić provides a section of themed itineraries at the end of the narration based on different sections of chapters that have been numbered throughout the novel. The reader is thus given options to either read the text as is from cover to cover, or be more adventurous and choose a less chronological path through the narration by means of what Vladislavić calls a list of choices between long, moderate or short routes. This also inspires the reader to create his or her own routes through the streets of Johannesburg in the text based on the numbered experiences provided.
47 various perspectives on the transformation of the city after apartheid and, in this way, enables a recognition and acknowledgement of the diversity of experience of this same changing city space.
Situating and mapping the narratives in the streets and buildings of the Johannesburg of the physical world also enables the texts to memorialise Johannesburg in terms of how this city space impacts on identity and future memory. Clarkson (2005: 451) argues that ―[a] feature of contemporary South African fiction is that it explores the intricate complexities of personal, cultural and racial identities in terms of an uneasy relation to place – in both a physical and a figurative sense‖. The formulation of identity, and thus memory which is related to this formulation, is always tied to place. This is of particular concern in the South African context since, as Boyarin (1991a: 392) notes, ―[i]n South Africa, attempts have been repeatedly made to bind official ties between set ethnic identities and set ‗homelands‘‖. The texts considered seem to serve as a monument of memory with regard to mentioning place as a site of memory and as an important means for understanding memory and identity. Before discussing the ways in which the texts make use of and mention places that serve as sites of memory, it should be noted that these novels all make clear from the very beginning that place is an important signifier of one‘s identity and memory. This is underscored in the novels‘ titles, which refer to the place in which the narrative is set or the place with which it is concerned: Welcome to Our Hillbrow is set in and considers the lives of those in this city, The Restless Supermarket takes its title from the name of a supermarket that upsets Tearle‘s desire for order and understanding in the city, while Room 207 is the number of the room in which the narrator and his friends live in Hillbrow. The identity and understanding of the novels themselves is thus also tied to a specific time and space, which almost provides a foreshadowing of what the texts will contemplate. All three texts look beyond space and time to deal with the now and each considers the impact of place and space on identity.
Welcome to Our Hillbrow considers the relationship between place and identity by dealing with and challenging issues surrounding the construction of ‗community‘ (Clarkson 2005: 451). In this interrogation, Mpe simultaneously challenges and constructs a new sense of communal identity. According to Clarkson (2005: 452), ―the text reconfigures what ‗here‘ is and who ‗we‘ are‖ and it does so with regard to how one is identified based on where they come from or where
48 they live. This can also be linked to notions of dispossession in the novel, which mirror the circumstances of apartheid and the idea of not belonging to a distinct racial or cultural group that it fostered (Clarkson 2005: 452) and, in this way, reflects on the impact of the past on the present. Throughout the novel, characters are constantly defined in terms of where they were born and come from or where they decide to reside. For example, people form Tiragalong are associated with high morals and superstitious beliefs, people from Hillbrow are known for being violent and debauched and foreigners, such as Nigerians, who come to South Africa are referred to derogatorily as ―Makwerekwere‖ and are accused of, amongst other evils, stealing South African‘s jobs and bringing AIDS into the country (Mpe 2001: 122). Mpe‘s use of the terms ―Hillbrowan‖, ―Alexandran‖, ―Johannesburger‖ and ―Oxfordian‖ (Mpe 2001: 122) also indicate this tie between place and identity. However, Mpe‘s text indicates an attempt at creating a new space of community and identity. This is evident in his incorporation and idealistic acceptance of all identities and cultures in heaven (Clarkson 2005: 456). It is worth noting that the ―courtyard of Heaven‖ (Mpe 2001) in this text can also be seen as a place of storytelling as the word ‗courtyard‘, according to Clarkson, can be linked to three local Sepedi words; ―it could be a translation of ‗lekgotleng‘ – the court of law at the kraal of the chief or the village induna. ‗Courtyard‘ also summons up ‗kgorong‘ and ‗mafuri‘. ‗Kgorong‘ is synonymous with ‗lekgotleng‘ but it also refers to the place in the homestead where the men spend their evenings‖ and is considered as ―a place of storytelling‖ (Clarkson 2005: 456, author‘s emphasis). Regardless of these spaces of storytelling being associated with men specifically,16 this reference to a courtyard then emphasises the necessity of narrating stories of the past in the present, since the characters in Heaven in the present discuss and even watch film clips of their lives and the lives of others in the past. The text, like the ―courtyard of Heaven‖ (Mpe 2001), is thus also a space of storytelling, as the author of the story and the reader who is interpolated into it are brought together to create a new story and memory of ‗our‘ Hillbrow, as well as South Africa, based on the relationship between what is written and the understanding of this. In constructing a new Hillbrow in the text, the construction of identities is thus also called into question. Mpe thus makes use of the metaphor of Heaven in order to emphasise the importance and impact of how and what we remember of the past in the present. This is evident in the connection Mpe
16 Clarkson (2005: 456) cites an interview she had with Mpe himself in which he specified that such meeting places were especially places set aside for men to tell their stories.
49 makes between Heaven and storytelling, particularly at the end of the novel where the narrator states that Heaven
exists in the imagination of those who commemorate our worldly life. Who, through the stories they tell of us, continue to celebrate or condemn our existence even after we have passed on this Earth. Heaven is the world of our continuing existence, located in the memory and consciousness of those who live with us and after us. It is the archive that those we leave behind keep visiting and revisiting; digging this out, suppressing or burying that. Continually reconfiguring the stories of our lives, as if they alone hold the real and true version (Mpe 2001: 123-124). Here the metaphor of Heaven comes to stand for the stories we tell of the past and the memorials we construct to do so. The metaphor of Heaven is thus a comment on modes of narrating history and memory as well as the text itself and how it can also be viewed as a memorial of a particular space in a specific time period.
Similarly, the Café Europa in The Restless Supermarket and the room in which the men live in Room 207 can also be viewed as metaphors for the construction of memory and identity. In The Restless Supermarket, the Café Europa comes to serve as a memorial site of change. This is because ―it begins to reflect the social and political changes occurring in the country at large‖ (Marais 2002: 104). The Café transforms from being a representation of colonial, European interests – Tearle describes it as initially having a ―European ambience‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 17) – and having mainly white patrons, to a multicultural and multiracial environment. The changes that the Café experiences thus maps the equivalent transformation taking place in the city of Johannesburg and South Africa as a whole. This is because the changing laws pertaining to the use of space after apartheid are reflected in the ways in which the Café is made available for use to any race or character. For example, Tearle, who is accustomed to the Café‘s usual white clientele, and also Hillbrow being occupied by mostly white people, notices a gradual change in both the city and the Café in terms of racial and cultural mixing. Tearle is particularly taken aback when he notices the first black customer, a woman with ―ebony skin‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 130), whom he also accuses of crossing the colour bar by dating what appears to be a white, Italian man (Vladislavić 2001: 131). Soon, more black customers begin to appear (Vladislavić 2001: 131) and Tearle predicts that there will also soon be an influx of black men (Vladislavić 2001: 132). The novel thus maps transition in the city and country by means of recording the changes in the racial population of the city and the attitudes that such transformation influenced
50 in the city‘s inhabitants, particularly the attitudes of white men, as portrayed in the character of Tearle.
In Room 207, the room in which the men reside can also be viewed as a site of memory, as it seems to house the memory of the injustices of apartheid. This is because the room mirrors the memories of the unjust circumstances black people experienced under apartheid and the continued effects of this in the present. Evidence of this is provided in descriptions of the men‘s poor living conditions. For example, the narrator describes the place as ―rotting‖ (Moele 2006: 13) and unfit for human occupation with its poor plumbing and insect and rodent infestation (Moele 2006: 14-16). The descriptions of this underlying decay of residence available in what was once a fancy hotel during apartheid (Moele 2006: 13) thus also seems to reflect the fact that, although claims are being made that South Africa is moving on from the injustices and inequality of its apartheid past, much of the effects of this unfairness and disproportion are still being experienced by the majority of South Africans, especially in inner city areas. The hidden rot evident in this place of residence therefore mirrors the truth concerning the injustices of apartheid still being perpetuated in the present by revealing the uninhabitable spaces people are forced to occupy in the city. Yet, it is evident that the men adapt to these poor conditions, establishing and organising some semblance of order regardless of the disorder. This is evident in their construction of certain rules pertaining to living in the space such as the demarcation of who sleeps where and who gets to use the bathroom first, as well as in the narrator‘s revelation that, regardless of not having the most desirable ablutions, Matome makes sure that the men do not have to use newspaper by stealing toilet rolls from public toilets for their use (Moele 2006: 14). In this way, the memory of the city, and the country, is reconstituted through the characters‘ reuse and restructuring of space that has previously been portrayed as decaying and uninhabitable. Johannesburg is thus remapped in order to record and contemplate the damaging effects of a traumatic past on the daily lives of those who inhabit the city.
Yet it is not only place and land but also the human body itself, as a crucial component of the city, which is also represented as a site of memory. The texts themselves can be viewed as sites of memory but they also consider the human body as a location for remembering. The body is often depicted as an important factor in the process of mapping streets because the only way that the streets are explored and remembered is through characters‘ presence on them. The body is
51 also an essential reflection of memory and mapping as it serves as a transcript of time. The passing of time and impact of traumatic events is almost always evident on the outward appearance of the body. For example scars, wrinkles and other marks on the body indicate the lives people lead, their habits and experiences in life. In fact Mntambo (2009: 19-20), analysing Robinson (1998) and AbdouMaliq Simone (2008), notes that the portrayal of bodies plays an important role in the production of the meaning, transformation and memory of space. The relationship between memory, space and the body is played out in several ways in the texts. One way in which this occurs is through the depiction of interracial relationships, whether platonic or romantic, intentional or not. In Welcome To Our Hillbrow, Refilwe‘s relationship with a Nigerian man helps to encourage tolerance of other races and nationalities as this relationship subverts stereotypes by revealing to others and to Refilwe herself, who had once also been ―bias against Makwerekwere‖ (Mpe 2001: 122), that people are all equal, regardless of what colour their skin is or where they come from or live. This is evident in the fact that both Refilwe and her Nigerian lover are told that ―they had both been HIV-positive for a long time‖ (Mpe 2001: 117) before they even knew each other and hence, neither can be blamed for giving the other AIDS. This revelation helps to undercut stereotypical beliefs that it is only foreigners or people from Hillbrow who spread AIDS as it enforces a view that such people can no longer be considered ―[c]onvenient scapegoat[s] for everything that goes wrong in people‘s lives‖ (Mpe 2001: 118), especially since Refilwe, a girl from the rural village of Tiragalong, can also be accused of spreading this disease. Likewise, in The Restless Supermarket, as will be discussed in chapter three, Tearle‘s relationship with the young coloured girl Shirlaine forces Tearle to also question his prejudice against other races, cultures and even people of a different age and sex to himself, as she takes him on a journey through the city, enabling him to see that his judgements have been unfounded. Also, in Room 207, D‘nice‘s relationship with a white, Jewish girl named Michelle also illustrates the creation of new social and interracial relationship possibilities since it is this relationship that enables D‘nice to become aware of his musical capabilities. This is because Michelle, ―a final year music student‖ (Moele 2006: 38), decides to give D‘nice her expensive keyboard after hearing him play it so beautifully even though having never played the instrument before. In this way then, the texts record transformation in the city by considering how such changes are played out in the bodies of those who dwell in the city, particularly in terms of how they interact with one another and transgress restrictions placed on them in the past.
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The link between the body and memory is also established through the texts‘ treatment of language. Language usage is often depicted as an extension of, and influence on, the body. For example, the use of language pertaining to violence and fear (of black people on the part of white people and also of crime and foreigners) illustrates how the past plays itself out in the bodies of the inhabitants of the city as this language of violence and fear is constructed as a means of dealing with, or reacting against, unfairness and suffering. This is most evident in The Restless Supermarket, where Tearle‘s obsession with language and grammar suggests how language itself is tied to and influences identity. This then underscores that the language one chooses to use constructs perception of both the self and others. For example, Tearle uses terms like ―petty criminals‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 117), ―hooligans‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 117) and ―[v]andals‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 118) to describe the black youth who begin to frequent the Café Europa and makes racist remarks such as describing a boy as ―so black he would have served quite well as a printer‘s devil‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 245). In addition, Tearle also regularly refers to young black and coloured people as ―them‖ and ―they‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 36), which results in constructing people as dangerous. This description also implies that such people should not be allowed to exist and take part in ‗normal‘, civilised society in the same way that the usual patrons, in Tearle‘s opinion, can. Similarly, in both Welcome To Our Hillbrow and Room 207, characters constantly refer to foreign Africans as ―lekwerekwere‖ or ―makwerekwere‖ and associate these groups of people with all the bad things occurring in the country – from crime, to rape to AIDS and even unemployment. Yet, the texts also create a new sense of South African identity by making use of ‗rainbow nation‘ languages as practiced in the city of Johannesburg by utilising the multiple slang terms and idioms of such languages in their narratives. For example, Room 207 is filled with characters‘ references to ―Chinese‖ (local slang for false or counterfeit according to the novel‘s glossary) radios and smiles (Moele 2006: 13, 15), ―Titos‖ – which is slang for money – (Moele 2006: 97) as well as idioms such as ―Monna o bolawa ke se a se jelego‖ – which, according to the novel‘s glossary, means ―A man is killed by what he eats‖ – (Moele 2006: 234) in their everyday conversations. Similarly, in Welcome To Our Hillbrow, slang terms such as ―Aibo!‖ – used in greeting – (Mpe 2001: 13, 15) and ―dingaka‖ – which, roughly translated means local, tribal healer – (Mpe 2001: 38) are mentioned. The use of these different, interspersed languages thus reflects and thereby provides a record of the diversity of the city and country by imitating its multiple languages and cultures.
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Moreover, the language used in the texts reflects the shifts in the time-spaces of the act of remembering. In The Restless Supermarket, the language Tearle uses in the present differs from the language he uses to describe the past (Marais & Backström 2002: 125-126). Vladislavić explains that there is a tension within Tearle with regard to this difference in language use as ―the language he uses when he‘s dealing with his memories of the café and how it used to be is more stable and refined than the language he uses to talk about the present‖ (Marais & Backström 2002: 126). A prime example of this is evident in ―The Proofreader‘s Derby‖ section of the novel in which the narrative becomes chaotic and disordered. The name of the protagonist, ―Fluxman‖, in this story is also significant here since it connotes an image of never-ending change. This change in language use demonstrates a shift in Tearle as a person (Marais & Backström 2002: 126) and, in effect, also a shift in the workings of society. This is because the shift in the use of language to describe the past and present indicates an attempt to map the now, the present, through the language of the body. In this way, the transition taking place in the city and country is reflected as the depiction of continuous transformation mirrors the uncertainty of the political, social and economic present. Both Welcome To Our Hillbrow and Room 207 also appear to deal with this same tension as the past is always narrated in terms of certainty, whereas the language used to describe the present is treated as unstable and in constant flux. For example, in Room 207, the narrator clearly describes where each one of his friends come from and what they have accomplished in life, be it having children, graduating from school or moving from a life in the townships. However, when narrating events in the present, there is always a sense of hesitancy and lack of closure. This is mainly evident in the continuous reference made to each of the characters‘ dreams and what they wish to accomplish in the city, since dreams are always elusive and unfulfilled in the nature of present time. Also, in Welcome To Our Hillbrow, the past is narrated from the now clarified perspective of the deceased in Heaven, while they, like those on earth, are also never provided with insights into events of the present and rather watch the lives of their loved ones unfold and take place at the same instance that these occur. Throughout all of the texts, there is also an insistence on the utilisation of the language of the present. Although characters continuously refer back to events and memories of the past, there is always a firm claim to focus on the present, which emphasises again the necessity of a present narrative to deal with the continuous transformation occurring in the city and country, as well as the memory of this transitional period.
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Memory is also revealed as being housed or reflected on the body through the use of tropes such as the dream world and death. The dreams characters experience in the texts emphasise an enforced focus on the present as they all appear to insist on a negation of the past and future. For example, in The Restless Supermarket, ―The Proofreader‘s Derby‖ is essentially an extension of Tearle‘s dream of cleaning up and establishing order in the increasingly chaotic city of Johannesburg. Also, in Room 207, characters‘ dreams of the future always seem to be destroyed or unfulfilled, while in Welcome To Our Hillbrow, Heaven is depicted as a dream world of the present, which encourages a focus on life as it is now in ―continuing existence‖ (Mpe 2001: 124) in present time and space. This trope of dreaming in these texts is significant with regard to what the depiction of the body reflects about the space of the city. In considering Robinson (1998) and Lefebvre‘s (1991) discussions of the body (with both its inner and outer worlds) as an aspect of representational space, Mntambo (2009: 19-20) argues that dreams, as part of the functioning body, reveal experiences of urban space through the workings of the body and lives of those who dwell in the city. The dreams and dream worlds the characters experience in these texts thus assist in exposing the fluctuating occurrences and practices in the city. In addition, there is also a preoccupation with the trope of death in all three texts. In The Restless Supermarket, Tearle is constantly hearing about or seeing dead or injured bodies (Vladislavić 2001: 6) in the city, and even includes such sightings in his construction of ―The Proofreader‘s Derby‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 189). Similarly, in Welcome To Our Hillbrow and Room 207, characters are always aware that death is just around the corner for anyone and everyone in their social circles, whether this occurs as a result of crime, AIDS or other means. According to Marais (2002: 106), death points to the impossibility of complete closure and, hence, emphasises the existence of an ongoing consciousness in the present. This again points to the importance of a present narrative in reconstructing memory, but also serves to reflect the uncertainty evident in the city of Johannesburg since ―death stands in opposition to form and order‖ (Marais 2002: 106) in the same way that the city seems defiant against these. Also, death is often associated with being exterior to culture and history (Marais 2002: 107). This is because it disrupts a concrete understanding of knowledge and consciousness as it ―constitutes an eruption of infinity into the supposedly finite totality of this world‖ (Marais 2002: 107), thus refuting the idea of the possibility for completion in understanding. Therefore, the texts‘ preoccupation with this trope
55 can be said to emphasise a new construction of time and space, which denies completion, thus linking back to the idea of restructuring the present memory of Johannesburg.
Furthermore, the texts illustrate that in the city of Johannesburg, there is an unclear, blurred sense of physical space. All three texts indicate an intrusion on personal or private space, thus charting the effects of the past in terms of the reactions of the body. For instance, Tearle constantly feels invaded by others in The Restless Supermarket and often feels uncomfortable in the presence of others, especially with people who are not of his race. This is evident in his refusal to pull Darlene‘s wishbone with her: Tearle feels his ―little finger twing[e], but [it] refuse[s] to pronate‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 259), while another character remarks that the reason for why Tearle declines her offer is because ―[h]e might get a bit of [Darlene‘s] gob on his precious pinkie‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 259). Tearle‘s body thus refuses to communicate with the ‗other‘ (non white) bodies who, he feels, have intruded upon his (white, colonial) space. Likewise, in Welcome To Our Hillbrow, the privacy of those still living on earth seems to be invaded by the onlookers from Heaven who appear to be judging, ―condemn[ing]‖ and telling stories of the living‖ (Mpe 2001: 124). Furthermore, in Room 207, six men share a very small room in which they have absolutely no privacy as their bodies blur into one another in their cramped sleeping arrangements on the floor. For example, the narrator explains that the reason for why Modishi‘s girlfriend, Lerato, walks around naked in the men‘s flat is because ―she‘s lost her sense of privacy and personal space‖ (Moele 2006: 108). In fact, the characters have such little private space that Zulu-boy even comments on how spacious prisons are as he says to Molamo that ―[t]hey have lots of space in C-Max, enjoy it‖ (Moele 2006: 143). The roommates‘ lack of privacy and open display of their unabashed sexual antics,17 which they flaunt to their roommates, ultimately reveals the realities of poverty. This threat to, and encroachment on, personal, physical space seems to be a comment on the ways in which the city is dealing with transformation. This is achieved through the confrontation and construction of individual and collective identities, which are inevitably linked to one another as discussed previously in this chapter. The lack of privacy and blurred sense of individual space depicted in these texts thus relates to and illustrates the present, ongoing construction of new space and the memory of this.
17 Raditlhalo (2007) discusses how some writers have complained about the explicit sexual practices of the characters in Room 207, ―which they see as [derogatory depictions of the] unbridled sexuality of ‗natives‘ in the raw‖.
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This is because these representations are based on the ways of living, belonging and construction of identity taking place in the present space of the city of Johannesburg, which in turn reveal how this current space cannot be private or personal precisely because it is constantly in flux.
Parallel to the representation of the body as a reflection of memory (in that the reactions of characters bodies to the bodies of others, as well as their living conditions serve as records of the events and memories of time and the transformation that occurs over time), the texts also construct the memory of Johannesburg by means of revealing certain historical silences. One way in which these silences are revealed is through the texts‘ construction of multiple characters from different backgrounds. This enables the diversity of history and memory to be revealed through the different views of life in post-apartheid Johannesburg, from the perspective of white people (Tearle in The Restless Supermarket), black people (the narrators and their friends in Room 207 and Welcome To Our Hillbrow), as well as male and female (particularly Refilwe in Welcome To Our Hillbrow and Shirlaine in The Restless Supermarket) characters. There also appear to be holes or gaps or unfinished spaces in the novels, which require the reader to fill in these voids or finish the story or version of history and memory based on his or her own understanding and memory.18 For instance, in The Restless Supermarket, there is a silence that exists between the use of irony on the part of the narrator and the gaps that the reader has to fill in, in order to complete this creation of meaning (Marais 2002: 108). For example, Tearle‘s constant desire for order in the space of the city is an irony in the text as the continuous obstacles and unfulfilled dreams of success he faces in this regard remind and require the reader to see how these serve to highlight the restrictions, impossibilities and even ridiculousness of Tearle‘s ideal world.
According to Mike Marais (2002: 111), this relationship between the reader and narrator in constructing understanding in the text indicates that ―the past is not closed but part of an incomplete present‖. Therefore, the unfinished nature of both the city of Johannesburg and the memory of the city is underscored here. Moreover, ―The Proofreader‘s Derby‖ in the novel also alerts the reader to the incompleteness of the city and memory. This is because it can be seen as a kind of Utopia as it is a creation of an alternate world in an ‗other‘ time and space, which forces
18 This can be linked to the workings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the opening of wounds it enabled with regard to its influence on literature being viewed as a means of revealing truth for redemption and healing (Hemer 2009: 5).
57 the reader to question this construction and consider gaps and faults in this story in order to fill these in and make sense out of it for him or herself (Peters 2009: 50-52). This, once again, provides a comment on how memory is constructed since it helps to highlight imagination as an essential component in narrating memory. Tearle‘s desire to correct language errors (as well as the reader‘s desire to edit the text‘s errors intentionally inserted in the second edition of the novel) mirrors this need for imagination (Peters 2009: 51). This is because a desire to correct reflects the necessity of imagination for reflecting change and transformation. J.C. Peters (2009: 57) refers to the impossibility of Vladislavić ever being able to give voice to all ―the marginalized voices being suppressed within an English narrative‖, but recognises that he could perhaps give voice to these by referring to their absence and by providing gaps in the text, ―offer[ing] up that absence in all its fullness‖. It should be noted that Peters (2009: 60) discusses the second edition of the novel, which includes typos and, hence, opens up the text to new readings based on the inclusion of these ‗errors‘.
With regard to Welcome To Our Hillbrow, silences in the text pertain to the space of Heaven as a place of silence in that it is hidden from the view and understanding of the characters on Earth until such characters die and Heaven is revealed. Another silence in this text surrounds the issue of AIDS. In the novel, the ways in which the disease is described and dealt with publicly is revealed in Tiragalong residents‘ assertion that victims of the disease simply ―died of flu, or of stomach-ache‖ (Mpe 2001: 121) or were even cursed with some sickness from witches (Mpe 2001: 121). These descriptions of the disease illustrate the silences surrounding AIDS in terms of how people are often too ashamed to admit that they or their loved ones have contracted the disease. This revelation thus highlights the stigma of shame, embarrassment and fear attached to the disease and the resultant denial that arises due to this. In Room 207, the reader also has to play a role in filling in absences in the text with regard to understanding the future of the six men who move on from their lives in room 207. Only vague descriptions of the men‘s new lives are provided and the reader is never completely sure of the happiness and fulfilment of the dreams of the characters, especially with regard to the narrator who ends his narration by merely stating that he is leaving Johannesburg without saying where he is going. Another example of the ambiguous futures of the characters is evident in what Matome achieves once he leaves Hillbrow. Although the reader is told that Matome is living a seemingly successful suburban life with a wife and kids, a ―huge‖ beautiful home (Moele 2006: 200), expensive ―sports car‖ (Moele
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2006: 200) and so much money that he can afford to give the narrator a ―big cheque‖ (Moele 2006: 201), the reader is unsure as to what he does for a living or, more importantly, whether he is truly happy. This is emphasised in Matome‘s odd admission that he is also not happy for the narrator when the narrator admits to being jealous of Matome and not happy for him (Moele 2006: 201). This leaves the reader confused and left with the role of deciding whether Matome‘s admission means that he is actually jealous of the narrator (hence meaning that he is not happy with his own life) or if he simply means that he wants his friend to have a better life. Similarly, the future lives of the other former roommates of room 207 are also described in hazy, unclear terms: it is revealed that Zulu-boy has AIDS and is ―a dying man [... that does not] know where he‘s going‖ (Moele 2006: 212), Molamo, although settled and married in the suburbs, is described as ―still [...] dreaming‖ (Moele 2006: 220), and while D‘Nice and Modishi supposedly marry the women of their dreams, it is also revealed that they abuse these women (Moele 2006: 203, 209), which indicates the uncertainty of these marriages lasting. The reader thus has to aid in constructing these characters‘ stories and is therefore complicit in the construction of the memory and history of the lives of people in Johannesburg. The texts may therefore be seen as a site of memory because, in this way, they come to serve as a record or document of the memory or lives of others.
The texts also map the memory of the city by means of recording the transformation of the use of its spaces. Vladislavić‘s text maps South Africa‘s political and social transition by considering changes taking place in Hillbrow, in the city of Johannesburg, through the eyes of an elderly white male‘s perspective. Aubrey Tearle, a keen yet retired proofreader, interprets Johannesburg‘s transformation by means of highlighting ‗corrigenda‘ or so-called mistakes he sees arising as a result of the change in power dynamics in the city. His obsession with such ‗corrigenda‘ draws attention to the disorder and disturbances that have come to characterise the city of Johannesburg and, in turn, underscore the complexity of this urban space. Moele‘s Room 207 traces similar themes of transformation through the depiction of the lives of six black men living in Hillbrow. The text considers the conflation of moments and memories of the past, present and future by describing the different ways in which these six men struggle to deal with the combination of a disadvantaged past, a difficult, undefined present and an unsure, elusive future. The men‘s use of space, communication in, and understanding of, the present is interspersed with memories of the past, as well as their dreams and desires for the future. For
59 example, Molamo‘s complaints about being poor in the Johannesburg of the present are mingled with a recognition of the past injustices black people have had to endure – he remarks that it is a punishment to have been born black since black people have ―been suffering for as long as there has been history‖ (Moele 2006: 144) – as well as his own musings for a better future – he tells his roommates: ―Give me three years and I will be thirty-three, and then I‘m going to do something really ridiculous‖ (Moele 2006: 143). Hence, the nation‘s desire and effort to merge the unfortunate events of the past with the changes of the present is captured in the representation of the daily lives and personal relationships of these characters and the ways in which they have utilised city space for their own needs and desires. Lastly, Welcome To Our Hillbrow charts change in the city by means of comparing this transformation to the natural progression of its characters from life to death based on the choices people make with regard to how they perceive one another‘s purposes and actions. The text also considers how people‘s lives and the past are ultimately remembered by those who live after we are gone. The importance of telling stories in the present in order to remember the past is thus emphasised by mapping the changes the characters experience both personally and in the transformation that occurs in the space of the city.
For example, the depiction of transformation in Hillbrow in the novels reflects the manner in which people have changed the way they not only identify with but also use space in the city of Johannesburg since apartheid. In this way, the texts map change in the memory of the city. This also provides an interrogation of space, especially with regard to restrictions placed on movement in the city during apartheid (Mntambo 2009: 10-11). In his article on post-apartheid black fiction, Samin (2009) maintains that such literature has recorded not so much the political event of apartheid and the transition ―as its deep-rooted impact on people‘s minds and how they have gradually changed their relation to place and negotiated their appropriation of it‖. However, it is not only black South Africans who have made Hillbrow their home, but also immigrants from all parts of Africa and the rest of the world. Citing Gunner (2003), Manase (2007: 95) emphasises that the very nature of immigrants‘ occupation of the city space questions the idea of a singular national home or nationhood. In analysing Mpe‘s Welcome To Our Hillbrow, Manase (2007: 95) states that this changing relationship to space and place is depicted in literature by means of portraying the city ―as a space inhabited by different characters each uprooted from his or her home and family – where colonialism and apartheid placed them and all contesting for
60 different opportunities‖. The interrogation of a singular South African nationhood or nationality in the city of Johannesburg thus occurs as this cosmopolitan nature of the city highlights the way in which it is constructed by multiple stories, voices and time-frames. These multiple visions of the city are what result in the city being viewed as a palimpsest. Therefore, the palimpsestic nature of the city is reflected not only in terms of layers of time and space but also layers of people of different nationalities and cultures. Johannesburg is thus a palimpsest of cosmopolitan life.
Manase (2007: 102) refers to this diverse cultural mixing in the city as a form of ―agency‖ as it encourages the remaking and remapping of urban space and people‘s ideas about and relationship to place. This layering of difference in the city hence encourages this agency, ultimately encouraging the transformation and remaking of space. In The Restless Supermarket, one way in which this palimpsest of cosmopolitan life is reflected is in the diverse cultures, races and backgrounds of the patrons who begin to frequent Tearle‘s beloved Café Europa. At the beginning of the novel, we are introduced to Tearle‘s waiter, Moses, who is from Mozambique ,as well as the original manager of the Café, Mrs Mavrokordatos, a Greek woman (Vladislavić 2001: 7-8). In addition, the Café hosts Tearle, a ―‗European‘‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 15) as he refers to himself, his fellow white English friends Spilkin and Merle, his Afrikaans friends Wessels and Mevrou Bonsma, as well as young black and coloured people, such as Errol, Raylene, Floyd, Nomsa and Eveready among many others. Room 207 also refers to the cosmopolitan nature of Johannesburg life in its description of the many different people, from all over the country and world, who come to the city and make Johannesburg their home. For example, Matome labels The Sands Hotel in Johannesburg ―Hotel Lagos‖ because of the influx of Nigerians in this area (Moele 2006: 161), while the narrator remarks that, in Hillbrow, ―you‘ll find Europeans and Asians that by fate have become proud South Africans‖ (Moele 2006: 19). Welcome To Our Hillbrow provides the most dense consideration of this cosmopolitanism and the effects of this in its constant reference to “Makwerekwere” and the abuse and hardships foreign Africans endure in the city of Johannesburg as a result of prejudice and superstition. However, it is not only the existence of this diversity of the city in these texts that reflects the cosmopolitan nature of Johannesburg but also the ways in which these multiple groups interact in the texts in order to create a means of living in the city. In all three texts, a sense of community and communal survival is created around the interaction between different cultural, racial and national groups
61 who dwell in the city. In Welcome To Our Hillbrow and Room 207 for example, there appears to be a mutual reliance on the part of foreigners who create businesses and the South Africans who pay for the services demanded by and provided for them. In Welcome To Our Hillbrow, the ―informal business[es]‖ (Mpe 2001: 8) often run by foreign Africans selling fruits, vegetables and other food products, are described as beneficial to the city‘s population as they provide ―good-looking produce at low prices‖ (Mpe 2001: 8) compared to traditional chain stores and, in this way, help South Africans acquire better deals and save much-needed money.
The transformation Hillbrow has witnessed from the 1980s to the present is also reflected and mapped in Vladislavić‘s text with regard to places of residence. Meg Samuelson (2007: 250) notes that ―during the 1980s, Hillbrow moved from being an exclusively white to a predominantly black neighbourhood‖. However, it should be noted that Hillbrow is known for being a grey area in the late 80s and early 90s. Regardless, Samuelson (2007: 250) further argues that ―[s]uch shape-shifting [...] continues to characterize Hillbrow in the following decade, in which its make-up is reconfigured by an influx of continental immigrants‖. Thus, Hillbrow has witnessed a transformation from being a white area during apartheid, to the home of migrants and other black people in the 90s and after, to a shelter or space for immigrants post 1994. This movement is mapped by means of Tearle‘s obsession with telephone directory records in The Restless Supermarket. In the novel, Tearle is shocked when he first comes across an African surname: ―Merope with a Hillbrow address‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 129) in the Johannesburg telephone directory. He even dials the number of the residence to see if a black person really lives there. Indeed, he notes that ―a daughter of Africa‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 129) answers the phone. However, he does not stop here and decides to visit Mr Merope‘s home to prove that a black man is actually living in Hillbrow. To his surprise, he notices more black people than he expected leaving the lift of the building on their way to work: ―black men wearing business suits and toting briefcases, [...] and half as many black women‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 129). In addition, the increasing movement of black people into Hillbrow in the 90s is emphasised by Tearle‘s racist comments regarding this. Tearle snidely remarks that ―Silently, while we [white people] slept, the tide was darkening‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 129) and observes that ―there were more and more people of colour in Hillbrow‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 130). He also notices the appearance of news about the ―‗greying‘ of Hillbrow‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 130) in the newspapers and is appalled that no one is doing anything about it.
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The texts also map Johannesburg‘s transformation with regard to how its residents are changing how they use the space in the city. Regardless of the nature of Hillbrow‘s development, the way people use space in this part of the city has changed from the times of apartheid to the present. Before discussing this transformation of the use of space in Hillbrow, it should be noted that the act of walking itself blurs the boundaries of time. In fact, walking allows those in the city to experience this space on an individual level and to appropriate certain parts of the city and discard or ignore others depending on his or her needs and desires. According to Bremner (2010b: 30),
[w]alking recomposes the city through two rhetorical tropes: synecdoche and asyndeton. Synecdoche, a part standing for the whole, permits a walker to engage with the city by focusing on details which stand in for the whole; asyndeton, the suppression of linking words in a sentence, allows pedestrians to select routes and fragment the city, skipping over links or leaving out pieces. The technological, geometrical space of the city is transformed by trajectories that combine, skip over, fragment or distort its immobile order [...] This propels movement through the city in a way that eludes urban systematicity.
Walking is thus an empowering activity, encouraging individual agency, which in effect drives movement and change. Bremner (2010b: 34) further notes that walking as a trope is ―useful in that it redefines urban space as a space of social, theoretical, cultural and critical interaction, rather than as a static or formal object‖. The act of walking in the city therefore encourages a view of the city as a living, breathing space, capable of movement and change.
Furthermore, walking, and the individual path a person chooses to walk, creates city space. According to Michel de Certeau (2000: 105), ―[t]he motions of walking are spatial creations. They link sites to one another. Pedestrian motor functions thus create one of those ‗true systems whose existence actually makes the city‘‖. The active selection of certain paths, routes or destinations over others on behalf of the walker transform the city space as this act creates discontinuity. This occurs ―either by choosing among the signifiers of the spatial language or by altering them through the use [the walker] makes of them‖ (De Certeau 2000: 107). In this way, walking can also be seen as a means of asserting individual authority since the walker ―makes only a few of the possibilities set out by the established order effective ([the walker] goes only here – not there)‖ (De Certeau 2000: 107). However, De Certeau (2000: 102) notes that pedestrians or walkers are unaware of their creation of such spaces in the city. He argues that the ways in which walkers ‗write‘ or create city space are not read or understood (De Certeau 2000:
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102). Meaning in the city is therefore always fluid. He further maintains that this creation or ‗writing‘ of the city is an interconnected network, made up of diverse, multiple bodies. The palimpsestic nature of the city thus again becomes evident since as De Certeau (2000: 102-103) argues, the ―networks of these forward-moving, intercrossed writings form a multiple history [...] made up of fragments of trajectories and alterations of spaces: with regard to representations, it remains daily, indefinitely, something other‖. The city, and the way we remember it, is thus always undefined and in the process of transformation as walkers constantly create it. The depiction of walking and movement in the texts thus also portrays the way in which memory becomes solidified as the act of mapping the city streets underscores the fact that what we choose to see or experience in the city is made up of different opinions of what should be mapped, remembered and experienced.19
Although all three texts, and most other South African city texts, popularise the trope of walking, the reality of the Hillbrow of the present is rather different. Many residents travel by car, taxi or bus and thus map the city in terms of a different kind of mobility. This form of mobility enables an even more heightened feeling of empowerment for city dwellers than the act of walking as it allows for a richer, more specific selection of routes and fragmentation or leaving out of certain spaces of the city. Like in Mpe‘s Welcome to Our Hillbrow, whose characters explore the city‘s streets on foot, Vladislavić‘s Tearle does the same. However, evidence of new ways of viewing and exploring the city become evident in the increasing presence and use of automobiles as the novel progresses. In fact, Tearle, who represents the past use of space in Hillbrow (as an old, white male free to walk the city streets), feels threatened by this increasing use of and reliance on cars in the city. He is almost knocked down by a ―baker‘s delivery van‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 23) and seems extremely alert and guarded about the movement of vehicles. His seeming fear with regard to automobiles is further emphasised in his statement that he was ―as mindful of the traffic regulations as ever‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 23) on the day he was almost driven into. Moreover, Tearle‘s quick attention to the vehicle‘s registration number (Vladislavić 2001: 23) as well as his admission to feeling disorientated and needing a drink (Vladislavić 2001: 24) underscores his anxiety and insecurities about this means of travelling through the city.
19 Mntambo (2009: 26) provides a discussion of the ways in which walking through the streets of Johannesburg can be viewed as a means of establishing and mapping alternative narratives of the city space.
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What this says about the space of Hillbrow is quite complicated as it highlights the sense of fear that engulfs most of the inner city (as there is a greater sense of safety when one travels by car), but in the same instance also emphasises a new sense of freedom, access and independence for Johannesburg city dwellers. This is because movement through the city in automobiles grants one a more authoritative stance with regard to the use of this space as this becomes a new means of mapping, and interacting with, city space. In The Restless Supermarket, the authority and agency granted by the use of cars in the city is evident in Tearle‘s comment that because of the deteriorating state of Hillbrow, ―No one who could afford to drive a car wanted to come [t]here any more‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 11). The use of cars in the city thus allows greater choice with regard to which parts of the city one can visit or avoid. In Room 207, characters also seem to imply that travelling by car in the city affords one a greater advantage not only in terms of getting to and from destinations, but also with regard to signifying status. According to Xavier Livermon (in Nuttall and Mbembe 2008: 274), automobility changes one‘s access to and appropriation or use of city space. This is especially the case for black people who were mostly immobilised during apartheid. Livermon (2008: 274) states that ―the nature of encounters in the city is increasingly defined by the movements made possible by the car‖. Cars, taxis and buses are therefore becoming the principle means by which people navigate the city streets. A reason for this is not only fear of being a victim of crime while on foot, but also because automobility extends the activities and time one can experience in the city. Referring to John Urry‘s (2004: 26) study of automobility, Livermon (2008: 274) maintains that the use of automobiles ―influences individual patterns of consumption, pleasure and ideas of achievement among the growing black middle class‖. Furthermore, Livermon (2008: 275) argues that cars are essential for urban, social life to take place in Johannesburg.
However, this act of driving instead of walking in the city results in a lack of physical connection to the city space with one‘s body and, hence, memory. Samuelson (2007: 254) states that being a pedestrian enables the walker to be ―intimately familiar with the histories and resonances of the inner city‘s crooks and crannies that shape and inflect the movements of the body‖. Thus, driving in the city erases this connection with the urban environment as the driver or passenger can now gloss over previously vital links between surfaces of city space and their own selves. Traversing the city landscape by means of automobiles can therefore be said to obliterate city dwellers‘ concrete ties to memories held in the city streets. This physical connection with memory and the
65 city streets is depicted in Mpe‘s text, which, unlike the other two texts, charts movement and transformation in the city purely by means of the act of walking. Manase (2007: 90) maintains that ―[i]n Mpe‘s novel, the trope of walking in the city, which resonates with De Certeau‘s discussion of walking in the streets of New York (1993), is employed‖. Manase (2007: 91) goes on to describe how this trope is used in order to map a current portrayal of the city that signifies both ―the legacy of apartheid and the post-apartheid democratisation process‖. Manase (2007: 91) asserts that this is evidenced in Refentše‘s observation of the social and economic inequalities that his walking through the city streets reveals. For example, while he makes his way through the city, Refentše compares the inner city centre of Hillbrow with its tempting, chaotic, noisy bars or shebeens and ―informal business, in the form of bananas, apples, cabbages, spinach and other good-looking produce at low prices‖ (Mpe 2001: 8) to the apparent order on its outskirts as he walks closer to the suburbs with its structured ―social and economic superiority‖ (Manase 2007: 91) evident in organised formal business stores at ―Highpoint, the biggest shopping centre in Hillbrow [...] where Clicks, Spar, CNA and other stores were housed‖ (Mpe 2001: 7).
The question of whether the boundaries so evident in transitional city space can still be transgressed, and also memorialised, by means of travelling by car thus arises. The answer to this seems to be yes because this new means of moving through and mapping the city can be viewed as being transgressive in itself. For example, drivers break the laws of the city, speeding, parking or stopping where they are not allowed to, driving through red robots, going down one-ways and getting lost. Cars enable their drivers and passengers to revisit past spaces, thus enabling the erasure of past uses, although not completely, and encouraging the altered use of such past space to suit the needs of the present. Another possible problem with driving rather than walking in the city is that driving, and the use of automobiles, is contradictory. This is because cars highlight divisions in the city space. Livermon (2008: 275) argues that ―the mobility rendered possible by the use of the car is paradoxical, if only because the car highlights the very segregated and divided nature of the urban metropolis‖. It should also be noted that cars not only underscore geographical separation in the city but also class divisions. This is emphasised in Tearle‘s reference to the fact that not everyone who lives in the city can afford to drive a car (Vladislavić 2001: 11). On the other hand though, Livermon (2008: 275) emphasises that automobility also works to blur such divisions as he maintains that the car reveals this divided nature of the city ―to
66 be a segregation or division that can be disturbed or shifted‖. Livermon (2008: 275) explains that this is because ―[w]ith an automobile, a city is more easily traversed and its temporalities more easily refigured‖. Travelling by car, taxi or bus also works to link or connect different parts of the city that are usually segregated such as the inner city, the suburbs and the townships, in effect redefining what we know to be the city space. In addition to this, the use of automobiles extends time (Livermon 2008: 275) as there is a belief that in cars, you can arrive or depart at any time. This therefore links back to the idea of the city as a palimpsest since the nature of time and space and the boundaries these create become blurred in this extension of time. The description of the changing modes of travel in the city thus also reflects how memory is being mapped in the present. This is because, by considering this present, changing use of space, the texts redefine what is remembered and how it is remembered in the city.
Recording memory has become particularly important in a country like South Africa which has privileged certain voices (predominantly white, male views) over others (mostly marginalised black voices as well as female views) and that is only beginning to reverse the dominance of white, male opinions over those of black and also feminine voices. In fact, according to Nora (1989: 9), in any country,
[h]istory is a critical discourse that is antithetical to spontaneous memory. History is perpetually suspicious of memory, and its true mission is to suppress and destroy it. Nora‘s (1989) article is essentially concerned with what he calls lieux de mémoire, or ―sites of memory‖. He states that
[t]he moment of lieux de mémoire occurs at the same time that an immense and intimate fund of memory disappears, surviving only as a reconstituted object beneath the gaze of critical history (Nora 1989: 7), and that
[t]hese lieux de mémoire are fundamentally remains, the ultimate embodiments of a memorial consciousness that has barely survived in a historical age that calls out for memory because it has abandoned it (Nora 1989: 12). This seems to be the situation in post-apartheid South Africa, which, as previously discussed, has been in the process, since 1990, of reconstructing history and historical archives to include the narratives, views and memories of the marginalised and oppressed, which were ignored during apartheid. In connection with this, Nora (1989: 12) states that
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lieux de mémoire originate with the sense that there is no spontaneous memory, that we must deliberately create archives […] because such activities no longer occur naturally. The sense provided here then is that memory must be recorded in order to be secured a place in history. However, these sites of memory, archives, or what Nora terms lieux de mémoire, also come to be seen as resources of memory. In other words, the archive itself comes to function as memory. This is supported by Nora‘s (1989: 14) statement that
the archive has become the deliberate and calculated secretion of lost memory. It adds to life – itself often a function of its own recording – a secondary memory, a prothesis-memory. The texts discussed may thus be said to serve as a site or archive of memory because they record events and stories that the authors believe are important, not only to themselves and their communities but also to South Africa as well. The novels considered here may therefore be seen as a means of recording such stories in order to ensure that they do not become distant or forgotten memories. In reading these texts, one gains a richer sense of the history of South Africa, of the personality and life of Johannesburg, as well as of the life and history of the South African, and also African community, and the Johannesburg community in particular. These texts may be drawn on as a memory resource and may, in this way, be considered as a site of memory for residents of Johannesburg, the present generation, future communities as well as for South Africans today. In a country that has been so divided racially, ethnically and in terms of gender and class, the implications of creating such an ‗archive‘, which is available to a broad range of people, is that people now have the opportunity to read about and ‗experience‘ the life of someone of a different race, gender, class or ethnicity, thereby enabling them to acquire an understanding of a certain race, gender, class, ethnicity or group that they have previously been divided from and therefore have had no knowledge of.
Yet this archive of memory also enables South Africans to know themselves and their country in terms of its history and the changes that have occurred as a result of this past, not only from the perspectives of those similar to them, but also from the standpoint of those they do not share common characteristics, such as culture, race and gender, with. The texts discussed document the lives of others and mention place and the transformation that occurs in these as sources of memory, recording the importance of identity, place and change and, in turn, becoming a document of such places and transformation itself. They may therefore be seen as a collection of memories of people, places, and events in the present period, which highlights the ever-present
68 impact of the past on the here and now. Mbembe (2004: 404) writes that the juxtaposition of such time-spaces is important when depicting transition because ―[p]articularly in Africa, the blurring of the distinctions between what is public and what is private, the transformation and deformation of inherited urban shapes, is one of the ways by which urban citizens generate meaning and memory‖. The fact that Johannesburg is made up of different layers of historical time, space and structures (Mbembe 2004: 404), reveals the manner in which the metropolis has become a site in which this meaning and memory is being created. It is essential then that this meaning and memory is memorialised in cultural works of the present. Narrating Johannesburg‘s history and memory by means of mapping its transformation in the present through the representation of daily life in the city therefore indicates that contemporary post-apartheid texts are indeed attempting to fulfil Nuttall (2004: 731) and Gunner‘s (2003) desire for South African cultural works to consider changes taking place in present-day South Africa. This is achieved by means of narrating transformation in the city and country through a memory framework, which ultimately works to reveal how this transformation is recorded and remembered.
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CHAPTER 3: GENDERED REPRESENTATIONS OF THE CITY OF JOHANNESBURG
One of the significant ways in which contemporary South African texts depict and account for transformation taking place in South Africa is through gendered representations of the city of Johannesburg. Since most urban theorists argue that space, and specifically the built environment, is gendered,20 a discussion of the ways in which city texts deal with issues of gender is imperative. This chapter discusses the ways in which South African city texts deal with the importance of gender and how gender has a bearing on mobility and access to resources in the city. African feminist theory will form an important theoretical framework in the context of analysing the chosen South African texts in this chapter, since these theorists deal with the ways in which space constructs gender identities. In particular, African feminist theories consider how novels (particularly feminist novels) can be viewed as forms of protest literature against patriarchal power structures in society. This aids in highlighting how the depiction of existing patriarchy can be utilised and transformed in order to influence and reflect changing attitudes in society. African feminism can be defined as the study of the treatment and representation of women in an African context with particular interest in the specific historical, social, economic and political injustices African women face as a result of, but not only restricted to, the effects of colonialism. African feminism addresses feminist concerns regarding ―the many specific African historical and cultural contexts‖ and acknowledges ―the importance of focusing on the specific needs of African women‖ (Kolawole 2002: 93). African feminism is thus essentially ―the study of women throughout the African diaspora‖ (Guy-Sheftall 2003: 31), with particular reference to the oppression and injustices such women experience in the public sphere of their societies. Yet African feminism is not only restricted to African women‘s critical studies of the treatment and portrayal of African women in this regard, but also incorporates men‘s works which promote a changing attitude toward the plight of African women. For example, Carole Boyce Davies (2007) notes that in the field of African feminism studies, African men join African women in the common struggle against the unjust domination of women in their societies. Since my study is concerned with reflections of change and transformation (in texts written by South African men), African feminist theory is applicable here because it is essentially concerned with
20 See Amin & Thrift (2002), Fenster (2005), Gottdiener & Budd (2005), Irving (1993), Massey (1994), McDowell (2002), Rose (2002), Saegert (1980), Scraton & Watson (1998), and Soja (2000) for discussions regarding the gendered organisation of built spaces, such as office buildings, in the city.
70 transformation in society based on attitudes toward gender, and emphasises the necessity of acknowledging these changes from the viewpoint of African men. African feminism is also applicable to this study as it illustrates a concern for the ways in which women are treated and represented in the public realm and in African literature in particular. Since my study contemplates this topic of public representation with regard to South African literary works, an outline and understanding of African feminist theory is necessary.
The purpose of this chapter is to reveal how contemporary South African texts written on Johannesburg depict gender issues in South Africa and how such texts reveal the gendered nature of discourse with regard to the city, as well as within South African culture. The changing nature of the South African gendered landscape is discussed with reference to how this change is depicted by means of the representation of a ―gendered city‖. This is achieved by firstly providing an overview of feminism‘s main arguments and the dialogue surrounding gender and space in Africa and South Africa. The chosen texts are then analysed in terms of these arguments. This chapter consists of an examination of the ‗gendered‘ city as a means of (re)writing South African cultural memory. Here, the way in which Johannesburg is mostly considered, experienced and written from a masculine or patriarchal perspective in the texts is discussed, paying particular attention to how the city is often represented as being inaccessible to women.21 The focus on this topic is essential, especially with regard to texts written and set in South Africa – a country which is still very much patriarchal and notorious for violence against women.22 Much of this chapter focuses on the position of men and women in the city, gender- related city consciousness, and the gendered discourse of the city. Room 207 by Kgebetli Moele (2006), Welcome To Our Hillbrow by Phaswane Mpe (2001) and The Restless Supermarket by Ivan Vladislavić (2001) form the foundation of this discussion as they deal with this subject of gender and the dialogue surrounding gender and space in very different ways. All three texts can
21 However, texts such as Zinaid Meeran‘s (2009) Saracen at the Gates as well as Lauren Beukes‘ (2010) Zoo City can be considered as important exceptions in this regard, and thus require further academic enquiry since the experience of the city of Johannesburg in these texts is written from the particular standpoint of very strong women characters. 22 According to The South African Civil Society Information Service (SACSIS), South Africa is a conventionally patriarchal society, which is one of the factors contributing to the high level of violence committed against women in the country (2009). Similarly, other studies (Dissel & Ngubeni 2003, Vetten 2005) have revealed that, although statistics regarding abuse against women are difficult to ascertain (due to poor reportage), the incidence of violence against women is very high in South Africa.
71 be said to consider the changing nature of city space and all three re-imagine, reinvent and re- interpret post-apartheid space, place and memory in terms of gender in South Africa. This section of the dissertation therefore seeks to identify and consider how depictions of the city of Johannesburg are being altered and modified by means of representations of gendered city space in post-transitional South African literature. Thus, I show the ways in which the texts reveal how transformation is narrated via the depiction of a changing gendered landscape and how this changes in post-transitional South African fiction. I therefore focus on the representation of a ‗gendered‘ city as a means of narrating transformation. In my examination of the three chosen works, I analyse how men and women are depicted as using space differently, the ways in which Johannesburg is represented as more of a ‗masculine space‘ and also how the representation of this ‗masculine‘ city space of Johannesburg is beginning to change and incorporate the female figure, in a less stereotypical manner, in post-transitional South African texts. I conclude that in subverting and challenging patriarchal biases, the texts map South Africa‘s transition via a transformed gendered landscape, in which the public attitude (represented by the public space of the city of Johannesburg) towards previously silenced and marginalised groups, such as women, in the country, is undermined and replaced with a more tolerant outlook. It should be noted that since I am a woman interpreting texts written by men, the analysis contained in this chapter itself could be considered a feminist critique since, as Annette Kolodny (1975: 75) asserts, in literary studies, the term ‗feminist criticism‘,
is used in a variety of contexts to cover a variety of activities including (1) any criticism written by a woman, no matter what the subject; (2) any criticism written by a woman about a man‘s book which treats that book from a ‗political‘ or ‗feminist‘ perspective; and (3) any criticism written by a woman about a woman‘s book or about female authors in general. However, the feminist perspective from which I analyse these texts is not so much centred on the fact that the novels are written by men, but rather on the specific ways in which women are represented in the public space of the city. My study in this chapter therefore does not focus on a particular critique of men‘s representation of women but rather on the general portrayal of the city of Johannesburg in terms of gender inequality and how post-transitional South African texts are reimagining this gendered space.
With regard to feminist theory and gender issues, the general concern of most feminist standpoints centres on the exclusion from, and subordination of women in both public and
72 private life. According to Booker (1996: 89), ―[m]odern feminist criticism seeks to challenge the traditions and conventions of ‗patriarchal‘ society, or society that is based on the premise of masculine authority as embodied in the notion of the father as the head of the family‖. Feminist criticism is therefore largely concerned with gendered power relations. In relation to this, Richa Nagar, Victoria Lawson, Linda McDowell, and Susan Hanson (2002: 279) state that ―[f]eminism‘s central concern with gender necessarily entails an engagement with power and the complex ways in which power works at multiple geographic scales, including those of the body and the house-hold‖. Similarly, Susan Bazilli (1991: 8) argues that conversation regarding ―gender relations‖ immediately raises questions about relations of power. While feminist criticism does not only concern itself with literary representations of women, this particular dissertation is concerned with literature and, although I aim to provide a general overview of the feminist schools of thought, I focus predominantly on feminist arguments concerning literary analysis.
Feminist literary criticism considers the relationship between patriarchal attitudes in society and literature and also the role that literature can play in subverting or challenging such patriarchal biases (Booker 1996: 89). Feminist literary criticism also resists the idea that there is one dominant voice (in this case the masculine, patriarchal voice) in society and instead develops theories based on sexual differences in reading, writing and literary interpretation (Showalter 1981). Feminist literary criticism as a field of criticism itself consists of many different views on exactly what feminist literary criticism entails. It therefore consists of a multiplicity of voices and as a result, feminist literary theory cannot be reduced to, or described as, a monolithic or singular literary theory. Feminist criticism is a broad field as it considers a variety of aspects and categories that characterise woman such as race, class, nationality and sexuality. There are different types of feminist theories such as Marxist feminism, Psychoanalytical feminism, Lesbian feminism, Liberal feminism, Radical feminism, French feminism, Post-colonial feminism, African feminism, Black feminism, White feminism and even Post-feminism. The fact that there are many different types of feminist theories indicates that feminist criticism does not assume a universal position in terms of the concept of women‘s identity. This is further underscored by the fact that even these seemingly separate groupings of feminist schools of thought are fluid and that these are various movements established to bring about female gender affirmative policies. Such discourses therefore overlap and straddle more than one of these schools of
73 thought. In this way, feminist critical theories acknowledge that women experience inequality in terms of the different ways and contexts in which they are oppressed in society – for example on the basis of race, class, nationality and sexuality – and are also aware that such experiences often overlap in various ways.
Regardless of these differences, two perspectives concerning gender began to form within feminist literary critical discussions. Namely, the ‗constructionist‘ perspective which accepted the idea that ‗gender is made by culture in history‖ (Rivkin & Ryan 2004: 766) and the ‗essentialist‘ perspective which was ―more inclined to the idea that gender reflects a natural difference between men and women that is as much psychological, even linguistic, as it is biological‖ (Rivkin & Ryan 2004: 767). On the one hand, the essentialist perspective argues that women‘s physical differences, such as menstruation, and being able to give birth, means that they are more connected with matter or the physical world than men and that this makes women ―capable of offering a different ethics from men, one more attuned to preserving the earth from destruction by weapons devised by men‖ (Rivkin & Ryan 2004: 767). Essentialists also argue that the heterogeneous style of feminine or women‘s writing or language ―deliberately undermines all the hierarchical orders of male rationalist-philosophy by breaking from the ideal of coherent meaning and good rational style‖ (Rivkin & Ryan 2004: 767). In contrast, the constructivist perspective argues that the ―psychology of identity that feminist essentialists think is different from men‘s is merely the product of conditioning under patriarchy, a conditioning to be caring, relational and maternal that may make women seem more ethical than men‖ (Rivkin & Ryan 2004: 768). The constructionists were also concerned that the essentialists were ―interpreting the subordination of women as women‘s nature‖ and stated that instead of focusing on ―the way androcentric culture traps and stifles a woman‘s identity […] the way all gender […] is fabricated‖ should be questioned (Rivkin & Ryan 2004: 768). It therefore becomes evident that feminist literary criticism moves from a focus on the criticism of writing by men and the consideration of women‘s writing to the issue of language and how women are represented in language, how they use language and how language is used to undo the silence and oppression women experience under patriarchy. It should be noted in this regard that the notion of a male as opposed to a female gender is itself problematic. Debates, such as Judith Butler‘s (1988, 2004) theory and understanding of gender as socially and historically constructed, which she terms ―Performativity‖, have centred on the problematic polarity of the male/female gender binary
74 categories. This debate is discussed in greater detail further on in the chapter. Despite this, feminist literary theory can be defined as an argument that is centred on the recovery of a marginalised women‘s history in terms of both women‘s writing and the ways in which they have been represented in literature. On this note, I will now turn to Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar‘s (2000) The Madwoman in the Attic as I believe that their theory provides a broad understanding of the consideration of the portrayal of gender in literary representations.
In their text The Madwoman in the Attic, Gilbert and Gubar (2000) argue that because of the negative representations or portrayals of women in general, women find it extremely challenging to establish their own voice and their own place in a tradition dominated by male viewpoints. It should be noted that Gilbert and Gubar (2000) write from a Western feminist perspective in the context of nineteenth century literature. Hence, although this perspective shares some similarities with, and is also able to shed light on, parallel African feminist concerns, such as the marginalisation of women in the public sphere, their study considers the representation of women in a very particular time and space – Western patriarchal society during the nineteenth century. Gilbert and Gubar (2000: 31) maintain that women are almost always portrayed negatively and note that ―even the positive images of women in literature express negative energies and desires on the part of male writers‖. They therefore argue that women cannot become writers until they find their own language or ―appropriate models for themselves in the tradition‖ (Gilbert & Gubar 2000: 31). Gilbert and Gubar (2000) pay particular attention to the centrality of stereotypes in men‘s literary representations of women, such as the ‗eternal‘ feminine in images of the beautiful, angelic or innocent woman and the ‗madwoman‘ in images of the woman as monster or witch. They also maintain that many variations of the roles of women as angel or monster have been invented for women (Gilbert & Gubar 2000: 18). In this regard, they recall Sherry Ortner (1974) who notes that both the subversive feminine symbols such as witches and monsters and the feminine symbols of transcendence such as angels, indicates that women ―stand both under and over (but really simply outside of) the sphere of culture‘s hegemony‖ (Gilbert & Gubar 2000: 19). In this way then, women are excluded from the dominant, public culture.
Gilbert and Gubar also argue that literature seems to prescribe certain roles for women. They state that conduct books for ladies from the eighteenth century on encouraged young girls to be
75 submissive, modest, selfless and also assured women that pleasing men was both an angelic and ladylike act (Gilbert & Gubar 2000: 27). They therefore draw parallels between the production of these conduct books and the equally prescriptive roles created for women reflected in the literature being produced at the same time. They further state that the image of the selfless, weak, fragile woman, which became popular in Victorian literature in the nineteenth century, meant that woman was often viewed as an ―Angel of Death‖, an image which provided a sense that woman herself was already dead (Gilbert & Gubar 2000: 24). Gilbert and Gubar (2000: 25) maintain that this ―aesthetic cult of ladylike fragility and delicate beauty […] associated with the moral cult of the angel-woman‖ encouraged women to objectify or ―‗kill‘ themselves […] into art objects: slim, pale, passive beings whose ‗charms‘ eerily recalled the snowy, porcelain immobility of the dead‖. However, they also note that ―the Victorian domestication of death represents not just an acquiescence in death by the selfless, but also a secret striving for power by the powerless‖ (Gilbert & Gubar 2000: 25). Therefore, because woman is excluded from the sphere of culture‘s hegemony, she is at least given authority over the dead.
Furthermore, Gilbert and Gubar (2000) write that most men‘s literature suggests that for every submissive angelic female, there is the female monster or witch. The angelic woman is therefore juxtaposed with the woman as monster and stereotypical male characteristics, such as assertiveness and aggressiveness, are represented as ―‗monstrous‘ in women precisely because [they are] ‗unfeminine‘ and therefore unsuited to a gentle life of ‗contemplative purity‘‖ (Gilbert & Gubar 2000: 28). Gilbert and Gubar (2000: 29) provide the example of William Makepeace Thackeray‘s (1963) Vanity Fair, stating that ―[b]ehind Thackeray‘s angelically submissive Amelia Sedley, for instance [...] lurks Vanity Fair‘s stubbornly autonomous Becky Sharp, an independent ‗charmer‘ whom the novelist at one point actually describes as a monstrous and snaky sorceress‖. Similarly, theorists such as Judith Halberstam (1995), Helene Cixous (1976), and Julia Kristeva (1982) have also noted the depiction of women as monsters and reveal the ways in which such portrayals of the monstrous Other deem the female figure as Other (Anolik 2001: 42). However, Gilbert and Gubar (2000: 29), in reference to the above example concerning Thackeray‘s portrayal of Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair, also argue that, at times, the image of woman as monster and angel are not represented separately but are rather depicted as one in that the monster is represented as residing or existing within the ‗angel‘. They support this with reference to Thackeray‘s depiction of Becky Sharp, which, they believe, implies that ―every
76 angel in the house – ‗proper, agreeable, and decorous,‘ ‗coaxing and cajoling‘ hapless men – is really, perhaps, a monster, ‗diabolically hideous and slimy‘‖ (Gilbert & Gubar 2000: 29). This formulation will prove particularly important for my later textual analysis of the portrayal of women characters as both serving the needs of men and being viewed as immoral prostitutes in the city of Johannesburg in the texts that I consider.
Gilbert and Gubar (2000: 29) further maintain that these images (of woman as ‗angel‘ or ‗monster‘ or both) affect the self images of women writers (and readers) as these images ―incarnate male dread of women and, specifically, male scorn of female creativity‖. Again, it should be noted here that Gilbert and Gubar (2000) are writing from a Western feminist viewpoint from which they consider works produced in the nineteenth century. Such patriarchal views and writings are thus subject to change in texts produced after this era. Regardless of this, Gilbert and Gubar‘s (2000) argument that the woman writer faces great difficulty in asserting her own literary voice, assists in highlighting the necessity for new creative strategies needed in representing a more encompassing view of gender. In addition, Gilbert and Gubar (2000: 17) also argue that the images of woman as ‗angel‘ and ‗monster‘ have been so dominant throughout men‘s literature that ―they have also pervaded women‘s writing to such an extent that few women have definitely ‗killed‘ either figure‖. Women writers therefore sometimes appropriate the very images that men writers use to subordinate and silence them. Gilbert and Gubar (2000: 17) state that women writers and artists struggle with self-definition because this process is complicated by patriarchal definitions: ―the woman writer acknowledges […] that what she sees in the mirror is usually a male construct‖. Gilbert and Gubar (2000: 17) therefore argue that ―a woman writer must examine, assimilate and transcend the extreme images of ‗angel‖ and ‗monster‘ which male authors have generated for her‖ and that women writers must kill or obliterate ―the aesthetic ideal through which they themselves have been ‗killed‘ into art‖, as well as the ‗monster‘ image which ―also kills female creativity‖. In my analysis of post-transitional South African texts, I use this argument to consider how men are also employing these strategies in order to subvert social and historical understandings of gender, especially in predominantly patriarchal literary traditions and societies. Yet Gilbert and Gubar also indicate that despite the imposition of patriarchal definitions on women writers, they have been able to produce a vast body of work. They argue that women writers have been able to create ―fictional worlds in which
77 patriarchal images and conventions [are] severely, radically revised‖23 (Gilbert & Gubar 2000: 44). Similarly, Kolodny (1975: 80) notes that the stereotyped, traditional literary images of women – as, for example, the loving ‗Mom‘, the ‗bitch‘, the Sex Goddess – are being turned around in women‘s fiction, either for comic purposes, to explore their inherent absurdity, or, in other instances, to reveal their hidden reality, though in new ways, not previously apprehended. It is important to note that this change in the representation of women also pertains to the literary work of men, who cannot all be generalised with regard to the unfair depiction of women. Men, as is discussed with reference to Moele‘s (2006) Room 207, Mpe‘s (2001) Welcome To Our Hillbrow and Vladislavić‘s (2001) The Restless Supermarket in this dissertation, have also begun to consider more complex roles for female figures in literary works. Gilbert and Gubar‘s (2000) arguments pertaining to the burdens that a Western patriarchal literary tradition has imposed on women writers thus forms an important basis for my analysis of the texts I consider. This is because I use their arguments in this regard as a standpoint from which to argue about the ways in which this tradition is both still being perpetuated and also challenged in the context of the twenty-first century in Africa.
Gilbert and Gubar‘s (2000) argument in The Madwoman in the Attic is especially significant with regard to the study of the literature in this chapter because it encourages a view of literature as a means of asserting women‘s identity and authority in patriarchal societies and as a vehicle for undoing the silences and subordination that women have experienced. Their argument therefore highlights that literature can be seen as a means for women to enter the political arena. Gilbert and Gubar‘s argument also enables one to expose the dominance of the use of stereotypical images of women in literature and to reveal these stereotypes as negative, untrue myths. Furthermore, Gilbert and Gubar‘s argument enables the literary critic to recognise the existence of patriarchal stereotypes of women in both men and women‘s texts and, by discussing the ways in which women (and also men) simultaneously make use of and subvert these stereotypes, Gilbert and Gubar‘s argument is helpful in highlighting the creative strategies that writers employ in order to question society‘s understanding of gender in the creation of their works. Their discussion of the ways in which these strategies and feminist views are often concealed
23 A South African example of this, especially in the context of this study, is evident in Lauren Beukes‘ (2010) Zoo City in which the depiction of the strong, powerful protagonist Zinzi undercuts patriarchal prescriptions and definitions of what women‘s roles in society should be.
78 within literary works, helps to indicate evidence of a literary aesthetic that works to undermine the tenets of patriarchy. This will be more fruitfully explored in all three texts that I have chosen to consider in this study later on in this chapter.
However, it should be noted that Gilbert and Gubar, and also French feminists in particular, such as Luce Irigaray (1991), tend to assume that there is a specific ‗male‘ or ‗female‘ language or style of writing and that men and women will always write or use language differently. In fact, many feminists have argued that women need to create a specific, recognisable female method of writing. Virginia Woolf (1929), Elaine Showalter (1977), Helene Cixous (1976) and Josephine Donovan (1972), for example, have all advocated this need for a female writing tradition. This argument, then, does not account for similarities between the two gender groups or even individuality and differences within either group. More important to note however, is the fact that if it is true and men and women always use language differently or write differently, women‘s use of language and writing could be viewed in opposition to men‘s. So if, for example, men‘s use of language is described as rational, calculated, logical and structured, this will lead to a definition of women‘s use of language and writing as irrational, illogical and unstructured. It is evident then that this will lead to negative readings or definitions of women‘s literature. Yet the same can be said for readings of literature produced by men when comparing such work against the writings of women. Similarly, theorists have also articulated an understanding of differences in the ways in which men and women read, understand and even critique literature (Showalter 1977, 1981; Schweikart 1986). Yet, this polarising of gender is problematic since it asserts a view of identity as relational, which thus advocates that ―‗woman‘ is only a position that gains its (provisional) definition from its placement in relation to ‗man‘‖ (Poovey 1988: 51) and vice versa. In addition, this polarisation of men and women implies that gender is a fixed identity or foundation from which certain behaviours are almost expected or condoned. As has been alluded to briefly earlier in this chapter, Butler (1988: 519) argues against this understanding of gender in her argument that
gender is in no way a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts proceede [sic]; rather, it is an identity tenuously constituted in time – an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts. Further, gender is instituted through the stylization of the body and, hence, must be understood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures, movements, and enactments of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self (author‘s emphasis).
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Butler (1988) argues then that gender is, what she calls, ―performative‖ in that it is a socially and historically constructed identity, which is learned and imitated in everyday actions over time. She therefore posits that
if gender identity is the stylized repetition of acts through time, and not a seemingly seamless identity, then the possibilities of gender transformation are to be found in the arbitrary relation between such acts, in the possibility of a different sort of repeating, in the breaking or subversive repetition of that style (Butler 1988: 520). Furthermore, in Butler‘s later work – Bodies of Matter (1993) – she investigates how sexed identities have been established and enacted in society. She writes that
It must be possible to concede and affirm an array of ‗materialities‘ that pertain to the body, that which is signified by the domains of biology, anatomy, physiology, hormonal and chemical compositions, illness, age, weight, metabolism, life and death. None of this can be denied. But the undeniability of these ‗materialities‘ in no way implies what it means to affirm them, indeed, what interpretive matrices condition, enable and limit that necessary affirmation. That each of those categories have a history and a historicity, that each of them is constituted through the boundary lines that distinguish them and, hence, by what they exclude, that relations of discourse and power produce hierarchies and overlappings among them and challenge those boundaries, implies that these are both persistent and contested regions (Butler 1993: 66-67, author‘s emphasis). Regardless of this view, Butler (1993) does not refute that there are anatomical and physiological differences (the ‗materialities‘ she speaks of) between sexes, but rather interrogates the manner in which such polarities have been imposed on societies. This argument is therefore helpful in positing that the negative representation of women in the public sphere is not simply the result of sexist attitudes toward them on the part of men, but rather a result of how gender has been constructed and enacted in society. From this standpoint then, it can be argued that such understandings and representations of gender can just as easily be changed over time as they have been erected.
This binary understanding of literature is thus not a primary concern or main argument of most feminist theory but is often rather a misreading of it. In the context of this study, the consideration of the use of feminine styles of writing and language on the part of men or even a feminist reading of works by men is essential. This is of particular importance in order to acknowledge that neither women‘s nor men‘s literature should be defined as the reverse of the other. Kolodny (1975: 79) especially notes that instead of qualifying ―assumptions about the uniqueness of women‘s consciousness, experience of the world, and resultant literary production
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[...], we must begin by treating each author [regardless of whether a man or woman] and each separate work by each author as itself unique and individual‖. She further maintains that ―[a] good feminist criticism [...] must first acknowledge that men‘s and women‘s writing [...] will inevitably share some common ground‖ (Kolodny 1975: 86). In this regard, much feminist theory does note the harm that arises due to creating binary oppositions between masculinity and femininity and aims rather to deconstruct this notion (Moi 2002). For example, Kristeva (1982) rejects the dichotomy of biological and essential differences between men and women, while Woolf (1929) has illustrated disagreement with the false metaphysical nature of fixed gender identities (Moi 2002: 14). These arguments, then, point to the fact that the marginalisation of women has not only been reflected and portrayed in the works of men, but also in the works of women authors. This therefore emphasises that this marginalisation is not an issue of sexist representation, but rather a broader societal attitude and understanding towards women‘s power and presence in culture and public spaces. Feminist literary theory is thus not centred on a critique of men‘s writing as opposed to women‘s but rather on how societal attitudes regarding women‘s roles are reflected in literature. Conclusively, an understanding of the above feminist theory indicates some critical implications with regard to the reading and interpretation of gender and how this influences and shapes literary analysis. With regard to my argument in this chapter, my reading of three texts written by men endeavours to traverse this very binary understanding of gender, in effect setting this study apart from previous studies, which appear to perpetuate this binary.
Regardless of their binary understanding of men‘s and woman‘s literature, and also the geographic, gendered and historical context in which feminist theorists, such as Gilbert and Gubar (2000), have written, feminist literary arguments bring attention to the ways in which writers, and more specifically the patriarchal society in which they live and write, have defined women. This therefore indicates that history and gender politics have become important departures for the study of literature. Furthermore, feminist theory arguments enable and encourage new readings of literature based on the reclamation of women‘s presence, voices and power in society. In this regard, Gilbert and Gubar (2000) have been particular intellectual leaders in creating discursive space for the authorial role of women to be more fully explored. This therefore, like French feminism, encourages a study in literature of the ways in which language is used in order to indicate or represent the reclaiming of women‘s control over their
81 lives and the right to tell their own stories. Despite this, much of feminist literary theory tends to focus on the writing of literature as an act of struggle, particularly against patriarchy. Thus language comes to be viewed as being inherently patriarchal. The view that literary works are concerned with either writing for or against patriarchy also does not account for other genres of literature, which deal with neither. This treatment of writing could therefore lead to a study of literature as a collection of one-dimensional, singular-focused works. This reading of literature could also lead to a view of all literary works as making a political comment or as being characterised as protest literature – specifically literature that is only concerned with making a political statement against patriarchy. This view again means that writers‘ ability to produce other genres could be ignored. Furthermore, although feminist theorists, and Gilbert and Gubar (2000) in particular, discuss the ways in which the dominant discourse has tended to think in terms of binary oppositions, in that for example women are often presented as passive and men as active, they too are guilty of focusing on binary oppositions in their promotion and desire for women‘s writing to be different or in opposition to men‘s. This argument therefore seems to promote a form of essentialism, and Gilbert and Gubar (2002) can even be said to be guilty of strategic essentialism in a sense as their promotion of women‘s resistance to patriarchal texts can be seen as a type of political strategy. In implying that all feminist readings of texts are or should be based on how they adhere to or undermine patriarchy, feminist theories also seem to restrict or limit other possible readings of such works and particularly the women characters they deal with. However, the texts written by men, which I analyse in this chapter, do not consider gender in a purely ‗gendered‘ manner as they depict the city of Johannesburg, and the men and women who inhabit the city, in such a way that socially and historically prescribed gender roles are subverted, blurred and undermined. The manner in which this is achieved will be discussed further on in this chapter.
From the above discussion, feminist literary criticism‘s applicability to the study of gendered representations in literature becomes evident. Feminist literary criticism has enabled the discovery of a field of works which privilege alternatives to predominant patriarchal views and, in turn, has allowed the stories and voices of women to be heard – stories and voices which were previously ignored in favour of men‘s views and works in patriarchal societies. Feminist theory therefore assists in encouraging more positive readings and representations of female figures in literature. In addition, feminist theory makes possible the recovery and recognition of women‘s
82 presence in the literary field. Moreover, feminist literary theory enables one to recognise the existence of alternative truths in literature as feminist theory does not privilege one truth or one dominant voice in society, which is evident in the pluralist nature and multiplicity of voices within feminism. Feminist literary criticism thus encourages questions pertaining to what it means to be a woman in certain societies, of a certain race, class or sexuality. What the conceptual and identity marker ‗woman‘ represents or means in literature is therefore open to many interpretations and the character ‗woman‘ can therefore be interpreted in different ways in various contexts, thus allowing a broader understanding of the representation of women in literature, which this section of my dissertation attempts to consider.
Feminist literary theory is also applicable in the context of this study as it encourages the recognition of ‗silences‘ in texts. The recognition of such ‗silences‘ is imperative in this chapter as I consider how previous texts set in Johannesburg have tended to ignore an authoritative female presence in the city space. For example, an understanding of feminist literary theory encourages one to read for instances where women‘s issues and viewpoints have been ignored or silenced in the dominant discourse. Feminist literary criticism also proposes an acknowledgment of gender as a social construct (constructivism) in literature, thus enabling a similar understanding of a constructionist view of language and the ways in which language is constructed to convey different gender concerns and issues of power in this regard. This is of particular significance in an analysis such as mine, which relies mostly on an in-depth criticism of linguistic techniques used in the texts. However, with these arguments in mind, it is imperative to acknowledge the debate between constructionist and biological determinist feminist theory, as discussed previously, as well as the growing body of scholarship which suggests that ‗male‘ and ‗female‘ should not exist as separate categories. Such arguments thus do not find support in the idea of clearly discernible male and female voices, as has been considered with reference to Butler‘s (1988, 1993, 2004) theory of ―Performativity‖. The latter debate is particularly pertinent to my argument in this chapter since I do not focus on a specific ‗male‘ voice or view of representations of gender, but argue more broadly about how the depiction of women in city space in South African society is being altered. Feminist literary theory is ultimately beneficial to the study of literature and my study specifically, as it changes the ways in which a text is read with regard to gender representation and enables one to uncover the differences (or even similarities) between patriarchal literary viewpoints and the creation of
83 alternative literary voices that recognise the marginalisation of women in society. Feminist literary theory, and particularly French feminists such as Luce Irigaray (1991),24 also draws the reader‘s, or literary critic‘s, attention to new or different styles of writing that are opposed to dominantly, stereotypical patriarchal styles of writing. Therefore, feminist literary criticism enables one to acknowledge new forms of writing, which account for more fair representations of women. This in turn leads to new ways of reading literature as these new styles of writing indicate that literature is open to many diverse interpretations, not only from, or promoting, a patriarchal viewpoint. Ultimately, feminist literary criticism enables conventional writing styles and ideas to be revised and enables patriarchal norms to be questioned, thus enabling a reassessment of literature based on gender.
More in line with the context of this dissertation, African feminists also consider the effects of patriarchy on the representation of women. Carol Boyce Davies (in Olaniyan & Quayson 2007) provides a useful summary of African feminism by outlining its six main points of interest. Davies (2007: 563) argues that firstly, African feminism ―recognizes a common struggle with African men for the removal of the yokes of foreign domination and European/American exploitation‖ yet at the same time, also challenges African men ―to be aware of certain salient aspects of women‘s subjugation which differ from the generalized oppression of all African peoples‖. Secondly, Davies (2007: 563) states that African feminism ―acknowledges its affinities with international feminism, but delineates a specific African feminism with certain specific needs and goals arising out of the concrete realities of women‘s lives in African societies‖. Thirdly, Davies (2007: 563) maintains that African feminism ―recognizes that African societies are ancient societies so, logically, African women must have addressed the problems of women‘s position in society historically‖. Fourthly, Davies (2007: 563) asserts that ―African feminism examines African societies for institutions which are of value to women and rejects those which work to their detriment and does not simply import Western women‘s agendas‖. For example, African feminism ―respects African woman‘s status as mother but questions obligatory motherhood and the traditional favouring of sons‖ (Davies 2007: 563). The fifth main point of concern for African feminism, according to Davies (2007: 564), is its respect for ―African woman‘s self-reliance and the penchant to cooperative work and social organization
24 See Irigaray‘s ―The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine‖ (in Whitford 1991: 118-132).
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(networking) and the fact that African women are seldom financially dependent but instead accept income-generating work as a fact of life‖. Lastly, Davies (2007: 564) argues that ―African feminism looks at traditional and contemporary avenues of choice for women‖, ultimately enabling ―African women themselves [...] to tell their own stories‖. The link between feminist literary criticism and a more specific African feminist school of thought is thus evident here in the similar concern about the social and historical perpetuation of women‘s subordinate status in society.
One of the other main arguments that African feminists put forward is that the concept of gender, like categories of race and other constructed binaries, is tied to Western culture. In fact, according to Stella Nkomo and Hellicy Ngambi (2009: 14) ―African feminism emerged as a critique of the dichotomy, individualism, competition and opposition that Western feminism fosters‖, with scholars questioning ―the very concept of gender, critiquing its oppositional construction and the separation of sex and gender‖. Theorist Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí (2005: xiii), for example, states that ―the conceptual category of gender is in origin, constitution, and expression bound to Western culture‖. In fact, questions about the dichotomy of gender have a long European/Western tradition.25 Other African feminists agree with the above and note that this becomes problematic in the context of African Studies since ―[s]uch a conception of the social world is by no means universal‖ (Oyěwùmí 2005: xiii). Rather, African feminism promotes the view that gender is ambiguous and not as easy to define as some Western feminist theories (see discussion of the feminist biological determinist argument as well as Gilbert and Gubar‘s (2000) The Madwoman in the Attic above) posit. According to Diedre Bádéjọ (1998: 94), African feminist ideology is ―founded upon the principles of traditional African values that view gender roles as complementary, parallel, asymmetrical, and autonomously linked in the continuity of human life‖. Similarly, Oyěwùmí (2005: xiii) states that in many African societies, so-called gendered social roles ―are not necessarily biological roles: the best examples being the categories of ‗wife‘ and ‗husband‘. As [sic] a number of studies have shown that neither these conjugal categories nor kinship classifications are sex-specific‖. Furthermore, African Feminism also deals with how gender is constructed in societies. For example, Oyěwùmí (2005) argues that gender is not only socially constructed but also historical. African feminists thus deal with the
25 See Butler‘s arguments in ―Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory‖ (1988), Bodies that Matter (1993) and Undoing Gender (2004).
85 ways in which space (including historical, social and political space) constructs gender identities. These arguments therefore tie in with Butler‘s (1988, 1993, 2004) theory of gender as a ‗performative‘ construct.
Importantly, Western feminism and African feminism share a common concern in that both are concerned with the exclusion of women from the public realm. In the African context in particular, women‘s lives and duties are relegated to the private sphere and they are therefore excluded from the public realm (Kihato 2007: 99). African feminists on the whole, like Western or European feminist theorists who argue for positive representations of women in their literatures, also articulate a concern for the absence of positive female images in African literature. Obioma Nnaemeka (1997: 167), for example, argues that ―African women are spoken for, about, and against‖ (author‘s emphasis). Depicting female characters in a negative light can therefore be seen as just another means of ignoring or excluding a strong female presence in the public environment. African feminism underscores the importance of differentiating between Western or European feminine experience and African feminine experience, thereby enabling a very specific, detailed study of the plight of African women. African feminist theories also reveal that not all women are helpless victims of patriarchy and should not be depicted as such. Furthermore, African feminism does not look at gender in terms of binary thinking. Rather, African feminists encourage an ambiguous reading of gender and promote the view that what it means to be a man or woman is not always as clear-cut as society depicts. In the argument that gender is not only socially constructed but also historical, African feminism is also applicable to a study such as this one as it enables a broader view with regard to how the concept of gender comes into being, especially in the public sphere of representation.
However, African feminism generalises the representation of African women by implying that African women are always and only depicted negatively. It therefore does not acknowledge or take into account the possibility that positive representations of African women have existed and do exist. Also, by arguing that the concept of gender is a Western construct, African feminists seem to assert that this view of gender is inapplicable in an African context. This is problematic since, as Yaba Amgborale Blay (2008) states,
[w]hile it is true that Western feminism has served functionary of European and North American imperialism, the fact remains that in these contemporary (neocolonial) times, issues of gender inequality, gender discrimination, and gender oppression, are realities throughout the Diaspora.
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Furthermore, by arguing that gender is always ambiguous, African feminist criticism runs the risk of implying that there is no distinct African female voice and therefore could possibly be accused of undermining the idea of a specific ‗African woman‘ identity in comparison with an ‗African man‘ identity. However, in this regard, Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi (1997) warns that African women‘s identities and sexuality should not be viewed as stable and unchanging. She argues instead that ―[f]ixed identity must [...] be destabilized [as] [t]his disruption creates simultaneous margins where sexual difference or gender inequalities will find themselves in potentially fluid, though still problematized, shifting locations‖ (Nfah-Abbenyi 1997: 33).
With regard to South African feminism, issues centred on gender and gender inequalities are still seen as relatively minor concerns in relation to other matters that the country has had to deal with, especially since the end of apartheid. In relation to this, Catherine Ndinda (2006: 327) discusses the opposition between feminism and nationalism in South Africa and argues that this dichotomy arises (worldwide in fact) because ―achieving national goals does not always lead to achieving feminist goals‖. Similarly, Sabine Marschall (2010: 277) states that ―[t]he concern for women‘s equality has historically been marginalised and subsumed under the discourse of national liberation, and even feminist art-making in South Africa – as Karen Von Veh (2006: 29) points out – was only acceptable if it overlapped with socio-political commentary‖. This is probably one of the reasons why, according to Natasha Erlank (2008: 121), although ―gender is of critical importance to South(ern) African society‖, attention to gender as a topic of academic study is an ignored area of research. However, academics are beginning to correct this gap in research. Theorists such as Ronit Frenkel (2008) and Christa Baiada (2008) reveal how South Africa is constructed in terms of a gendered discourse and argue for ways in which this discourse can be reconstructed in order to rectify gender injustices. Frenkel (2008: 1) states that because of ―South Africa‘s past, as well as the continuities between the apartheid and post-apartheid periods‖, the position of women in the ‗new‘ South Africa is quite contradictory. She maintains that
[w]hile women‘s struggles were subordinated to the larger anti-apartheid struggle out of the necessities of a nationalist agenda, in a post-apartheid context, the residue of these modes and repertoires of operation coupled with the patriarchal nature of apartheid, has resulted in ambiguous gender positionings that are highlighted by such polarised statistics – where women are clearly both empowered and victimised, seen and unseen, included and excluded in different ways (Frenkel 2008: 1-2).
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Frenkel (2008: 1) also argues that the study of works dealing with gender positionings in post- apartheid South Africa are important since the treatment and ―position of women illuminates critical isssues about how the political and social structure negotiates its contradictions and safe spaces‖. How South Africa deals with gender issues therefore reveals the country‘s strength and ability in dealing with other matters of social and political importance. This is interesting since Baiada maintains that the concept of the nation of South Africa has been dependent on emphasising gender difference. Quoting Anne McClintock‘s (1991: 105) statement that ―[t]he needs of the nation are identified with the needs, frustrations and aspirations of men ... women are construed as the ‗bearers of the nation‘, its boundary and symbolic limit, but lack a nationality of their own‖, Baiada (2008) asserts that the concept of the nation itself is dependent on constructions of gender difference and it is these constructions that need to be re-examined in order to correct gender discrimination and bias. Similarly, Erlank (2008: 132) argues that ―a feminist or woman-centred research agenda is of critical importance when it comes to academics‘ attempts to engage in and promote social transformation‖. Yet another issue of concern for South African gender scholarship is ―the nature of the feminism represented in certain types of writing‖ (Erlank 2008: 132). Erlank (2008: 133-134) maintains that in South African gender and women‘s studies across disciplines, ―a residual distrust of Anglo-American feminist scholarship continues to pervade some of the local feminist work‖; meaning that South African feminists are reacting against Western scholarship in their own writings. This is therefore opening up new and exciting spaces for academic enquiry in this regard.
Although South African feminism is still a growing field of research, this school of theory reveals how South Africa is shrouded in a gendered discourse and thus how women are marginalised both privately and publicly because of this. South African feminism encourages a literary intervention into the silencing of women and their stories in local literary works, enabling a reconstruction of women‘s place in the nation‘s history. However, in reacting against and reflecting on Western feminist arguments, South African feminist scholarship seems to be unable to escape being characterised by this binary. South African feminism also runs the risk of being criticised for depicting the plight of South African women as homogenous, thereby eradicating differences between distinct groups of South African women. In addition, South African feminism, like African feminism, ―finds it difficult to move beyond an understanding of gender as women‖ (Erlank 2008: 134). This is because it tends to equate the study of gender with
88 the study of women and, hence, does not consider men in this regard. My research in terms of the arguments presented in this chapter is thus an attempt at overcoming this split since I indicate how the position of men, both in the literary field and broader society, is crucial to the study of gender in order to problematise this very binary.
Feminist criticism has enabled the discovery of a field of women‘s works and stories and, in turn, has allowed the stories and voices of women to be heard. Feminist theory has ―revalue[d] and reshape[d] […] literary canons, refus[ing] a unitary or universally accepted body of theory‖ (Selden, Widdowson & Brooker 2005: 137), has ―emphasized the necessity of new feminine forms of expression‖ (Booker 1996: 90) and has enabled the critical analysis of issues such as ―the gender ideology which produces patriarchal stereotypes […] and which is, in turn, produced by them‖ (Wolff 1990: 112). However, feminist criticism focuses on gender issues in isolation to other concerns such as race and the effects of colonialism (and apartheid in South Africa), and has ―been restricted to textual critique and to exploring the characteristics of women‘s writing‖ instead of also including the analysis of ―the production of those texts in particular relations and institutions, literary, social and political‖ (Wolff 1990: 110). Lastly, feminist literary critics, and Gilbert and Gubar (2000) in particular, ―tend to limit women writers‘ freedom by constructing them as ‗exceptionally articulate victims of a patriarchally engendered plot‘‖ (Selden, Widdowson & Brooker 2005: 127). Similarly, women figures in literature tend to be read and represented generally as victims of patriarchy. My current study will examine this hypothesis and contemplate its relevance in the post-transitional-era.
With regard to the study of South African feminist views on gender and space, much South African feminist criticism describes public as well as private space in South Africa as gendered. According to Melanie Walker (1998: 340), in South Africa ―[g]ender subordination is [...] played out publicly in legal, political, economic, and ideological institutions, and privately in the family‖. In fact, Walker (1998: 340) maintains that ―all women have been defined across South African cultures as the ‗other‘‖. In other words, women in South Africa have been excluded or ignored in the public realm. In relation to this, Nthabiseng Motsemme (2002: 649) argues that ―contemporary memories of apartheid and post-apartheid continue to be shaped by men‖. Marschall (2010) illustrates one example of how South African women have been marginalised in the public sphere or memory in her article entitled ―How to Honour a Woman: Gendered
89
Memorialisation in Post-Apartheid South Africa‖. In this article, she discusses how women figures have been largely ignored in terms of public art works documenting and celebrating historical figures in South Africa. Marschall (2010: 277) states that
[t]oday, the new landscape of memory enshrined by the democratic order is foremost concerned with the representation of liberation heroes and invariably male-dominated episodes of resistance history in which women are not considered, because they usually do not ‗make the grade‘ according to the parameters of this discourse. Much of South African history (political and cultural) today is therefore still written by men, thus highlighting the gendered nature of South African discourse and memory.
However, other theorists demonstrate how South African women are in fact gradually becoming more prominent figures in the public sphere, especially with regard to political participation, and reveal how this, in turn, is creating possibilities for more egalitarian spaces in South Africa. One of the most visible spaces of the public sphere is urban cities. In South Africa, the urban city sphere is best defined by Johannesburg, since it is still the economic and industrial centre of the country. Shireen Hassim (2005: 178), in particular, notes how nationalism in South Africa enabled women‘s entry into public matters and encouraged a view of women as active and articulate members of a nation. She argues that this occurred because in South Africa, ―African nationalism posited an alliance of interests based on opposition to racism, and allowed women to articulate their interests as members of a nation‖ (Hassim 2005: 178). Yet it is crucial to note that there are still disparities with regard to women‘s presence and power in the public sphere. This is because, according to Cheryl McEwan (2000: 639), ―[c]itizenship is based on power which is exercised through social, economic and political structures that perpetuate the exclusion of members of certain social groups‖. Inequality in terms of access and power in the public realm thus occurs due to the fact that, since these structures are based on masculine or patriarchal power, women therefore do not have full citizenship and are thus excluded or marginalised from full public participation and history.
Concerning the representation of gender in the public sphere of fiction, there is a modest amount of literature based on the experience of women in the city. Of even more concern is the lack of female writers and narratives regarding the city and the lack of female artists utilising the city as
90 the setting of, or inspiration for, narratives and other cultural works.26 The city and also writing about the city therefore seems to have become what Gottdiener and Budd (2005: 81) term ―masculine space‖. This could be due to the fact that during the 1920s, the family home in the suburb, rather than the city, became the new environment for women. In other words, the suburb became ―feminine space‖. Theorists such as Doreen Massey (1994), Tovi Fenster (2005), Katrina Irving (1993), Susan Saegert (1980) and Sheila Scraton and Beccy Watson (1998) have recognised that the city is often linked and associated with men, while the suburbs and the home are often connected with women. This links back to feminist arguments pertaining to the marginalisation of women in terms of public space such as the city and the resultant relegation of female figures to the more private spheres of the household in suburban space. Gottdiener and Budd (2005: 27) also attribute this establishment of the home and suburb as ―feminine space‖ to the shift towards the middle class and the definition of women‘s roles as stay-at-home wives during the 1920s – a stark contrast to their previous active participation in the industrial labour force. Edward Soja (2000: 240) similarly argues that urban (city) areas have traditionally been viewed as ―a masculinist space, a built environment designed to control, often through violence, women‘s access to the primary sites of male power‖.
In terms of the present, Gottdiener and Budd (2005: 28) posit that it is still possible to argue that suburban spaces such as ―large supermarkets, shopping malls and the middle-class, single family home are examples of ‗feminine space‘‖. The city therefore seems to continue to be seen as a dominant patriarchal site. Nuttall and Mbembe (2008: 11) also note this patriarchal domination of the city in representations of the city itself as they argue that, ―[i]n literary studies, the central figure has been the newly urban black man – his alienation, the transformation of his identity, the commodification of his past in the conflicting spaces of the city‖. Likewise, Kruger (2001) considers how portrayals of women in the city mostly depict women indoors. She argues that on the rare occasion when women are represented as leaving the home, walking and spending time in the city itself, they are either described as taking a risk or being in danger, or assume the roles of prostitute or tourist (Kruger 2001: 241-242). The woman figure in the city, according to Kruger, is therefore always the outsider and ―is more likely to be an object of another‘s gaze – or worse – than a flâneuse or voyeuse in her own right‖ (Kruger 2001: 242, author‘s emphasis). In
26 This is a trend that this dissertation is inadvertently perpetuating.
91 the African context in particular, women in urban areas are relegated to the private sphere and are therefore excluded from the public realm (Kihato 2007: 99), which in turn demarcates the city as a patriarchal region.
In order to have an understanding of what South African city texts are doing now in connection with gender, it is important to have a clear sense of what has come before. With regard to past texts set in Johannesburg, written during and before apartheid, the politics of gender permeate the themes that emerge in these works. For example, short stories in Michael Chapman‘s (2001) collection The Drum Decade: Stories from the 1950s centre on and promote stereotypical representations of women. According to Antje Rauwerda (2007: 8) and Lindsay Clowes (2001), Drum and the stories included in this magazine depict a masculine urbanity and focus mainly on representations of men and masculinity. Similarly, Nixon (1994: 29) asserts that ―Drum‗s accent fell on [...] the ills but also the (mostly male) thrills of city life‖, while Dorothy Driver (in Darian-Smith, Gunner & Nuttall 1996: 232) argues that Drum ―forg[ed] an ideology of domesticity through the aggressive demarcation of masculine and feminine spheres‖. Past works as well as the texts of Alan Paton (2010), Mongane Wally Serote (1997a, 1997b) and Peter Abrahams (1989), among others, have tended to insist on representations of the city as not only a vehicle for black experience, but more specifically as a means of expression for black male experience. Although women characters are present in some of these texts, their characters and experiences in the city have a symbolic function rather than treating women as real characters. In other words, the presence of women characters merely serves as a representation of certain ideas, such as the effect of being alienated from one‘s past and traditions. For example, Megan Jones (2008: 3) states that in Abrahams‘ (1989) Mine Boy, the woman character Leah ―is nurtured more as a symbol than as a character – her strengths and weakness [sic] are schematically and externally deployed rather than internally developed‖.
The above concerns continue to pervade contemporary South African city texts. All three texts that I am examining in this dissertation appear to be written, as well as view the city, from a predominantly masculine perspective. For example, Mpe, Moele and Vladislavić‘s texts still depict Johannesburg, and Hillbrow in particular, as a patriarchal space. This is most evident in the fact that the protagonists in all three texts are men and therefore experience and present the city to the reader from a subjective, masculine viewpoint. Room 207 appears to be the most
92 hyper-masculine text as it is the only text that addresses even the reader as a man. This is evident in the beginning of the novel where the narrator informs the reader that ―Matome loved them [women], but not the way you and I will tenderly love those members of the female species‖ (Moele 2006: 27). The narrator, if not the author, therefore appears to be assuming that the reader is a man. However, this can be viewed as a heteronormative assumption, but due to the misogynistic and excessive heteronormative bent of this text, it seems to be a safe assumption. This is further emphasised in the sense of camaraderie that is provided in the tone of familiarity used in the phrase ―you and I‖ as well as in the use of the term ―female species‖, which emphasises a clear distinction between men and women. Moele also sets up the city as masculine, wild and dangerous in opposition to the suburb as feminine, tame and safe. For instance, all of the women characters in the novel either come from or reside in the suburbs: Tebogo lives in a townhouse (Moele 2006: 43); Lerato, described as ―a suburb girl‖ (Moele 2006: 124), ―was born in the suburbs of western Johannesburg‖ (Moele 2006: 124) and then later moves to an apartment in the suburb of Illovo (Moele 2006: 207); while Basedi, Michelle and Lebogang also presumably live in the suburbs as they all have to travel to Hillbrow to visit their respective boyfriends.
Furthermore, Room 207 also depicts Hillbrow as a dangerous place for women to exist in. For example, the narrator refers to D‘nice‘s girlfriend Michelle as a ―fearless character‖ (Moele 2006: 39) since ―she could just come to Hillbrow at night, park her car in Van der Merwe [Street] and walk herself to 207‖ (Moele 2006: 39). Similarly, Molamo expresses shock at Basedi‘s decision to visit him at room 207 in the middle of the night: he appears to ask her, almost unbelievingly, ―You are coming to Hillbrow?‖ (Moele 2006: 136). However, the novel also shows that it is not only men who think that Hillbrow is too dangerous for women, but also women themselves. This is evident in Basedi‘s concern over the safety of her car: ―She looked back at her car as if she was checking if it was still there‖ (Moele 2006: 136), as well as in Tebogo‘s repetition concerning her great dislike for Hillbrow: she says to Molamo that ―I can‘t come and live with you there because I hate it there. I hate Hillbrow‖ (Moele 2006: 217). The text therefore reflects the reality of Hillbrow being an unsafe place for women, a topic that is discussed in Alan Morris‘ (1999) Bleakness & Light: Inner-City Transition in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, a non-fictional text that details the establishment and transformation of Hillbrow from apartheid to post-apartheid times. Morris (1999: 81-82, 204) discusses how women are
93 more vulnerable than men with regard to being victimised in the city, and how women are discouraged from living in Hillbrow precisely because of its reputation as a place of violence and crime.
With regard to women‘s fear in the city, Fran Tonkiss (2005: 103) argues that such fear ―is gendered in that it is based on feelings of vulnerability to men‖ and maintains that this fear is spatialized and can therefore influence ―how women perceive and use space in the city‖. Underscoring women‘s sense of fear in the city can therefore be seen as another means of depicting the city as ‗masculine‘ space. Sarah Nuttall (in Darian-Smith, Gunner & Nuttall 1996: 228) argues that, in the South African context in particular, patriarchal authority connected to South African space acquires and legitimises its power by means of such fear. She states that this occurs because South African land is ―caught in masculinist, militarist ideologies which depend on violence and oppression‖ (Nuttall in Darian-Smith et al. 1996: 228) as a means of pursuing a legitimate claim to the land. In addition, Nuttall (in Darian-Smith et al. 1996: 228) maintains that ―‗[w]oman‘ as a sign, and a largely male-constructed ideology of femininity, continue to be the means through which such relations to the land are negotiated‖. In other words, women, and the control of or ability to keep women in order therefore becomes a means of justifying patriarchal authority or power in terms of land ownership. Women are thus also equated with the land in being viewed as possessions. Depicting women as being ―outsiders‖ by means of the fear they should feel in the city space is therefore evidence that South African history and discourse is still being written largely by men or, rather, from a patriarchal viewpoint.
Women are also described as having responsibilities and duties to male companions in the novels. It appears that the female characters in these texts are constructed in relation to gendered spaces – according to what they can and cannot do and where they can and cannot move within the city. Women are therefore described as having limited options and restricted freedom of movement in the city. This reflects Tonkiss‘ (2005: 95) assertion that ―social space is tailored to conventional gender roles and sexual codes‖. With regard to this gendering of social space, Nagar et al. (2002: 261) discuss how processes of gendering shape who has access to certain spaces. They state that places such as the household and community are usually regarded as ―feminized spheres‖, while the economic and political hubs of business buildings in the city are labelled as male sites (Nagar et al. 2002: 261). In Vladislavić‘s The Restless Supermarket,
94 women‘s jobs are depicted as being mainly preoccupied with serving the needs of men, whether this is done in the form of prostitution as ―Ladies of the night‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 24), as the protagonist Aubrey Tearle calls them, or as organisers and keepers of harmony and order, a characteristic that Tearle keeps in high esteem. This is evident in descriptions of both Merle and Mevrouw Bonsma, two characters who frequent Tearle‘s favourite Café Europa. Mevrouw Bonsma is described as organising the atmosphere of the Café Europa: ―She never plays anything without good reason [...] She responds to the climate in a room, and she can change it too, as easily as opening a window‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 77), and also seems to especially serve Tearle‘s personal needs as Tearle notices ―a certain affinity between the music Mevrouw Bonsma played and the activities [he] was engaged in‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 77). Merle, also described as ―an organizer‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 78), is capable of even ―rediscovering order in the soothing congruences of chance‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 86) in a game of solitaire, and is seen as a very important element in making Tearle feel secure at the Café Europa. This is evident in Tearle‘s realisation that ―[e]ver since Merle‘s arrival, [they (Tearle, his companion Spilkin, Mevrouw Bonsma and Merle)] had settled down very comfortably‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 79). Women‘s activities in the novel are also dismissed as trivial. For instance, while Tearle regards his system of keeping records of grammatical errors as having ―a serious practical purpose‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 87), he views Merle‘s lists, which are similar in a sense to Tearle‘s ―Records‖, as ―no more than pretexts for games‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 88). Also, both Mevrouw Bonsma and Merle have very docile professions: while Mevrouw Bonsma is a pianist, Merle had been a librarian before she retired. This therefore reveals the ways in which gender affects access to resources and certain benefits, opportunities or styles of living in the city.
Room 207 also describes women in terms of gendered roles and duties to men. A case in point is Tebogo and Molamo‘s relationship, where it is implied that Tebogo only lives to serve Molamo. As soon as she is ―summoned‖ (Moele 2006: 149) by Molamo, Tebogo immediately hastens to attend to his needs. Her devotion to her partner, as well as to family, is also illustrated in the narrator‘s remark that, ―[i]f she [Tebogo] was busy, believe me, for Molamo it can wait – family comes first‖ (Moele 2006: 149). These gendered roles are also emphasised in Matome‘s description of his wife, Basedi‘s, purpose in life as he states that ―[f]or me, she‘s a golden incubator and I hope it hatches golden chicks‖ (Moele 2006: 200). For Matome then, Basedi is merely a vessel to carry his children. The dominant motif of motherhood and the nurturing angel
95 in feminist discourse, as discussed previously, also appears to be alluded to here. Notably, even Basedi‘s job as a doctor is illustrated as just another means of serving men as she admits and treats Molamo at the hospital when his friends bring him in (Moele 2006: 128). It is evident here that the female characters in these texts are still being depicted as obeying patriarchal norms. By providing for the needs of men in these novels, the women characters are depicted as the domestic ‗angels‘ Gilbert and Gubar (2000) discuss in their critique of men‘s literary stereotypes of women. Both Vladislavić (2001) and Moele (2006) can thus be accused of making use of such stereotypes in order to depict how the city is established as patriarchal territory.
The only other supposed option for survival available to women in the city – prostitution – is also dealt with in these texts. This is important since this reflects Meg Samuelson‘s (2007: 254) assertion that ―[i]ndependent African city women ha[ve] one identity in the mind of European and African patriarchies: ‗prostitutes‘‖. AbdouMaliq Simone (2004: 27, 173) also argues that African urban women ―were usually thought to be prostitutes‖ and that since the times of colonialism, ―a link between female urban presence and prostitution was cemented‖. However, Simone (2004: 173), citing Emmanuel Akyeampong (1997), points out that ―prostitution‖ in African countries such as Ghana ―was a concept that described more than the sale of sexual and domestic services – it included female assertiveness and accumulation in general‖. Thus, referring to and depicting urban African women as prostitutes does not always indicate that they are sex workers. Rather, the term often points to the fact that urban women have ―removed themselves from the traditional and spatial constraints usually placed on women in general‖ (Simone 2004: 173). The term ‗prostitute‘, according to African feminists, is therefore simply another means of silencing the woman figure and therefore becomes a means to keep women under patriarchal control. The depiction of women as monsters discussed in feminist discourse, and Gilbert and Gubar‘s (2000) work in particular, is thus being alluded to in the portrayal of women as prostitutes. Depicting women characters as prostitutes in these texts can therefore be seen as just another means of ignoring or excluding a strong feminine presence in the urban environment. This is especially true since the so-called prostitute women in these texts rarely speak for themselves and are rather presented to the reader from other, mostly men, characters‘ viewpoints. However, prostitution in this context could also be viewed as a means for women to empower themselves. This is supported by Nfah-Abbenyi (1997: 106) who argues that women create subjective selves by rejecting the patriarchal and traditional domination of their bodies. By
96 asserting their sexuality, prostitutes thus acquire a certain power by refusing traditional, patriarchal views of how and what women should do with their bodies. Nfah-Abbenyi (1997: 34) maintains that such contradictions within African women‘s identity are ―valuable and empowering tools necessary to subverting gender(ed) dichotoniest exigencies‖.
As mentioned above, female characters in The Restless Supermarket are either depicted as prostitutes, dismissed as unimportant, or serve the needs of men in some other way. With regard to prostitution, Tearle uses different terms, some very derogatory, to describe women who choose this profession. He calls them ―Ladies of the night‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 24), ―escorts‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 163), ―whores‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 163), and even calls one of these women a ―harlot‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 24). To Tearle, these women are on the periphery of the city as they do not quite fit in. This is emphasised in the clothing that they wear as ―[t]hey all seemed to be wearing foundation garments on top of their daywear‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 24), thus differentiating them from others around them and, in turn, stressing the fact that they do not belong. Similarly, Tearle calls Spilkin‘s girlfriend, Darlene, whom he thinks is an ‗escort‘, ―coarse” and ―unrefined‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 163, author‘s emphasis), calling attention to the things that make her ‗other‘. Most important however, is the impression one gets regarding Tearle‘s feeling of being threatened by these women. The reader senses Tearle‘s fear when, due to the fact that the ―harlot‖ who asks Tearle to buy her a drink at the Chelsea Hotel does not leave him alone, he is ‗forced‘ ―to gulp [his] drink and leave‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 24). This fear also becomes apparent in Tearle‘s disgust at Darlene‘s command of the English language: Tearle describes her as ―barely literate‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 163) and one is provided with the sense that her mispronunciations of words such as ―pri-horrity‖, ―cre-hative‖, ―negoti-hation and reconcili- hation‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 163) threaten Tearle‘s need and desire to uphold grammatical order. This therefore also indicates that women are constructed as not belonging in such an ordered, patriarchal city because they cannot adhere to its rules. This is further emphasised in Tearle‘s rejection of women. He initially does not appreciate the company of either Mevrouw Bonsma or Merle and does not feel comfortable or know how to conduct himself around them. He constantly describes Mevrouw Bonsma in negative terms (Vladislavić 2001: 68-70), does the same with other women whom he does not even know (Vladislavić 2001: 264), and states that ―being in [Mevrouw Bonsma‘s] company constantly aggravated [him]‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 69). This behaviour and attitude towards women thus underscores how women‘s presence in the city
97 is greeted with hostility by men, which in effect emphasises the ‗masculine‘ authoritative nature of the urban environment.
Moele‘s Room 207 also deals with the description of city women as prostitutes. The characters in Moele‘s text constantly refer to women as ―whores‖ (Moele 2006: 47, 59), ―bitches‖ (Moele 2006: 59) and ―the city‘s angels of the night‖ (Moele 2006: 66, 117). Moreover, the text also depicts prostitution as the only way that women can make a living in Hillbrow. This is evident in the narrator‘s following lines:
Why do you think that these girls are doing this? This is a billion-rand industry. The advertising people will tell you that sex sells. I know it sells (Moele 2006: 115). This is also evident in the fact that many of the women whom the six roommates in the novel spend time with are prostitutes, which provides one with the deceptive and naive impression that very few women who reside in the city are not prostitutes and that women cannot find any other form of work. For example, at the out-of-Hillbrow party, which the roommates host at their flat, the narrator remarks that ―the angels were all at room 207. They stopped doing their business just for us, stopped to come and celebrate at our out-of-Hillbrow party‖ (Moele 2006: 188).
While Moele‘s and Vladislavić‘s texts present this stereotypical image of women in the city as being prostitutes, Mpe makes use of rural stereotypes of city women. These stereotypical ideas regarding city women are evident in sayings such as ―everyone knew that Johannesburg women were bound to bring disasters upon any man‘s life‖ (Mpe 2001: 44), and ―[w]e know what Jo‘burg women can do to a man...!‖ (Mpe 2001: 90), as well as in the use of terms such as ―loose-thighed‖ (Mpe 2001: 43) to describe Hillbrowan women. These views concerning characteristics of women in the city are also emphasised in Refentše‘s mother‘s opinion of such women as she
knew that all Hillbrow women were prostitutes, who spent their nights leaning against the walls of the giant buildings in which they conducted their trade of under-waist bliss; their human thighs, pasted against the brick-work, serving as both advertisements and sexual commodities (Mpe 2001: 39). At first glance, these representations of the stereotypical roles available to women in Hillbrow appear to highlight the limited options available to women in the city and, in this way, underscore the idea that the city is patriarchal territory. Yet, Mpe questions the validity of such stereotypes and, in effect, problematises the historical distinction between men‘s and women‘s
98 territory. He does this by presenting such stereotypes as unfounded. For example, despite Refentše‘s mother‘s insistence that all women from Hillbrow are immoral sex workers, it is revealed that she ―had never been to Hillbrow, nor to any part of Johannesburg‖ (Mpe 2001: 39). Stereotypes regarding city women are also contested by indicating that most women who live in Hillbrow, and who are indeed prostitutes, are not originally born or raised in the city. This is evident in the generalisation that it is ―Makwerekwere [a derogatory term used to refer to foreigners] women‖ who seduce men in the city and give them AIDS (Mpe 2001: 3), as well as in Refentše‘s argument that ―few Hillbrowans [...] were not originally wanderers from Tiragalong and other rural villages‖ (Mpe 2001: 18). This can also be said to be evident in the case concerning Lerato, who although labelled as ―a Hillbrow woman‖ (Mpe 2001: 39) by the community of Tiragalong, is actually ―from Alexandra, a black township about twelve kilometres north of Johannesburg‖ (Mpe 2001: 39). It should be noted that what Mpe describes here is a fact since, as Bremner (2007: 76) notes, ―[n]inety per cent of the residents of Johannesburg‘s dense inner-city areas come from elsewhere‖. Thus this shows that even though there may be prostitutes in the city, most of these women are not originally born and raised in the city, but actually come from rural areas. In this manner, the stereotypical image of city women as prostitutes is again rebutted. Moreover, Mpe also exposes, by means of his narrator, the reality that such stereotypes linked to city women are merely ―stories‖ told with ―relish‖ by migrants who ―possessed storytelling skills that could imprint the most vivid images on a person‘s mind‖ (Mpe 2001: 39). These revelations therefore render such stereotypical understandings of city women as mere fabrications. This is supported by Carrol Clarkson (2005: 454) who maintains that
[t]he ‗background beliefs‘ of the community of Tiragalong are challenged to the extent that Mpe presents them as nothing more than a toxic brew of superstition and xenophobia, with little purchase on or authority over the very people they supposedly unite. In revealing that such views concerning city women are simply based on untruths and ignorance, Mpe‘s text thereby provides one with a glimpse into the reworkings and reimaginings of women‘s roles and position in city spaces, a topic which will be discussed at greater length later in this chapter.
The previous mentioned statement concerning how women are labelled as prostitutes due to their abandonment of traditional roles and beliefs and not because they are sex workers, reveals a strong desire by men (as well as some women) to maintain the ideal of the city as patriarchal
99 space and therefore uphold men‘s authority in this environment by undermining women‘s power and independence. According to Andrew Ivaska (2002: 589), ―[t]here is growing historical evidence [...] in [...] African contexts, to suggest that motives, expectations and outcomes of rural-urban migration differed [or still differs] considerably for women and men‖. Ivaska (2002: 589-590) goes on to argue that for women, migration is seen as ―an attempt to take more permanent advantage of the opportunities for autonomous accumulation that the city seemed to offer‖ and that the city therefore offers more gains for women than men. In moving to the city, female migrants are therefore provided with better opportunities for increased economic and social autonomy. Women no longer need to be tied to a husband in order to earn money and provide for their families and, in this way, gain a heightened sense of independence. Women‘s sense of autonomy and independence, in effect, initiates the breakdown of patriarchal control by assuming traditional ‗male‘ roles of supporting their families financially. In fact, Caroline Kihato (2007: 103) states that ―[i]n many instances, the breakdown of [patriarchal] control mechanisms is linked to men‘s inability to materially provide for their families‖. Since women in the city take over this traditional masculine role, they are considered as disregarding and abandoning cultural traditions as well as traditional gendered roles. These women are therefore frowned upon in their traditional communities (by both men and women) and are taunted for their choices in undermining patriarchal authority. Thus, they are labelled prostitutes due to their ‗rebellion‘. It therefore becomes evident that the depiction of women in the city as being prostitutes can be viewed as a means of attempting to control the destabilisation of the traditional demarcation of the city as a patriarchal space. This is because the label of ‗prostitute‘ becomes a strategy for marginalising women in the city space by rendering them as ‗other‘. However, as discussed previously with reference to Nfah-Abbenyi‘s (1997) views, women‘s decision to be prostitutes can also be seen as an empowering mechanism as it subverts patriarchal control by rejecting traditional views regarding control over women‘s bodies. In the decision to be prostitutes, women thus force themselves into the public sphere as their bodies now become public property.
One more way in which the texts depict Johannesburg as a patriarchal city is by describing its structures and characteristics in terms of distinctly male characteristics. This is important since Elvin Wyly (1999: 312) argues that ―societal struggles over gender relations are manifest in the built environment‖. A society‘s views and policies on gender are therefore evident in the ways in which its cities, as built environments, are constructed and described. In Vladislavić‘s The
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Restless Supermarket, the Hillbrow Tower is described as a phallus, resembling ―a gigantic male member‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 118), while in Welcome To Our Hillbrow and Room 207, the city is portrayed as having a masculine personality. Imagery of the city enacting masculine, predatory- like acts abound in lines such as ―Hillbrow was a menacing monster‖ (Mpe 2001: 3), and ―Hillbrow had swallowed a number of the children of Tiragalong‖ (Mpe 2001: 3) in Mpe‘s text, as well as in the line ―[i]t [Johannesburg] will city-ise you, hold you, lovingly caress you and orgasmify you‖ (Moele 2006: 50) in Room 207. This last line is particularly revealing as the description of the city here seems to imitate the way in which a man would seduce a woman. However, this could also refer to the authority of a female seductress, since the city is described as a lover, which is neither distinctly male nor female. Regardless of this, the city is described as a space in which mostly male activity takes place. For example, in Welcome To Our Hillbrow, the main concern of behaviour in the city seems to centre on male homosexual sex, which people naively believe is to blame for the spread of AIDS (Mpe 2001: 4), while the crime being glamorised in the city is portrayed as distinctly male, with little boys emulating their thieving and hijacker heroes who they see on the news (Mpe 2001: 5). Furthermore, women are also depicted as unwelcome sufferers in this patriarchal space. This is evident in the description of mostly women being vulnerable victims of crime and ill fortune in the city, often at the hands of men. In Welcome To Our Hillbrow, women are hit by cars (Mpe 2001: 2), raped and killed (Mpe 2001: 5), and are often described as screaming or in great distress (Mpe 2001: 2, 5). In Room 207, women are portrayed as mere playthings (they are repeatedly merely referred to as ―females‖ or the ―female species‖) and entertaining distractions for men who have, or are in the process of trying to make, money in the city. For example, Molamo‘s uncles set a rule that a man can only sleep in what the family labels ―the boy‘s room‖ if he has slept with a woman within seven days of arriving at the township (Moele 2006: 42). Johannesburg is also clearly described as being ―under the control of the black man‖ (Moele 2006: 69, my emphasis), not woman, in this text. Similarly in The Restless Supermarket, Tearle refers to Johannesburg city management as ―the city fathers‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 16), which negates any interpretation of woman‘s power and control in the city. This patriarchal authority in the city is further illustrated in Tearle‘s list of businesses in Hillbrow which contain the prefix ―Mr‖ in their titles: Tearle finds businesses with the names ―Mr Bathroom, Mr Cupboard ... Mr Propshaft ... Mr Spare Parts‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 91-92) and numerous others in the telephone directory and also notes that a couple of stores with
101 the prefix ―Oom‖ and ―Sir‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 92) are registered. On the contrary, Tearle is aware of fewer businesses with female prefixes in their names; noting only ―a Missus or two‖ Vladislavić 2001: 92) on his list. By describing Johannesburg in masculine terms, the city‘s gender power relations are revealed, reinforcing the demarcation of Johannesburg as a patriarchal space.
On the other hand, women are depicted similarly to how the city is described. In Room 207, akin to the city in which ―dreams die every second‖ (Moele 2006: 19), women are also blamed for destroying the dreams of men in the city. This is evident in Justice‘s (a beggar friend of Matome‘s) blaming of ―Ntepa‖ (Moele 2006: 31), which is Northern Sotho for female genitalia, for losing all of his money and giving up on his dreams, as well as in Matome‘s assertion that
[t]hey [women] are a waste of everything in life. They‘ll make you lose your direction and by the time you wake up, your life is all a waste and they are still smiling (Moele 2006: 171). Similarly, in Mpe‘s text, like Hillbrow, which is described as a menacing monster that devours and destroys people (Mpe 2001: 3), women in the city are depicted as being just as dangerous since they too destroy men‘s lives, ―bring[ing] disasters upon‖ (Mpe 2001: 44) them (although, as discussed above, these views in Mpe‘s text are evoked in order to question and undercut such stereotypes). These comparisons which link women and the city therefore illustrate the manner in which women who inhabit the city space are greeted with aggressiveness. Also, these similarities between women and the city indicate the hostility that men still feel towards women who dwell in the city. This is because, since it appears that women are seen as one of the reasons for destroying men‘s dreams in the city, men come to dislike the city itself through these women. In this way then, the ‗masculine‘, patriarchal city can be viewed as threatened. This threatening of the masculine city is further underscored in the argument that like city space, the body can also be utilised as a site of dissidence (Pieterse 2010: 11-12). The explicit reference to female bodies in the city can thus be said to emphasise a reworking of this urban space based on a feminine assertion of power. This is achieved by the seemingly enforced presence of the female body, which appears to constantly infiltrate male bodies (evident in either continuously being spoken about by, or being on the minds of, male characters). Since it is a male writer exploring these authoritative representations of women‘s bodies, this implies that a changing discourse and
102 attitude toward gender is being affected, especially since there appears to be a deferment of patriarchal power here.
In contrast to those who assert that the city is ‗masculine‘ or patriarchal territory, other theorists (Fenster 2005, Low & Lawrence-Zúňiga 2003, Saegert 1980, and Scraton & Watson 1998) are becoming aware that this ‗men in the city versus women in the suburb‘ dichotomy is a simplification that does not accurately describe reality as it does not account for the changing dynamics of city space, as well as the ways in which people use such spaces. For example, Fenster (2005: 223) and Susan Saegert (1980: 107) note that the changing nature of women‘s lives, roles and duties as well as the changing characteristics of cities and suburbs over time has an impact on how people use and live in such spaces, while Setha Low and Denise Lawrence- Zúňiga (2003: 13) argue that ―[h]istorical studies of gender constructions over space and time reveal variability within cultures and the complex interlinkages of gender with social, economic, and political influences‖. The so-called ‗clear-cut‘ representation, images and symbols associated with a ‗gendered‘, masculine city space therefore becomes problematic. In relation to this, African feminists recognise that some African literary texts are beginning to depict a more realistic image of women. Flora Nwapa (in Olaniyan & Quayson 2007: 527) maintains that a few African literary texts ―have tried to project an objective image of women, an image that actually reflects the reality of women‘s role in the society‖, while Lauretta Ngcobo (in Olaniyan & Quayson 2007: 540) argues that this reflection is necessary, stating that ―[w]e [Africans] are looking for a changed portrayal of women in our books; an accurate and a just portrayal that will recognise the labour that women put into the economy of their societies‖. The three texts discussed in this dissertation are beginning to do exactly this. As Bremner (2010b: 4) states, ―[h]ow we write the city invents it, brings it into being, allows it to exist in very specific ways‖. Writing the city as a patriarchal space therefore allows it to exist as such and likewise with constructing the city as feminine, or even as a composite of both.
One way in which the texts account for the transformative nature of Johannesburg is by writing against authoritative ‗masculine‘ space. Driver‘s (in Darian-Smith et al. 1996: 234) argument concerning the representation of women as an important means of depicting black South Africa‘s transformation from a traditional rural environment to an urban modernity is relevant in this context since it underscores the significance of gendered depictions, and the use of women as a
103 symbol in particular, as a means of representing changes taking place in the city. Driver (in Darian-Smith et al. 1996: 234) makes use of the example of Drum magazine, stating that ―Drum‘s move from rural ‗past‘ to urban ‗present‘, from ‗tradition‘ to ‗modernity‘, was negotiated by means of the representation of women‖. Taking this past example into account, one can read the present in a similar manner. The representation of women in post-apartheid city texts can therefore also be seen as an important means of mapping the subject of transition. As mentioned above, the texts are beginning to question the depiction of Johannesburg as a clear-cut masculine space. Samuelson (2007) notes the manner in which Mpe, in particular, has attempted to rewrite women‘s place in the city by means of ambiguity. He most notably does this by making use of the pronoun ―our‖ in the novel‘s title as well as in the narrator‘s welcoming people to Hillbrow in the city of Johannesburg. By calling it ―our Hillbrow‖ (Mpe 2001: 2), Mpe immediately asserts a collective ownership for this inner-city space and its attendant vices as the word ‗our‘ clearly indicates that Hillbrow is a place of equality, of shared values and beliefs, and equal communal rights. Emma Hunt (2006: 103) supports this as she maintains that Mpe‘s text ―celebrates the city as the site of an ideal of cultural globalization‖. This ideal is that of a space of multiplicity and equality. Mpe‘s Hillbrow is a global city, a city comprised of people of multiple nationalities, ethnicities and sexual orientations. This hybrid, global nature of Hillbrow is emphasised in Refentše‘s assertion that ―there are very few Hillbrowans [...] who were not originally wanderers from Tiragalong and other rural villages‖ (Mpe 2001: 18) as well as in Refilwe‘s realisation that ―Hillbrowans were not merely the tiny section of the population who were born and grew up in our Hillbrow, but people from all over the country, and other countries‖ (Mpe 2001: 96).
This global nature of the city is important in terms of gender roles since, as Hunt (2006: 103) asserts, ―the global city has become the key site for new power relations produced by globalization‖. The accepted norm that condones patriarchal authority over women, which still exists in most societies, is therefore challenged in such a site. This is because, as the city becomes more ‗global‘, boundaries begin to be redrawn, some are erased, while other new divisions are shaped. Nuttall and Mbembe (2008: 7) state that new possibilities emerge in African cities as a result of globalisation and, referring to Filip de Boeck‘s study (De Boeck & Plissart 2006), note that ―the African city constantly undergoes the effervescent push and pull of destruction and regeneration‖ due to technological, economic and social advancement.
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Johannesburg, as an ever increasing global city, is a prime example of the above characteristics. Bremner (2004: 459) illustrates that, due to such changes, ―one of the structural conditions of the post-apartheid city [such as Johannesburg] is that former categories (black/white, clean/dirty, good/bad, suburb/township, order/disorder, human/inhuman, safe/dangerous) [...] have been [...] overturned‖. She further maintains that this upsetting of categories indicates that ―[u]rban spaces have been rendered permeable, open to infiltration, intervention and contamination‖ (Bremner 2004: 459). Power structures (including those of gender) are therefore able to be questioned, broken down, reformulated and re-established in such permeable city space, thereby enabling the possibility for women, as well as other previously subordinate groups, to acquire positions of power in the city. This is particularly the case since the city opens up space for deconstructing binaries.
Saskia Sassen (1998: xxi) also argues that ―the global city is a strategic site for disempowered actors because it enables them to gain presence, to emerge as subjects, even when they do not gain direct power‖. Since South African women can be viewed as disempowered, due to the fact that South Africa is a country which is still very much patriarchal and notorious for violence against women,27 by means of the emergence of a global city in Mpe‘s text, women are granted presence and agency. Women characters also acquire this agency in the global city of Mpe‘s text because women‘s presence in the city reformulates the meaning of urban space. This occurs as a result of challenging the gender code through their insistence on moving within spaces traditionally defined as masculine. In fact, all three texts considered re-invent transnational notions of womanhood and gendered relations in terms of representations of changing city space. City space therefore begins to be transformed into a site of equality – a site which includes not only black men who were previously disempowered during apartheid, but women (another silenced group during this era) as well. In this manner, gender and racial exclusions are linked and, in turn, inclusions of all previously disempowered groups in the city become qualified.
Mpe‘s text also shows the beginnings of incorporating and welcoming the female figure into the space and site of the city by making use of the neutral pronoun ―you‖ in his narration. Clarkson (2005: 456-457) argues that although the ―you‖ in the narrative mostly refers to Mpe‘s character Refentše, ―the ‗you‘ is multivalent – it also invokes the reader-addressee” (author‘s emphasis).
27 Refer to Footnote 22.
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Unlike Moele‘s narration then, which addresses the reader as a man (Moele 2006: 27), by utilising the pronoun ―you‖, a pronoun which has no specific gendered connotations, Mpe‘s text invites both male and female readers into his narrative, therefore placing women on the same level as men. In fact, ―Mpe self-consciously writes a better post-apartheid city into existence: his fictional city teaches other characters and the reader how to read Johannesburg as a more inclusive space‖ (Hunt 2006: 115-116). Mpe‘s text therefore invites the reader to read Hillbrow and, by association, Johannesburg as a space in which not only all nationalities but also all genders are welcome.
Moele‘s text, although deceptively misogynistic, also appears to reconstruct and re-imagine gender power relations in the space of the city. This is achieved by providing female characters with more economic power than male characters. For example, Basedi, one of Molamo‘s girlfriends is a doctor while Molamo is a self-proclaimed ―hustler‖ (Moele 2006: 138). She also drives a car, while the reader presumes that Molamo relies on public transport or walks on foot. Molamo‘s other girlfriend, Tebogo, ―his lawyer woman, the sister with the money, the car and the townhouse‖ (Moele 2006: 43) also owns a car, which she uses to bring Molamo‘s son to room 207 ―to see his father who had neither a car nor a degree‖ (Moele 2006: 43). Similarly, one of D‘nice‘s earlier girlfriends, Michelle, also possesses a car (Moele 2006: 39). The fact that it is women in this text who own cars and have more economic power than men reflects the post- apartheid state of employment in South Africa in terms of more women beginning to be employed than men.28 The fact that it is women who drive in the city here and not men (which is the case in South Africa as a whole),29 is also important since, as James Graham (2007: 71, 76) states, ―to be a car-driver [...] in post-apartheid Johannesburg is to occupy a position of privilege‖ and is ―also an embodied spatial practice [...] another way of moving, observing and being in the city, of consuming and re-imagining the ever-changing social landscape‖ (author‘s emphasis). Graham (2007: 71) comes to this conclusion of driving being a privilege in Johannesburg by means of a study conducted by Mirjam Van Donk (2004), who draws on the findings of the 2001 South African census in order to reveal that in 2001, 86 percent of African
28 Daniela Casale and Dorrit Posel (2002) maintain that the post-apartheid period in South Africa between 1995 and 1999 witnessed an increase in women‘s employment. However, it should be noted that recent studies (Van Klaveren, Tijdens, Hughie-Williams & Martin 2009, Garson 2010), reveal that since the year 2000, female employment in South Africa has decreased. 29 A survey conducted by CarBlog, The Automative News Blog (2009), shows that 63% of South African drivers are male, while only 37% are female.
106 men and women travelled to work or school on foot, while 62 percent of white men and women travelled by car for the same journeys. Since it is women who are granted this privilege and position of power in Room 207, as none of the male characters drive in the text, this therefore shows a re-working of the dominant ‗masculine city‘ ideal.
The texts also write against the idea of a masculine city by constructing women as prominent figures. This is achieved in Welcome To Our Hillbrow and Room 207 by means of utilising female characters‘ names as chapter titles. There is a difference however, since Mpe‘s text makes use of Refilwe‘s name for the title of complete chapters (such as ―Refilwe‖ in chapter four and ―Refilwe on the Move‖ in chapter five), while Moele only utilises women‘s names for the titles of sub-chapters. Mpe‘s chapters concerning Refilwe are of immense importance in terms of empowering the female figure in the city. This is mainly because these chapters detail Refilwe‘s movement within not only Hillbrow in Johannesburg, but also her travels to and through other cities of the world such as Oxford, England where she studies. By means of her travels then, Refilwe appears to make a pathway for other women to do the same, to travel on their own in cities that have previously been deemed as male territory. Wolff (1990) discusses how travel, as part of the male dominated public sphere, has traditionally been demarcated as male territory. In her essay entitled ―The Invisible Flâneuse: Women and the Literature of Modernity‖, Wolff maintains that women do not and have not experienced the opportunities that men have had to travel. Thus, the fact that Mpe enables a female character to travel so freely around the world is an indication that a major reworking of traditions is being affected here. This is further supported by Reus and Usandizaga‘s (2008: 25) argument that travelling can often be seen as an opportunity for women to escape domesticity.
This opening up of new opportunities for women is also enabled precisely because movement through and in urban spaces facilitates the creation of new ‗space‘ or, rather, the re-evaluation of ‗old‘ space in terms of new possibilities and developments. In other words, by moving within and making use of city space, women begin to acquire a heightened sense of self and independence and, in turn, claim the city as their rightful domain. Michelle Adler (in Darian- Smith et al. 1996: 94), in her study of Victorian women travellers‘ writing, states that ―the lives [...] of female travellers provide an arena for exploring how women [attempt] to create ‗spaces‘ for greater freedom, self-expression and adventure‖ and maintains that ―[j]ourneys in faraway
107 places allowed privileged women to subvert or challenge gender constructions in ways not always available to contemporaries at home‖. Therefore, Refilwe‘s act of walking and journeying through city spaces can be seen as a means of reclaiming the city as women‘s space, as her strong, visible presence in the so-called masculine, public, urban sphere transforms this space into one of ambiguity by challenging traditional notions of women‘s subordinate status. Since flânerie is historically a male activity (Barker 2009: 156), Refilwe‘s wandering through the city, as a woman, also illustrates an overturning of this gendered role, and in this way provides a new impression of the city by encouraging the possibility of new social roles. Furthermore, in much urban theory (Amin & Thrift 2002, De Certeau 2000, Kruger 2001, Soja 2000, Southall 1998), there seems to be a consensus that movement through the city and the act of one moving or walking in city spaces enables one to ‗remap‘, redeem as well as create ‗new‘ space. Michel de Certeau (2000: 106) in particular, discusses how the ways in which one uses space and acknowledges this right to use space permits one to re-create and re-shape spatial order. This idea is captured in De Certeau‘s (2000: 106) argument that
[t]he act of walking is to the urban system what the act of speaking, the Speech Act, is to language or to spoken utterance. On the most elementary level it has in effect a threefold ‗uttering‘ function: it is a process of appropriation of the topographic system by the pedestrian (just as the speaker appropriates and assumes language); it is a spatial realization of the site (just as the act of speaking is a sonic realization of language): lastly, it implies relationships among distinct positions; i.e. pragmatic ‗contracts‘ in the form of movements (just as verbal utterance is ‗allocution‘, ‗places the others‘ before the speaker, and sets up contracts between fellow speakers) (author‘s emphasis).
In this manner, Refilwe walks through the city as a way of reclaiming it in De Certeau‘s sense. Hence, by enabling Refilwe, a female character, to travel through such city spaces, Mpe is illustrating the integration and sanctioning of women‘s presence in the space of the city.
The Restless Supermarket also shows signs of incorporating and empowering female figures in the city through the character of Shirlaine. The fact that Tearle seems more comfortable around this young girl than any other female character can be said to indicate a reworking of perceptions of women in the city because, since Tearle (as a man) welcomes her presence, this points towards an acceptance and inclusion of women in city space. From the first moment Tearle sees her, Shirlaine signifies something new and novel to him. This is evident in Tearle‘s descriptions of her as being ―new‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 245) and ―improvable‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 252, 267, 279) and smelling like fresh watermelons, which ―reminded him of the watermelon feasts of his
108 youth‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 280). Also, although certain characteristics of hers are foreign to him – he compares her braided hair to ―monkey-tails‖ and ―cacti‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 267) – his sense of familiarity and acceptance of her is apparent in the fact that her appearance is reminiscent of certain things in his own life. This is indicated in the description of her navel as being in the shape of Tearle‘s highly valued ―proofreader‘s mark‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 267), as well as in his realisation that her hair reminds him ―of some species of fern whose name [he] had forgotten‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 267). It is this feeling of kinship then that introduces the impression of women as having a right to be in the city.
However, the instance that most exemplifies the incorporation and empowerment of women in the city in this text occurs when Tearle agrees to accompany Shirlaine to the hospital. This is because this trip reveals Shirlaine‘s authoritative knowledge and usage of the city space and also exposes certain changes in Tearle‘s character, diminishing his sense of supremacy. The time that Tearle spends with Shirlaine sees him surrendering his constant need for control as he lets Shirlaine take care of him and take the lead. This is immediately evident when Shirlaine first asks him to accompany her in the ambulance transporting Floyd (who stabs himself in the head at the goodbye bash at the Café Europa), because although Tearle is reluctant to escort Floyd, he ―fe[els] [his] resolve weaken‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 280) at the sight of the girl and goes with her. Tearle also seems to obey every suggestion that Shirlaine makes thereafter. When Shirlaine tells him to lie down in the ambulance, he does so (Vladislavić 2001: 281), when she suggests that they take a walk back from the hospital he agrees (Vladislavić 2001: 287), and when she proposes that they get something to eat, Tearle accompanies her once again (Vladislavić 2001: 296). It is also important to note that it is Shirlaine who leads Tearle through the city and not the other way around. For example, it is she who ―propose[s] making a detour past the playground in Peter Roos Street‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 291). It is also essential to note that Shirlaine enables Tearle to see the city, which he has been living in for many years, in a very different light. For example, with Shirlaine at his side, Tearle is able to witness the sunrise, a site he admits he has not seen ―in three decades‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 295). He also becomes aware of how lively the streets still are in the early hours of the morning (Vladislavić 2001: 298) and even eats chicken that Shirlaine breaks in half with her bare hands (Vladislavić 2001: 298), which is quite a feat since he struggles to understand the ―obsession with fowl‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 51, 298) most of the inhabitants of inner-city have. Traditional gendered roles in the space of the city are therefore
109 being subverted in Vladislavić‘s text as Shirlaine takes up the male role of walking through the city, thus claiming it as her rightful place. The depiction of Shirlaine thus reveals how the female figure is being repositioned in cities ―in ways that challenge traditional notions of subordinate status‖ (Kihato 2007: 100). It is also important to note that the power Shirlaine is granted in acting out this traditional male role emphasises African feminist‘s insistence regarding the idea that gender is ambiguous and that women, especially African women in this context, possess multiple, contradictory, conflicting, sexual identities that aid in subverting gendered dichotomies (Nfah-Abbenyi 1997: 34). In addition, Shirlaine‘s transgression of the traditional boundaries of the feminised private sphere and masculine public sphere reflects feminists‘ contestation of the false dichotomies of public and private space (Kihato 2007: 99).
Shirlaine‘s authority in the city is further evident in her independent and care-free attitude in the city. She seems to know all of the routes through the city, is even aware of detours, and is not afraid to walk ―in the middle of the road, skipping along the dotted line as if she meant to leave her mark there‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 292). Her liberated position in the urban environment is also emphasised in her confident ability to move within the city without Tearle, who on the contrary seems lost without her once she leaves him. This is evident in Shirlaine‘s disappearance when they return to the Café Europa – while ―she had disappeared as if [Tearle] didn‘t exist‖ (Vladislavić 2001: 301), Tearle is reminded of Shirlaine when looking at an ―@‖ symbol in a Hypermeat sign and recalls being concerned about the awkwardness of saying goodbye to her, even though this farewell does not occur (Vladislavić 2001: 301). Shirlaine then indeed leaves her mark on the city and the reader is provided with the sense that she has changed the space of the city in a way, at least for Tearle. Thus, like Refilwe‘s movement through and within city spaces in Mpe‘s text, the depiction of Shirlaine‘s authority in navigating the city streets of Hillbrow in The Restless Supermarket also illustrates the integration and sanctioning of women‘s presence in the space of the city. This is because the act of walking in the city is a well-known trope for knowing the modern metropolis in a modern urban consciousness (Bremner 2010b: 34). Therefore, if walking in the urban space denotes knowledge of this space, this knowledge consequently allows the walker to acquire a sense of power and thereby enables him or her to assert ownership or authority over such space.
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There has been a change in the ways in which South African cities have been represented in cultural works after apartheid with regard to issues of gender. However, it is imperative that one recognise that much also remains the same. This tension between the emergence of the new and the constancy of the old reflects the current state of South African society. This is especially important since, due to the country‘s notorious past, a complete obliteration of the concerns of former times may promote the erasure of a very important history. In support of this, critics have noted that discourses and structures that belong to and represent the apartheid past in South Africa cannot simply be erased and forgotten but should rather inform and merge with the memory of the present.30 Therefore, past discourse surrounding the representation of issues of gender in the city should be read in conjunction with changes regarding gender in the city of the present. Nonetheless, from the above it becomes evident that Johannesburg, and particularly Hillbrow in this case, is beginning to be viewed as a liberating space by means of blurring gender distinctions. Although post-apartheid texts still depict the city of Johannesburg as a ‗masculine‘, patriarchal space by depicting the city as a masculine personality and describing women characters in relation to the suburb and their stereotypical roles and duties to the men in their lives, these texts are clearly beginning to reconstruct and re-imagine city space as a more inclusive, liberating, cosmopolitan urban environment by incorporating and empowering women characters with regard to their position and movement within the city. By placing women characters at the centre of the city in these texts, traditional meanings and roles attached to women in the urban environment, as well as traditional views of the city as a ‗masculine‘ site begin to be problematised. As Tonkiss (2005: 95) states, women‘s presence in the public space of the city ―not only unsettle[s] the dominant order of social space, but create[s] spaces of movement for themselves‖, thereby enabling the modern city to ―be seen as a potential site of freedom‖.
In this regard, it should be noted that I am not stating that the male writers of these texts are feminists,31 but rather that their depiction of the empowered female figure in their texts highlights changes taking place in Johannesburg and South Africa. Depicting Johannesburg as a ‗gendered‘ city is one way in which transformation taking place within the country is being
30 See Ellapen (2007), James Graham (2007), Shane Graham (2008), Gunner (2003), Lester (2003), and Rastogi (2008). 31 As theorists have noted, simply writing about women does not make a writer, whether female or male, a feminist (Aidoo 1981).
111 mapped. By rewriting and re-imagining women into the space of the city, these texts illustrate the beginnings of rewriting the city, as well as the country itself, as a more inclusive space, and in turn construct Johannesburg, and by association the entire country of South Africa, as a space of equality regardless of difference. As Fenster (2005: 225) states, ―the right to the city is [...] fulfilled when the right to difference on a national basis is fulfilled too and people of different ethnicities, nationalities and gender identity can share and use the same urban spaces‖. By representing the ways in which genders have equal rights to the city of Johannesburg, the texts discussed can therefore be said to open up new pathways in reading South Africa as a transformative space, altering its perception as a place of exclusion to a site of inclusion. The texts discussed above can therefore be said to open up new pathways in reading not only Johannesburg but also South Africa as a place for all, or, at minimum, a space in which to navigate new ways of being.
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CONCLUSION
This dissertation has contemplated how the depiction of the city of Johannesburg, in contemporary South African texts, accounts for changes taking place in present-day South African society and culture. I have shown how this is achieved through representations of the unstable workings of memory and changing attitudes toward gender inequalities. The novels I have been considering illustrate the desire and necessity for present-day narratives of South Africa‘s transition. I maintain that these narratives are based on reflecting the country‘s transitional period in order to archive the memory of this time in the country‘s historical discourse. While some South African literature and criticism has tended to focus predominantly on the country‘s apartheid past, post-transitional texts written on Johannesburg offer a new approach to interpreting South African culture in terms of narrating its ongoing, progressive present. A new approach to South African cultural forms, on the other hand, encourages a reading of transitional South Africa via an emphasis on the present, or the ―now‖ as Nuttall (2004) argues. A reading of South Africa‘s transitional present thus means that ambiguity, continuous transformation and instability (especially in the context of urban space) are accounted for. Establishing a focus on the transitional concerns of the present, in both literature and criticism, thus contributes to an ongoing archival discourse. This discourse then ultimately serves to document the memory of South Africa and thus also complements the country‘s already existing historical archives.
By constructing the memory of South Africa‘s transitional period, Mpe‘s Welcome To Our Hillbrow, Vladislavić‘s The Restless Supermarket and Moele‘s Room 207 serve as supplements to more traditional archival materials. I argue that these novels rewrite, reinterpret and, in effect, construct a record of South Africa‘s political, social and economic transformation during its transitional period. The novels accomplish this by reimagining the city of Johannesburg through narrations based on memory, as well as by depicting changing attitudes toward gendered roles in South African urban space. I maintain that Mpe‘s, Vladislavić‘s and Moele‘s texts form part of South African cultural and historical archives by narrating the memory of its transition through representations of the city of Johannesburg. Such representations acknowledge the fluctuating, unstable nature of the city and thus reflect the uncertainty and instability that South Africa and its citizens are experiencing in the present. In this way then, this dissertation can also be seen as a
113 contribution to this same cultural and historical archive as its contemplation of methods of memorialisation and the reconstruction of cultural and historical memory forms part of this memory itself. Reflecting the unstable concerns of memory, I maintain, thus establishes the texts considered, as well as this study, as complementary components to South Africa‘s cultural and historical discourse.
With this in mind, it should be noted that there are various other ways in which transformation in South Africa can, and has been depicted. In this study, I have only considered the reflection of South Africa‘s transition through the frameworks of gender representations and attempts at memorialisation in fictional recreations of the city of Johannesburg. Therefore, this study by no means illustrates an unproblematic, full account of evidence concerning the documentation and archiving of South Africa‘s transitional period in Johannesburg. Further research can thus be conducted with regard to other methods and means in which the country‘s changes are being recorded in the space of the city. For example, I believe that discussions pertaining to the matter of willed mobility and migration taking place in the city in the post-apartheid/transitional period of South Africa‘s history, as opposed to the forced migration which took place during the apartheid era, need to be undertaken. Research into this topic is essential in order to highlight the changing use of space in the city of Johannesburg and South Africa more widely. Moreover, the desire to forget South Africa‘s past, and the consequent memorialisation of the city of Johannesburg by means of erasing relics of this past, also needs to be considered. Recent studies have revealed that this desire to erase the past is evident in Johannesburg architecture, especially in the construction of synthetic space-times of places such as those resembling the Melrose Arch style of architecture in Johannesburg, which Mbembe (2004) discusses. Mbembe (2004: 400) states that architectural structures like Melrose Arch and Montecasino in Johannesburg are synthetic space-times since they are ―constructed tableaux on which disparate images are grafted‖. He also maintains that these space-times ―exist [...] as interfaces of other local and faraway places‖ and that ―[t]heir architectural styles are based on the recombination of borrowed imagery‖ from both local culture and nostalgic European structures (Mbembe 2004: 401). Mbembe (2004: 401) further notes that these places are ―marketed by private developers and property owners in contrast to an unravelling, chaotic city centre besieged by swarming and inchoate crowds, incessant shouting and peddling, and a failure to contain disease, crime and pestilence‖. These sites are therefore advertised as safe havens and as organised European
114 worlds, which one can enter into in order to escape the cruel, dangerous city and country. Studies concerning the ways in which South African literature and other cultural art forms also explore this desire to forget and erase the past are thus essential in order to gain fuller knowledge with regard to the methods and effects of memorialisation in the present. This is extremely important since the ways in which the city and country are being memorialised, and the effects that this has on its citizens, has an impact on the construction of South Africa‘s cultural and historical discourse. This is because the erasure of certain memories and events in the country‘s past in the construction of its memorials will result in a subsequent denial of these ‗forgotten‘ memories in South Africa‘s broader cultural and historical archive. More studies concerning the ways in which the city and country‘s history is being memorialised are necessary in order to provide a richer understanding of the changing representations of Johannesburg and South Africa. This is of utmost importance when embarking on attempts to record the continuous reinvention of South African culture.
Since this dissertation has only focussed on contemporary fictional works, further research should be undertaken with regard to attempts at memorialisation evident in other cultural works such as movies, television shows, music, plays, sculptural and other art works, and also non- fictional texts. Theorists such as Ellapen (2007), Mntambo (2009), Bremner (2010b), Kruger (2001, 2009), Gunner (2003, 2008) and Nuttall (2004, 2008), for example, have conducted studies on the problems that arise in imagining and representing Johannesburg in cinema, museums, the media, art work and music – but more work is needed in this area with regard to viewing these mediums as sites of memory. Interestingly, a vast amount of contemporary South African works are being set in Cape Town in particular, a city which continues to grow economically and socially.32 In line with research regarding memorialisation, critics such as Zayd Minty (2006) have conducted studies on post-apartheid public artworks in Cape Town. Minty‘s (2006: 421) study focuses particularly on how art projects in the city of Cape Town reflect ―on issues such as rethinking monuments, the memorialising of 'hidden histories', engagements with racism and the abuse of power, and the reimagining of the city‖. Minty (2006:
32 Damon Galgut‘s texts In a Strange Room (2010), and The Impostor (2008), as well as K. Sello Duiker‘s The Quiet Violence of Dreams (2001) and Gerald Kraak‘s Ice in the Lungs (2006), for example, are either set in or constantly refer to the city of Cape Town. These texts often contemplate the links between the city and how it both influences, and is influenced by, identity formations. In this way, these novels also serve to document how South African identity comes into being in urban space, thus mapping the country‘s transition in terms of identity with regard to the city landscape of Cape Town.
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421) concentrates especially on ―how these contemporary and often ephemeral projects, critically engage with issues of history, geography, memory and transformation and, in so doing, mark the landscape of Cape Town, making spaces for dialogue and/or standing as poetic symbols and challenges to the inequalities of the city‖. Such studies therefore contribute to a more all- encompassing, present-day archive of South Africa as they add to a broader record of the memory of the country‘s transitional period by considering transformation in diverse places and through various mediums. Broader research in terms of various cultural forms is thus essential since rewriting South Africa in terms of the ―now‖, or rather the present, will not only be achieved by reimagining its city spaces in the field of literature. The texts set in Johannesburg discussed in this dissertation represent only three, and for the most part similar, perceptions of the city, and country‘s, social, political and economic landscape. Therefore, the necessity of studies on the diverse landscape of the country, and the representation of this space in multiple cultural forms, needs to be stressed so that a broader memorialisation of South Africa‘s transitional period can be made possible.
Studies pertaining to topics regarding memorialisation, as well as inequalities in gender representation are vastly growing fields of scholarship in South Africa. This dissertation thus contributes not only to an archive of Johannesburg and South Africa‘s transitional history, but also to a budding field of academic research concerned with the reconstruction of memory and methods of memorialisation, as well as the problems involved in the construction and representation of gender. Studies that deal with memorialisation and portrayals of gender are particularly significant in the context of post-transitional South African scholarship. This is because post-transitional studies are more centred on reflections of ambiguity and multiplicity. This is in opposition to the emphasis placed on imposed binary categories and the predominant focus on race, as has been the case with past research conducted with regard to post-apartheid works. Rewriting and reimagining the city of Johannesburg in contemporary South African fiction, I argue, archives South Africa‘s cultural, political, social, economic and historical transformation by means of mapping its transitional present through the daily lives of its citizens and the ways in which they react, and adapt, to this continuous change.
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