2/>ù£ />NO tr&WOBfi. JA/ T»* NOV£LS £?/" /-06/£L. COfi/T&rtW/BA&y <fûUTHEAK> AF#id'ïns VÇ/tit-ieru K/£iTBfiS . *y A/v/SSA Y/9£s*H-/7-£ ! * V A 4 t t< A A cjl—s—U) J 4-JIJV) RACE AND GENDER IN THE NOVELS OF FOUR CONTEMPORARY SOUTHERN AFRICAN WOMEN WRITERS by Anissa Talahite VL>X Ir ?/ • rk '> Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. School of English The University of Leeds September 1990 A4.1 4—, K a A.JiS « CA i—Ul jSJIJVI RACE AND GENDER IN THE NOVELS OF FOUR CONTEMPORARY SOUTHERN AFRICAN WOMEN WRITERS by Anissa Talahite O 'V. ■\ V'v7' Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. School of English The University of Leeds September 1990 DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to my late father Mr. Bekhlouf Talahite and to my mother Mrs. Claude Talahite. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my gratitude to everyone who contributed to the completion of this thesis. I would like to thank the Algerian Ministry for Higher Education for sponsoring my studies. I am also indebted to Mr Boukhari from the cultural section of the Algerian embassy for his help and assistance. I also thank the Geoffrey Spink Fund Group, the Africa Educational Trust and the Nancy Balfour Trust for their financial help. I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. David Richards in particular, for his advice, support and encouragement in supervising my research. I am also indebted to the late Mr. Arthur Ravenscroft for his valuable help in compiling bibliographies. I would like to thank Liz Paget for offering technical advice and the staff of the Brotherton library, especially Mrs. Pat Shute for her help and patience. Special thanks to Cornelia Al-Khaled, Annie Fatet, Vicki Manus-Briault, Nontobeko Mofokeng, Irshad Motala, and Pat Naidoo for offering their help and support when these were most needed. Finally, I would like to say thank you to my family, especially to my sister Nedjma, for their encouragement. ABSTRACT This thesis examines the ways in which four women novelists from Southern Africa have approached the questions of race and gender and what textual forms they have developed. Chapter One sums up the recent history of South Africa and of its literature, with a particular emphasis on the contemporary period and on the context in which women's writing developed. Chapter Two sets the theoretical framework of the study by linking the post-colonial theory of the "other" in literature and the feminist psychoanalytical approach to the construction of woman as "otherness" in Western tradition. The last four chapters deal with the analysis of a number of selected texts by the writers who have been chosen for discussion. Chapter Three examines Doris Lessing's psychological exploration of the colonial woman's sense of disintegrating identity. It pays attention particularly to how Lessing builds an analytical approach to the problems of woman's oppression, and to how this approach relates to the politics of race. In a similar perspective, Chapter Four examines how the novelist Bessie Head transgresses the barriers of her society by exploring the forbidden land of dreams, fantasies and myths. The emphasis is on how Bessie Head, as a black woman, creates a mode of expression where language and identity are central, and how this mode is relevant to the politics of liberation in South Africa. Chapter Five studies the textual strategies in Nadine Gordimer's late novels in an attempt to define the link between her textual practices and the collapse of white identity faced with the demands of the black majority. The thesis ends with a discussion on Miriam Tlali's novels, principally dealing with the ways in which they construct a black female voice. This last chapter examines how Tlali's plural narratives are informed by the social and cultural processes at work in her society and by her position as a black woman writing under apartheid. CONTENTS Page CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION I. General Historical Background 1 II. Women's Protest in South Africa 21 III.A Survey of South African Literature 28 IV. The Literature Written by Women 51 CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES I. Critical Approach to Post-Colonial Literature 61 II. Feminist Approach 84 CHAPTER THREE: DORIS LESSING 108 I. The Grass Is Singing.... 110 II. "Children of Violence".. 138 CHAPTER FOUR: BESSIE HEAD 168 I. Maru 170 II. A Question of Power.. 193 CHAPTER FIVE: NADINE GORDIMER 221 I. A Guest of Honour 222 II. The Conservationist 231 111.Burger's Daughter 239 IV. July's people 249 V. A Sport of Nature 260 CHAPTER FIVE: MIRIAM TLALI 272 I. Muriel at Metropolitan 275 II. Amandla 297 CONCLUSION 327 BIBLIOGRAPHY 334 1 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION I. GENERAL HISTORICAL BACKGROUND This chapter is an overview of the history of South Africa and of its literature. The focus of this thesis is on South Africa, although some of the writers which are being discussed lived in and wrote about the neighbouring Southern African countries (Botswana, Zimbabwe). Since the history of the region has been affected by the apartheid regime in South Africa and since it is the political developments there which will determine the future of the region, this study concentrates on South Africa primarily. This does not mean that what has been taking place in other parts of Southern Africa are insignificant events. Research on the literary histories of the different Southern African countries is an important area to be investigated; however, this is outside the scope of this study. The history of South Africa is complex and diverse, and cannot be reviewed in a few paragraphs. Still, in order to understand the present politics of South Africa, it is important to go back to the beginning of the century and to the origins of what is now known as apartheid. South Africa has known various forms of oppression, from 2 British indirect rule to apartheid and multinational imperialism. The formation of the Union of South Africa brought the two Boer republics and the two British colonies together, after the Anglo-Boer war. English and Dutch were made the official languages of the union. South Africa remained part of the British empire. Soon after the formation of the union, the government passed the Native Land Act of 1913, which dispossessed the black people of their land. By allowing blacks to own land only in the "native reserves" (an early version of the present day "Bantustans"), the act encouraged land segregation. One million whites had access to more than 90% of the country, while four million Africans had to live on the remaining 7.3%. As Tom Lodge explains, "The Land Act of 1913 and complementary labour legislation were the legal tools employed to destroy a whole class of peasant producers, forcing them into already crowded reserves or driving them into new and arduous social relationships ....,1 Apartheid as an ideology was put forward by a group of Afrikaner intellectuals in the 1930s. Influenced by the ideals of Afrikaner nationalism, by the theological tradition of the Dutch Reformed Churches, and by the Nazi pseudo-scientific theories of race, the apartheid doctrine lies in the belief that races should develop separately in order to fulfill themselves. Apartheid supporters condemned 1. Tom Lodge, Black Politics In South Africa Since 1945 (London 1983), p.2. 3 the mixing of races and cultures, which they saw as inevitably ending in corruption. This doctrine was in fact to hide a series of economic, social, legal and political restrictions which the National Party, elected into power in 1948, imposed on the black people. The main restrictions are economic and legal. First, the black population was compelled (often with the use of forced removals) to live on the most arid land where no resources are available and no industry, nor agriculture have developed. Therefore, black workers have to move to the industrial and mining centres to look for work. Providing the economy with a cheap source of labour, the system of migrant workers is also a means of controlling the labour force. The influx control laws were passed to forbid blacks from moving freely within the country by allocating them to specific areas and by forcing them to carry passes. Passes offenses are punishable by law, the offender having to pay a fine or go to prison. The second major restraint is the vote. Blacks are only allowed to vote for the local token so- called "ethnic" governments in the "native reserves". The central government remains exclusively constituted of and voted by whites. In 1936, "coloured" people from the Cape, who previously had the right to vote, saw their rights removed and replaced with a vote on a separate roll for three whites in the House of Assembly elected as Coloured 4 Representatives. Recently, the government have passed similar conventions for Indians and, later, Africans, which have been received with mass protest. "One man, one vote" remains the major claim of the opposition movements; the more recent campaigns of defiance against the white-only elections of September 1989 are a reminder of the importance and the urgency of this claim. From its election into power in 1948 to the early sixties, the apartheid government put its ideas into legislative form. This period is often referred to as "baaskap" or white supremacy. Beside the land, population movements and voting restrictions, a number of laws reinforcing segregation and control over the black masses were passed. The Prohibition Of Mixed Marriages Act was passed in 1949; the Immorality Act of 1950 followed and made inter¬ racial sexual relations a criminal offense.