Outsider onder de zijnen. Vormen van xenofanie in de Afrikaanse roman

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An Outsider among His Own Kind
Forms of Xenofania in the Afrikaans Novel

Summary

An Outsider among His Own Kind is concerned with the issue of otherness and strangeness, but it consciously departs from the predominating discourse attributing absolute value to such differentiating features as the race or the nation. Therefore this study focuses on an outsider among his own kind, i.e., where the otherness is inconspicuous, has to be planned and created by the author and subsequently reconstructed and received by the reader. The subtitle Forms of Xenofania in the Afrikaans Novel indicates that the subject of the analysis is the South African literature written in Afrikaans. The notion of xenofania is derived from the book by Zbigniew Benedyktowicz Portrety ‘obcego’: od stereotypu do symbolu (Portraits of ‘a Stranger’: from the Stereotype to the Symbol) (2000). When discussing various forms of cultural manifestation of strangeness/stranger, the author introduces the term xenofania which comprises everything that expresses strangeness, being the other and becoming different (from ksenos - a stranger, a guest, a traveller; phainein - to show). Benedyktowicz endeavours to discover the structure of a xenofanic experience, expanding beyond the narrow sociological and psychological categories, enriching his analysis with an ethnographic and anthropological approach. Inspired by his concept, this book treats an outsider as a classic embodiment of xenofania understood in this way. Yet, its task is not only to define the phenomenon of ‘an outsider among his own kind’ but also to examine to what extent literary aspects of the phenomenon generate various manifestations of strangeness (xenofanias) and various procedures of its expression.

To avoid misunderstanding, it should be emphasised that the book is not a Motievenstudium, as it does not aim to ascertain the presence of an outsider in the Afrikaans literature or to distinguish his or her features. It focuses on:

1) a more precise definition of an outsider as he or she may be identified for the present times in aesthetic terms, i.e., as a character who does not cede his or her moral responsibility on the ethnicity, nationality, faith or ideology but accepts it unconditionally and during this process of struggle with the world undergoes the xenofanic experience and acquires the awareness of a cosmic dimension of moral responsibility; an outsider may thus be treated as ‘Chiffre’ of today's conditio humana.

2) concrete ways of creating an outsider and the forms of his or her manifestation, i.e., the whole spectrum of literary procedures which may express xenofanic dimension in the text: from narrative techniques, through the effect of particular groups of motifs and thematic concepts as well as the way of absorbing them into literary structures, to the forming processes of the literary canon; several novels exemplify the manifestation of the phenomenon of an outsider or, more precisely, ‘an outsider among his own kind’ linked with essential literary issues which may be viewed in the context of xenofania.

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Thus, this study consists of two main parts. The first sketches the outsider's ‘philosophy’ defining terminology and meaning of various aspects of the Other/Stranger. This introductory essay engages in polemics with the one-sided sociological approach and other forms of scientific political correctness, prevalent in the research of strangeness or ethnic stereotypes, not only in South Africa. The fact that detailed linguistic considerations on the one hand and strictly philosophical on the other are left aside, enables concentrating on determining a new intellectual horizon of an outsider as ‘an outsider among his own kind’, where an outsider is understood not as an exaggerated or even artificial state but as an authentic process of alienation or, to be more precise, of experiencing xenofania. The process is dynamic and intensive and is never complete as an outsider is always a potential entity. Referring to Emmanuel Lévinas, the Other is not to be controlled and neutralised by juggling with notions but to be expressed.

The second part of the study analyses the ways of manifesting an outsider in the xenofanic dimension. It is an empirical analysis of xenofanic ways of manifesting the phenomenon of ‘an outsider’ in concrete literary situations, both extra- and intra-textual. In other words, an endeavour has been made to examine the morphology of xenofania in selected Afrikaans novels and to show to what extent its presence in concrete literary situations (with the use of various elements structuring a work of art as linguistic and literary) not only enables the creation of the character as an outsider but also creates conditions for experiencing xenofania in the text.

The part discussing extra-textual xenofania analyses Sy kom met die sekelmaan (She Comes with the Sickle Moon) (1973) by Hettie Smit. The object of interest is the historical and literary dimension of the writing strategies and critical procedures focusing on a concrete work, especially those which generate various forms of xenofania. It analyses Smit's position as a woman-writer, a novelist of the 1930s generation of poets and the author of only one book, who, despite this marginalising potential, has earned a firm position in the canon of Afrikaans literature. The interpretation is especially concerned with the links between a concrete literary genre, social and cultural roles determined by gender and the canon.

The discussion of the intra-textual xenofania to a certain extent follows the premises formulated by Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, who distinguishes three essential elements in her typology of the narrative fiction: story (the events), text (their verbal representation) and narration (the act of telling or writing). The analysis of literary situations, whose concrete structures express the experience of xenofania, is more or less oriented towards this threefold principle - more or less, because the interpretation of the selected literary material necessitated some modification of the quoted typology.

The chapter devoted to the novel by Karel Schoeman Ne die geliefde land (Promised Land) (1972) analyses what is told, thus xenofanias within the story or, in other words, various levels of showing the presented world (story). The background for the discussion is the phenomenon of the so-called farmer novel (plaasroman), a classic sub-genre in the Afrikaans novel. Schoemen's book refers to this tradition and as its modern travesty engages in thematic polemic.

In the case of the book by Dolf van Niekerk De son struikel (The Sun Falters) (1960) the interpretation focuses on the substantial role played by the set of recurrent motifs (eyes/face/head) while the allowance is made for such factors as time, characteristics of the protagonists and focalisation. Close connection of the motifs with the presented world and the structural elements of the book has been discussed. Yet, the interpretation centres not only around the technical and literary aspects (text) but also around the philosophical aspects formulated by Emmanuel Lévinas, who perceived himself as a thinker revealing metaphysical and moral dimensions of human relations and radicalising moral redefinition of the subject as ‘responsibility-to-and-for-the-Other’. Many of his concepts may elucidate the ethical ‘outsider among his own kind’.

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The last chapter analyses the process of narration as exemplified by Sewe dae by die Silbersteins (Seven Days at the Silbersteins') (1962) by Etienne Leroux focusing on the issue as to what extent narration structures contain the xenofanic potential for presenting a literary character as alienated. This context influenced the interpretation of the exposition from the first pages of the novel and the significant shift in the narration and focalisation perspective.

Translated by Bartłomiej Madejski