Politics of Gender, Race and South African Space:Rereading Olive Schreiner's From Man to Manfrom a South African Perspective

概要

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This paper discusses the politics of gender and race involved in a white South African woman's attempt to claim her own “space" in South Africa as these politics are articulated in Olive Schreiner's unfinished and posthumously published novel,From Man to Man (1926). The protagonist Rebekah's unsuccessful attempt to create a society more humane than that of British colonialism manifests itself in a struggle to claim an autonomous and alternative space in the household. Her struggle is often not only against imperialistic and licentious white men (including her husband), but also against the women of the “Other"race in the same household who threaten her position as a white mistress. This constricted idealism in Rebekah's pursuit of an alternative space, which can be termed as the mere internalization of the colonial discourse, reveals a different dimension when read not only in the context of the British colonial discourse but also in the context of the South African politics concerning race and gender at that time. This reading enables us to have a more comprehensive view of Schreiner's complicated identity as a white colonial-born woman in early-twentieth-century South Africa,a society which was already moving away from colonial status towards an independence based on the institution of apartheid.
東京女子大学比較文化研究所の論文
2008-01-01