Simona Hevešiová
Abstract:
The paper presented seeks to demonstrate how contemporary postcolonial fiction provides alternative readings / portrayals of the historical and social contexts in which it is set. Unlike the forefathers of postcolonial writing, such as Chinua Achebe or Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, whose stories are overtly political, authors from the younger generations often opt for a different poetics. In her debut novel, ‘Gem Squash Tokoloshe’, the South African writer Rachel Zadok provides an alternative rendering of the apartheid era, as viewed from the perspective of a child. Not only does this technique enable her to purge her narrative of political rhetoric, Zadok also succeeds in presenting this complicated historical period through a fantasy-fuelled perspective. Faith, the protagonist of the novel, lives in a world inhabited by fairies and other magical creatures conjured by her mother’s story-telling. As her story develops, the fantasy elements become an inseparable part of Faith’s vision of reality and provide a look not only into her own world but that of the country she lives in as well.
Postcolonial agenda
From the very emergence of postcolonial writing, the motivation of the writers emanating from colonised countries to share their stories with their own communities as well as with the rest of the world has been fuelled mainly (but, of course, not only) by political and social reasons. The process of decolonisation in the second half of the 20th century induced a massive wave of literary response and as the (formerly) colonised people were talking back, forcing the colonisers to reconceptualise their identities, the rhetoric was in most cases a sharp one. Understandably, the writers were reacting to all the images and stories referring to or depicting their homelands and their inhabitants in not very flattering ways that flooded the literary market as part of colonial propaganda. Moreover, representatives of the imperial power, such as “gentrified settlers […], travelers and sightseers” (Ashcroft et al., 2005, p. 5), who, naturally, identified with the colonising powers, have also produced texts that “inevitably privilege[d] the centre, emphasising the ‘home’ over the ‘native’, the ‘metropolitan’ over the ‘provincial’ or ‘colonial’, and so forth” (ibid.). Thus, the imperial discourse which contributed largely, through various forms and means, to the dissemination of the concept of otherness, represents the ultimate essence of postcolonial response.
Set primarily in former colonies, early postcolonial novels often tended to breed angry and embittered voices with authors reacting to colonial practices and ideology in a rather restricted way. As I have argued elsewhere¹, in its beginnings, postcolonial writers used to employ strategies similar to those found in colonial literature. With white characters being underdeveloped and stereotyped (like in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, for example) and put, in a process of reversal, into the role of the Other, there seemed to be little chance for a balanced view of the colonial past/present. Many novels were centered on the tirelessly reiterated dichotomies that pervaded colonial writing and did not succeed in overcoming this dualistic perception of reality. Yet, with time and necessary distance from the events depicted, postcolonial literature managed to evolve and get hold of a resonant voice impossible to ignore in the global literary world. The setting of the novels gradually shifted to European and American metropolises as the authors embraced the issues of immigration and multiculturalism and so did the topics they explored.
In the case of South African literature, however, the last decades have been clearly dominated by one theme – that of apartheid, “[a] defining event of South African political development” which represents “the greatest and deepest source material for South African writers” (Kehine, 2010, p. 21). As the society underwent dramatic socio-political transformations which necessarily left visible and unfortunate (to use a mild expression) traces on its everyday reality, literature, naturally, responded. The need to articulate the struggles of the black community and to raise awareness and empathy with those oppressed resulted in numerous powerful narratives. Nadine Gordimer, J. M. Coetzee, Breyten Breytenbach, Andre Brink and many others all fought ardently against the system through their writings. Now several years/decades later, although the legalised system of discrimination is gone, its aftertaste and its consequences still linger in South African literature.
Looking at the writings of prominent South African authors, it is obvious that this epoch changed the role of the South African writer to a large extent. The need to create a strategic opposition to the system required the authors to become reporters on society. Drawing on his own experience, Andre Brink comments on this as follows: “Whatever else the writer set out to achieve, the need to function as historian – that is, through ‘reporting’ and ‘representing’ – informed much of her/his activity and defined much of her/his scope” (Brink, 1998, p. 17). In the words of Ayo Kehinde, the South African writer “is a watchdog and a historian in the society. He sees himself as the judge, the conscience and the teacher of human values“ (Kehine, 2010, p. 20). Yet such a position may produce “a tendency towards simple oppositions and binarities” (Brink, p. 16), as in the early stages of postcolonial writing. “In the best writers these conditions sharpened the imagination, forced it to become more resourceful, refined its subtleties. But contextually the binarities persisted in the tendency to reduce the world to predictable patterns of us and them, black and white, good and bad, male and female” (ibid.). Such reductions - of the writer to a political spokesperson and chronicler and of literature to a mere reportage - undermine both the imaginative powers of the writer and the very function of literature.
It is within this framework that recent novels related to the South African experience stand out a little bit. As Ayo Kehinde notes, “a few writers have appropriated the unfortunate historical incident from a different perspective“ (2010, p. 19) and the young South African novelist Rachel Zadok, with her debut novel Gem Squash Tokoloshe, may be considered one of them. Growing up in Kensington, a suburb of
In the world of fairies
Growing up on a South African farm, Faith spends most of her time in a magical world conjured by the stories of her mother, Bella. Looking over her shoulder to make sure she is not followed by any of the spirits her mother had warned her about, Faith’s imagination runs high all the time. Tit Tit Tay, Dead Rex and Gem Squash Tokoloshe, who steals souls while people sleep, are her constant companions. “I’d lived on the farm from the day I was born, and as long as I could remember, I’d been surrounded by fairies. They lived on the peripheries of my vision, well hidden from my curious eyes, but I knew they were there” (Zadok, 2005, p. 7). Bella’s pictures, mostly of the fairies, lining the passages of their farm house are a constant reminder of the fantasy world in which her mother, often “in one of her strange moods” (ibid., p. 9), finds refuge from reality marked by loneliness and deprivation. Interestingly, it not only children who stick to fantasies and are consoled by them, adults believe in them, too. Bella’s world is as replete with fairies and magical creatures as that of Faith.
Therefore, the imaginary world of the fairies, both good and bad, is accepted by Faith as normality. There is no dividing line between reality and imagination as Faith absorbs her mother’s stories without reservations. Inanimate objects around her spring to life whenever her fantasy runs riot, and magical creatures are as real to her as her mother or her dog. This fantasy perspective of perceiving reality enables Faith, whose name almost predestines her to such an existence, to cope with things she cannot understand. Her limited understanding of the things happening around her and the absence of explanations from adults is substituted by her vivid fantasy which fills the blank spaces easily. The reader, who follows the story through Faith’s eyes, finds him/herself in a similarly limiting position. The context is never complex, explanations are not included, and fragmentation seems to be the dominant mode of perception. The fantasy, then, offers a necessary shelter where some comfort is provided. Yet as the seemingly harmonious family life begins to crumble, so does the magical world this little girl inhabits.
Faith’s childhood is heavily influenced by the absence of her father. As the drought forces him to find work outside the farm, Faith is left behind with her mother, whose mental well-being starts to decline rapidly, to cope on their own. The formerly regular visits of her father gradually assume a more uneven pattern until they cease completely. Having started a new life with another woman, Marius abandons his former family and thus dooms both Bella and Faith to misery. It is when the absoluteness of his departure strikes Bella that her fate is sealed. Yet while the story is narrated by a seven-year-old child, a very sensitive one at that, the sense of hopelessness and wretchedness that envelops the whole farm does not evade her. Suddenly, the imagery used in the book creates a nightmarish world where everything collapses and an inevitable tragedy hangs in the air.
It is not only the farm, struggling with the hostile African environment and unending periods of drought, which is transformed into a desolate, unproductive place; the house and Bella herself are slowly changing as well. The paintings produced by Faith’s mother clearly reflect her current mental state. Being on the brink of insanity, Bella gradually loses her grip on reality and immerses herself into the world of fantasy. The neglected patches in the vegetable garden and the stink of unwashed dishes together with the barking jackals and the cacophony of bush insects outside only add up to the overall sense of disintegration and bleakness. As Faith observes, the dark fairies are “closing in on the house, surrounding us until there was no escape” (ibid, p. 79). The house, penetrated with darkness and spiteful creatures looming everywhere, turns into a living organism swallowing up everything that stands in its way. At this point, the use of imagery and fantasy elements in the narrative culminate and reach the climax.
As Bella, raving and in a state of absolute frenzy, fires a shot on Faith during a fight with Marius, an invisible bond connecting the mother with her daughter is irreversibly destroyed. Now it is the mother who slowly, yet surely, turns into a monster and follows the dark fairies to their world. Faith’s life fills with terror and fear as she constantly watches her mother, “the snarling monster” (ibid., p. 107), for any sign of a potential outburst. “I felt a twinge of fear as I watched her, tall and sturdy, her hair white snakes uncoiling over her shoulders. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, fearing that if I did she would turn into something bad, something that was not my mother” (ibid., p. 15). Inevitably, the real and the imaginary collide and merge into one.
While fantasy, myths or folk tales4, which all make use of specific fantasy elements, are often incorporated into postcolonial writing, they usually function as indicators or reminders of the rich cultural heritage of (formerly) colonised communities. Achebe’s Things fall apart, Thiongo’s A Grain of Wheat or Tutuola’s The Palm-Wine Drinkard, to name just a few, all interweave smaller or larger snippets of local culture and folklore into their narratives. The fantasy elements in Gem Squash Tokoloshe, however, have a slightly different function. A parallel to Helen Oyeyemi’s novel The Icarus Girl may come to mind. Both stories are narrated by little girls who are trying to come to terms with some disturbing facts, be it a dysfunctional family or an unfortunate event in the past. On one hand, the fantasy world provides a necessary escape into safety (not only for Faith but for Bella as well), into a world which defies logic and offers oblivion. On the other hand, however, the absorbing world of fantasy and imagination cuts off the individual from reality and only aggravates his/her inability to cope with it. Zadok’s vivid imagery and her heavy reliance on imagination manifest the characters’ mental turmoil and create a horror-stricken atmosphere which culminates in tragic outcomes.
Yet what appears as a story of personal disintegration is, at the same time, a story of a country experiencing a similar struggle. The abovementioned imagery does not, therefore, function only as a signifier of Bella’s mental breakdown but also as a symbolic rendition of the transformation taking place in South Africa. Since the first part of the novel is narrated by a seven-year-old child, political circumstances are, more or less, pushed into the background. Overheard snippets of adult conversations which deal with the final convulsions of the system of apartheid, such as “rioting in those independent homelands” (ibid., p. 34), provide the reader with a broader context. Faith, however, is not able to make sense of these remarks, with her age preventing her to conceptualise the country’s system of race relations, so no judgmental statements are passed in this respect. In this way, Zadok manages to appropriate these unfortunate historical incidents from a different perspective. Faith’s age and her limited understanding of the world of politics unburden her from the psychic baggage which the adults inevitably carry with them. The impossibility to remain neutral during this difficult period does not affect her; thus, the novel provides an alternative perspective of the events in question.
The viewpoint of the child
While her age renders her unable to view things in their complexity, Faith’s vision of the world around her is also very refreshing. Naturally, the narrative perspective used offers a limited perception of reality, yet it is precisely this technique that enables the writer to provide an alternative vision of the so often politicised discourse of apartheid era. Faith’s perception is intuitive rather than rational, and is, therefore, devoid of any judgments or prejudice. Her lack of knowledge and experience thus make her an ideal mediator of these highly sensitive issues. It is through the character of Nomsa, the black African servant who is installed on the farm after Bella’s breakdown to take care of the house and its inhabitants, that Faith starts to perceive things in a broader context and the reader is thus provided with a more detailed outlook on the South African political turmoil.
Nomsa, whose presence on the farm and striking difference captivate Faith, becomes an intermediary between the child and the outside world. Since the girl has lived on the farm from the day she was born, accompanied mainly by her parents and only occasionally meeting other people, she has grown up in isolation. Suddenly, Nomsa brings in a different perspective on life; she introduces Faith to new sets of social relations which she is not familiar with. Treating Nomsa like an equal and offering her own room to sleep in, Faith is clearly not aware of Nomsa’s inferiority that the government has imposed on her through a series of regulations. Slowly, Nomsa takes over Bella’s role and becomes “the only solid thing” (ibid., p. 109) in Faith’s life as everything else is falling apart, both metaphorically and literally. By becoming the crucial person in Faith’s life, Nomsa and the affection Faith feels for her enable the child to scramble out of the collapsing fairyland of her mother.
The outside world, however, is not comforting either. Very soon, Faith starts to realise that Nomsa is treated in a disrespectful manner by the others. The experience at the local market, where Nomsa substitutes Bella and attempts, unsuccessfully, to sell some of the farm produce, represents a real eye opener for Faith. “By the afternoon, as the shadows grew long and cold, I began to realize that it was Nomsa that people didn’t like. Even people I had always thought were nice, the ones who stopped to chat with Mother every week, enquiring about our health and other news, gave us a wide berth” (ibid., p. 95). While general race issues and politics have been shifted to the background since the personal catastrophe of Faith’s mother occupied the central space of the plot, they are, undoubtedly, a crucial part of the narrative. The character of Nomsa helps to outline the context in which the whole story is set; a necessary tool for a more complex understanding of the South African experience.
The market scene, with people passing the stall and casting disgusted glances at Nomsa or making offensive comments, outlines the main terrain of struggle. The unobtrusive view of the child records those subtle, but also transparent, signs of disdain and hate and though it is not able to process them in their complexity, it creates much scope for reflection. “I felt as thought the world was somehow different, like I had been exposed to something that made no sense, that had no reason to be the way it was. It was an unfathomable thing, made up of tenuous strands that had to fit together, if only I knew how to place them. Yet, even as I grappled with the threads of it, trying to weave them together into a solid idea, I knew that what I would find when I finally managed was something rotten” (ibid.)
Nomsa’s violent death, carried out by Bella’s hand in a final act of aberration, presents the inevitable climax of the accumulated horror imagery and marks the end of the childhood period for Faith. With her mother taken away to a mental asylum, Faith has to come to terms with these abrupt changes which have left her to cope on her own. While the second part of the novel, set in 1999, examines her return to the farm and to the buried mysteries of her past, it is the first half of the text which is more intriguing and absorbing. At the end, Faith, forced to combat the traumas of her childhood, lost in the same vicious circle as her mother before (manifested by the opening and closing chapters of the book as well), finally finds the so needed equilibrium. The feeling that persists, however, is that of how easily beliefs become ingrained in our minds, and of how difficult it is to see them for what they really are. In this sense, as the author herself stated: “the book is about unpicking belief systems, figuring out how we come to believe the things we believe.“5 Faith’s and Bella’s struggles with their own demons, are thus, clearly paralleled with the uproar within South Africa. In this case, however, the reconciliation will probably take a bit longer.
Endnotes
¹ See Hevešiová, S., 2006. A Glimpse Beyond Postcolonialism. In: Aspects of Postcolonial Literature. Nitra: FF UKF, pp. 40-44.
²
³ Zadok, R. 2005. Gem Squash Tokoloshe. London: Pan Books (back cover)
4 The title of Zadok’s novel is rooted in folktales. Tokoloshe, a tiny creature stemming from Zulu folktales, is an evil spirit much feared by South Africans. There are numerous tales about his mischievous adventures passed from generation to generation and some of them have also been published. See Tales of Tokoloshe by Pieter Scholtz.
5
Bibliography
Ashcroft et al., 2005. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Postcolonial Literatures. London/New York: Routledge.
Brink, A. Interrogating Silence: new possibilities faced by South African literature. In: Attridge, D. & R. Jolly. Writing South Africa. Literature, apartheid, and democracy, 1970-1995. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 14-28.
Kehinde, A. 2010. Andre Brink’s The Wall of the Plague and the Alter-Native Literary Tradition in South Africa. In: Skase Journal of Literary Studies. 2010, Vol.2, No. 1, pp. 19-35.
Zadok, R. 2005. Gem Squash Tokoloshe. London: Pan Books.
“Gem Squash Tokoloshe by Rachel Zadok” Available at:
“I didn’t know who Mandela was”. Guardian, 18 November 2005. Available at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/nov/18/whitbreadbookawards2005.southafrica
