‘I was a Girl of my Time’: A feminist literary analysis of representations of time and gender in selected contemporary South African fiction by women
Literator
| Field | Value | |
| Title | ‘I was a Girl of my Time’: A feminist literary analysis of representations of time and gender in selected contemporary South African fiction by women ‘Ek was ’n Meisie van my Tyd’: ’n Feministiese literêre analise van uitbeeldings van tyd en gender in gekose eietydse Suid-Afrikaanse fiksie deur vroue | |
| Creator | Murray, Jessica | |
| Description | This article offers a feminist literary analysis of selected contemporary South African texts by women writers in order to explore how they represent female characters’ engagement with conventional understandings of time and its chronological and linear progression. These engagements are represented as being particularly fraught for women characters as they find themselves constrained by various temporally located constructions of femininity even as they attempt to heed the temporally dislocated voices of gendered trauma that consistently speak through their bodies. In this article, my focus will be on Bridget Pitt’s novel, Notes from the Lost Property Department (2015), Elleke Boehmer’s The Shouting in the Dark (2015) and Mohale Mashigo’s The Yearning (2016). Despite frequent references to the importance of temporality in making sense of the experiences of the female protagonists, there has been a dearth of scholarly attention to the complexities of the intersections between gender, time and trauma in contemporary South African fiction by women. While gender violence and trauma are topics that have received extensive critical scrutiny in South African literary studies, this article demonstrates that the inclusion of temporality in the analytical framework enables a richer and more nuanced reading of the experiences of the female characters in the selected texts. Hierdie artikel bied ’n feministiese literêre analise van gekose eietydse Suid-Afrikaanse tekste deur vroueskrywers om te ondersoek hoe hulle vroulike karakters se omgang met konvensionele insigte oor tyd en die kronologiese, liniêre progressie daarvan uitbeeld. Hierdie omgang word uitgebeeld as besonder belaai vir vroulike karakters omdat hulle beperk word deur verskeie tydsgebonde konstruksies van vroulikheid selfs terwyl hulle poog om aandag te skenk aan die tydsontwrigte stemme van gendertrauma wat herhaaldelik deur hul liggame praat. In hierdie artikel is my fokus op Bridget Pitt se roman, Notes from the Lost Property Department (2015), Elleke Boehmer se The Shouting in the Dark (2015) en Mohale Mashigo se The Yearning (2016). Ten spyte van gereelde verwysings na die belangrikheid van temporaliteit in pogings om die ervarings van vroulike protagoniste te verstaan, is daar ’n tekort aan akademiese aandag aan die kompleksiteite van die snypunte tussen gender, tyd en trauma in eietydse Suid-Afrikaanse fiksie deur vroue. Alhoewel gendergeweld en trauma onderwerpe reeds wye kritiese aandag ontvang het in Suid-Afrikaanse literêre studies, wys hierdie artikel dat die insluiting van temporaliteit in die analitiese raamwerk ’n ryker, meer genuanseerde lesing van die ervarings van vroulike karakters in die gekose tekste moontlik maak. | |
| Publisher | AOSIS | |
| Date | 2017-08-30 | |
| Identifier | 10.4102/lit.v38i1.1328 | |
| Source | Literator; Vol 38, No 1 (2017); 8 pages Literator; Vol 38, No 1 (2017); 8 pages 2219-8237 0258-2279 | |
| Language | eng | |
| Relation |
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:
https://literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/view/1328/2426
https://literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/view/1328/2425
https://literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/view/1328/2427
https://literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/view/1328/2420
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