Allegories of drought and of gardens in the novels of JMCoetzee and Dambudzo Marechera

225 Pages·2016·5.9 MB·English

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ALLEGORIES OF DROUGHT AND OF GARDENS IN THE NOVELS OF
J M COETZEE AND DAMBUDZO MARECHERA
BY
GRANT CHARLES LILFORD
Thesis Piesented for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in the Department of English
UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN
FEBRUARY, 1996
The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No
quotation from it or information derived from it is to be
published without full acknowledgement of the source.
The thesis is to be used for private study or non-
commercial research purposes only.
Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms
of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author.
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Abstract
Grant Lilford
Allegories ofD rought am:J of Gardens in the Novels ofJ M Coetzee am:J Dambudzo
Marechera
February 1996
This thesis examines the trope of Allegory in the work ·of two Southern African
writers, JM Coetzee and Dambudzo Marechera. It discusses the trope's use in
redefining the dominant theme of the dialectic between scarcity and plenty. In much of
Southern African literature, this dialectic is expressed allegorically. Drought represents
a physical and spiritual lack while gardens represent human attempts to respond to that
lack by creating fertility and meaning.
The thesis is based on the premise that Southern African literature is best
understood from as wide a perspective as possible. Coetzee and Marechera redefine
the form and the content of a variety of texts, both African and non-African. In order
to study this process of redefinition more closely, I have placed the work of each
writer within the context of other genres of writing. Many critics view Marechera's
writing as modernistic and European. I attempt to establish his unconscious reliance
upon African traditional narrative, particularly the Shona rungano. Marechera uses
Shona orature as a mythic pre-text for the more explicitly allegorical sections of his
House of Hunger. Similarly, several of Coetzee's novels allegorise concerns around
drought found in novels of settlement in Southern Africa. Both writers work within a
more global tradition of writing about scarcity and plenty. The garden also appears in
Homer, Milton, Rousseau, Voltaire, Dickens and Rushdie, among others, as a site of
refuge from poverty and oppression. Contextual chapters examine other texts handling
these related themes as background for those chapters which deal with Marechera and
Coetzee's work in depth.
The thesis makes use of the twentieth-century theory of allegory, particularly as
presented by Edwin Honig, Angus Fletcher and Maureen Quilligan. It examines the
relationship between consciously allegorical texts, like those written by Coetzee and
Marechera, and the unconscious and ubiquitous . use of allegory as an instrument of
rhetoric in ostensibly realistic or philosophical texts. Coetzee and Marechera use
allegory in critiquing dominant forms of discourse and this thesis uses close critical
reading to expose the links between their allegory and its pre-texts.
P 0 Box 251
Lev ub u
0929
Declaration
Id ectlahArallete goorfDi reosuA gnhdot fG ardIenTn hsNe o voeflJM s ·C oetzee
anDda mbilMdzaor ecihmsey ora w wno raknh da nso ptr evlibyoe uessnu bmitted to
anuyni verasntidht aayltt,lh s eo urIhc aevuses eordq uohtaebvdee einn diacnadt ed
acknowblyme edagonefcsd o mprleefetree nces.
Jt(t/
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1996
GraCnL ti lford 18J une,
11
Acknowledgements
Some of the seminal ideas for the thesis appear as "A History of Southern African
Allegory" in Interaction: Proceedings of the Post-Graduate Conference of the [UCT]
Department of English in 1992. The thesis integrates material from the Interaction
article into both Chapter 2 and the Introduction. A preliminary version of Chapter 2
was presented as a Staff Seminar presented to the UCT Department of English. An
early version of Chapter 6 appears in the proceedings of the 1993 Southern African
Society for Eighteenth Century Studies. Please see the bibliography for details. I would
like to thank participants in all three seminars for their contributions to the clarification
of my own thinking in this thesis.
My first year at the University of Cape Town was supported by a Vassar College
Maguire Fellowship and I am grateful to Vassar for awarding the fellowship and to the
late Helen Maguire Muller for funding it.
Many people in many places helped to make this thesis possible. I can only name a
few of them. Pamela Reynolds and Abner Nyamende at UCT helped me to develop an
interdisciplinary approach in my first section and attended the initial staff seminar.
Leslie Marx lent me her then recently-completed thesis, so that I would have some idea
of what one looks like. Marion Walton led me towards Gertrude Page.
Khuliso Nemadzivhanani, my Head, of Department at the University of Venda,
gave me a lot of support in letting me juggle my schedule around this research. Ian
Raper played devil's advocate, challenging the legitimacy of allegory and thus helping
me to hone and polish my arguments. Anna Poshai and Greenwell Matsika corrected
my Shona; Godfried Dederen corrected my French. Reshoketjoe Lilford helped me
with Sotho passages in Mofolo. In all cases any errors remain my responsibility. My
honours African Literature students in 1994 sat through a presentation on chapter
three and asked enlightening questions.
My parents, Clive and Peta Lilford, supported and encouraged me from Ohio,
sending me a shipment of books at the beginning of the project to help me get started
and then regularly asking me when I was going to finish.
The participants at the first symposium on Dambudzo Marechera in August 1995
helped me to articulate my ideas, particularly given the current dearth of critical
material on Marechera. Thanks to the Marechera Trust, the Zimbabwe-German society
and the University of Zimbabwe for organising such an important and- timely
conference and to the University of Venda for sending me there.
Finally I would like to thank my supervisor, Andre Brink, for his thorough and
inspiring assistance. He responded to my drafts with close attention to detail and
posted them to Levubu with, at times, alarming promptness. While offering
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comprehensive support, Professor Brink also gave me the freedom to pursue my ideas
to their limits.
All opinions expressed in this work are my own and are not to be attributed to any
person or institution acknowledged above.
lV
List of Abbreviations
(Please see the bibliography on page 207 for full details)
Texts by JM Coetzee
DL ................... Dusk/ands (1974)
HOC .................. Jn the Heart of the Country (1979)
WB ................... Waiting/or the Barbarians. . (1980)
MK ................... The Life and Times ofM ichael K. (1983)
Foe ................... Foe (1986)
WW ................... White Writing (1988)
AO! ................... Age ofI ron (1991)
DP ................... Doubling the Point: Essays and Interviews (1992)
MP ................... The Master ofP etersburg (1994)
Texts by Dambudzo Marechera
HOH. ................. The House ofH unger (1978)
BS ................... Black Sunlight. (1981)
MB ................... Mindblast or The Definitive Buddy. (1984)
Trib ................... DambudzoMarechera: 4June 1952-18August 1987. (1988)
BI ................... The Black Insider. (1990)
CM ................... Cemetery ofM ind. (1992)
SB ................... Scrapiron Blues. (1994)
v
Table of Contents
Declaration .................................................................................................................. ·i
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... ii
List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................... iv
Table of Contents ................................................................... , .................................... v
Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1
Biographical Details ......................................................................................... 4
Allegory ........................................................................................................... 10
Lukacs, History, Allegory ................................................................................. 14
Summary of the Thesis ..................................................................................... 20
Chapter One: Desert Journeys: Dusk/ands And Waiting For The Barbarians .............. 21
Journeys to Destruction: Dusk/ands .................................................................. 21
Mastery and Bondage ....................................................................................... 24
Journey without Paradise: Waiting for the Barbarians ...................................... 30
Contrasting Tropes ........................................................................................... 33
Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 36
Chapter Two: Allegories of Drought and Paradise in a Shona Narrative ...................... 37
Allegory in Africa ............................................................................................. 38
Limits ofthe 'Oral Text' ................................................................................... 42
The Text as Drought Narrative .......................................................................... 43
Parents and Children ......................................................................................... 46
Moving Towards Paradise ................................................................................ 47
Leaving Paradise .............................................................................................. 52
What Happens to the Children? ........................................................................ 54
Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 5 5
Chapter Three: Childhood and Drought in The House ofH unger ................................ 56
Fading Memories of Rural Drought .................................................................. 56
Urban Drought ................................................................................................. 60
Childhood amid the hunger. .............................................................................. 62
Allegorical Children .......................................· . .................................................. 66
Stains: Traces that will not wash away .............................................................. 72
Breaking the Drought ....................................................................................... 78
Conclusion ................................( ..................................................................... 83
Chapter Four: Nostalgia for Drizzle: Drought and Colonial Writing ............................ 85
Failure of Rain/Failure of Reason ...................................................................... 85
Industry, Idleness and Illness as dominant tropes .............................................. 88
The Edge,o 'Beyond ......................................................................................... 88
The Grass is Singing ........................................................................................ 89
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When Rain Clouds Gather ................................................................................ 91
The Themes and their Allegories ....................................................................... 92
Idleness ............................................................................................................ 92
Industry ............................................................................................................ 100
Illness ...................................................................... : ... ·. .................................... 104
Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 108
Chapter Five: Industry, Idleness and Illness in t~e Novels of J M Coetzee ................... 109
Idleness in In the Heart of the Country ............................................................. 110
Industry in Foe ................................................................................................. 120
Illness in Age ofI ron ........................................................................................ 126
Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 136
Chapter Six: A Resting Place for the Wanderer ...... , .................................................... 137
Epic Paradises: The Garden as Chimera ............................................................ 138
The Garden in the Novel: Artificial Paradise ..................................................... 141
Julie's Garden: Elysium, Eden or Escape? ......................................................... 143
Educating the Coloniser: Gardening in Emile .................................................... 148
Our Mutual Friend: A Shrunken Garden in an Urban Wasteland ...................... 150
Paradise as delusion: The Satanic Verses .......................................................... 155
Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 164
Chapter Seven: Paradise as Refuge in Black Sunlight and The Life and Times
ofMichaelK. ............................................................................................................... 166
From Racial War to Total War ......................................................................... 167
Life on the margin ............................................................................................ 169
The War ........................................................................................................... 172
Fragments, Signs and Ruins of History ............................................................. 176
The Journey ..................................................................................................... 178
Castles, Convoys and Cathedrals ...................................................................... 180
Hell and Caves ................................................................................................. 186
Moments of Paradise ............................................................................... ·. ........ 191
Conclusion: Quenching Thirst. .......................................................................... 196
Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 198
Appendix I: The Children who were abandoned in the Year of Starvation ................... 201
Bibliography ..................................................................................................... :. ......... 207
Primary Texts ..................... : ............................................................................. 207
Secondary Texts ............................................................................................... 208