The myth of the white tribe

Abstract

The site of this thesis is the relationship between Politics and writing in present day South Africa and the struggles and tensions between political history and events and the literary imagination in the context of the rise and fall of the doctrine and practice of Apartheid. Particular attention is given to prominent Afrikaner writers, notably Andre Brink and J. M. Coetzee, and to the ways in which their work reflects and perhaps helps to demystify the ideological and mythological contexts in which it has been created. Central to this enquiry is the claim that the literary imagination has the capacity to investigate shapes of consciousness and patterns of conviction in ways which may be vividly illuminating and that through its ability to engage the reader play a part in the raising of consciousness. This 'dialectical' relationship between reader and public, is echoed in various ways throughout the thesis: in consideration of questions of text and context, in the interplay between the Black Consciousness movement and the challenge to white liberal self emancipation; in the attempt to bring together literary criticism and historical analysis to investigate mythology and the importance of language in the creation of mythology, and finally to explore and to specify and offer a prognosis for the psyche of present day Afrikanerdom in the light of the foregoing.

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