Rereading Nadine GordimerWinner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Nadine Gordimer is generally viewed as a liberal champion of justice against the evils of apartheid South Africa. This provocative rereading of her works sees a more ambivalent and culturebound Gordimer. Wagner examines Gordimer's construction of female identity, her images of blacks, and her landscape iconography, and finds her very much a product of white colonial perspective. Also examined are the tensions between liberal humanism and radical politics in the novels and her status as a feminist writer. The conclusion reviews the links between romanticism, generalisations, and stereotypes in her work, in the context of a discussion of her latest novel, My Son's Story. |
Contents
South Africas Conscience | 1 |
Liberalism Ideology and Commitment | 7 |
Text and Subtext | 43 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
African writers alienation André Brink Anthony Sampson apartheid articulated attempt Burger's Daughter Cape Town characters claim clearly Clingman Coetzee's colonial complex consciousness Conservationist context critical culture D.H. Lawrence Doris Lessing early emotional emphasis encoded English Essays Essential Gesture example exile experience extent female feminism feminist generalisation Gideon Gordimer's Guest of Honour Helen Hillela human identification ideology images imagination interview J.M. Coetzee JanMohamed Jessie Johannesburg July's landscape Late Bourgeois World liberal Literary lives London Lying Days Maureen's Mehring Mehring's metaphor moral Nadine Gordimer narrative Occasion for Loving Olive Schreiner oppression passage perspective post-colonial protagonists racist radical reality relationship representation response revolutionary romantic Rosa seen sense servants sexual shaped social society Son's Story South African literature spiritual Sport of Nature stereotypes struggle subtext suggests symbolic tensions tion typical vision voice white South African woman women World of Strangers Writer in South