The Queer Son and the Declining Patriarch in Post-Apartheid South African Literature: The Subversive Symbol of Water in Mark Behr’s Kings of the Water

Abstract

This article traces how the character of the father in post-apartheid South African literature is symbolic of the spectral yet enduring legacy of apartheid and the types of rigid masculinities which underpinned the oppressive system. I use this framing to demonstrate the conflict between the traditional South African father and the queer son. Queer male characters, and queer identities within South African society, are represented as disruptive to traditional conceptions of masculinity and fatherhood, and act as deconstructionist elements within the home and the family unit. In demonstrating these trends, I analyse Mark Behr’s novel, Kings of the Water (2009), which focalises a gay Afrikaans-speaking expatriate character who returns to the country and confronts his father at the family farm. The symbol of water in this text allows for the queer character to resist the stifling influence of his father and to queer his environment, renegotiating a connection with the family home as well as with South Africa.

Opsomming

 Hierdie referaat speur na hoe die karakter van die vader in postapartheid- Suid-Afrikaanse letterkunde simbolies is van die spektrale dog blywende nalatenskap van apartheid en die tipes rigiede manlikheid wat die verdrukkende stelsel ondersteun het. Ek gebruik hierdie raamwerk om die konflik tussen die tradisionele Suid-Afrikaanse vader en die gay seun uit te beeld. Gay manlike karakters, en gay identiteite in die Suid-Afrikaanse samelewing, word uitgebeeld as ontwrigtend vir tradisionele begrippe van manlikheid en vaderskap, en dien as dekonstruktiewe elemente binne die huis en die gesinseenheid. Ek demonstreer hierdie neigings deur ’n ontleding van Mark Behr se roman Kings of the Water (2009), wat fokus op ’n gay Afrikaanssprekende uitgeweke karakter wat na die land terugkeer en sy vader op die familieplaas konfronteer. Die simbool van water in hierdie teks stel die gay karakter in staat om die versmorende invloed van sy vader te weerstaan en sy omgewing te ontwrig, waardeur hy ’n verbintenis met die gesinswoning asook met Suid-Afrika herbeding.