Ways of Reading Blackness: Exploring Stereotyped Constructions of Blackness in NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names

Abstract

This article focuses on NoViolet Bulawayo’s debut novel We Need New Names, and discusses the ways in which she explores the life of the young protagonist and her friends living in a country in the midst of an economic and political crisis. The article argues that Bulawayo’s depiction of 10-year old Darling’s life and that of her impoverished community makes extensive use of stereotypes of blackness that are consistent with white constructions of the black other. This reinforces Western notions of Africa through the use of a number of tropes that have come to be considered representative of Africa within the Western literary canon. The article further asserts that, because the children continually perform their poverty, there is an underlying equating of poverty with moral laxity, which renders the novel “poverty porn”. Instead of illuminating the suffering of this community, it merely serves to deny its humanity as it engages in a Bakhtinian carnivalesque performance in response to vagaries of the postcolony. Finally, the article argues that it is too simplistic to suggest that this mode of representation of blackness is driven merely by a desire to appeal to the implied white western reader, and rather explores ideas relating a double consciousness on the part of the author.

Opsomming

Hierdie artikel fokus op NoViolet Bulawayo se debuutroman We Need New Names, en bespreek die maniere waarop sy die lewe van die jong protagonis en haar vriende wat in 'n land woon midde-in 'n ekonomiese en politieke krisis, bestudeer. Die opstel voer aan dat Bulawayo se uitbeelding van die 10-jarige Darling se lewe, en die lewens van haar behoeftige gemeenskap, in 'n groot mate gebruik maak van stereotipes van swartheid wat strook met wit konstruksies van die swart “ander”. Dit versterk Westerse idees van Afrika, deur die gebruik van 'n  aantal trope wat nou beskou word as verteenwoordigend van Afrika binne die Westerse literêre kanon. Die artikel voer verder aan dat, omdat die kinders deurlopend hul armoede uitleef, daar 'n onderliggende gelykstelling van armoede aan morele losheid is, wat die roman as “armoede-porno” weergee. Pleks daarvan om lig te werp op die swaarkry van hierdie gemeenskap, is dit bloot 'n ontkenning van hul menslikheid – in die vorm van 'n Bakhtiniaanse, karnivaleske uitvoering in antwoord op postkoloniale giere. Laastens voer die artikel aan dat dit te simplisties is om te suggereer dat hierdie vorm van voorstelling van swartheid bloot aangevuur word deur 'n begeerte om by die geïmpliseerde wit Westerse leser aanklank te vind, en eerder idees ondersoek wat met 'n dubbele bewustheid by die outeur verband hou.