The Postcolonial Gothic: Time and Death in Southern African Literature

Abstract

Typically, death, violence, evil (metaphysical or actual), madness, enclosure, doubling, dangerous sexuality, incest, archaicism, ruins, haunting, monsters, bats, rats, cats, eschatological religiosity and hyperbolically tawdry dark aesthetics come to mind when the word “Gothic” is used. In other words, the Gothic immediately conjures up Eurocentric or quasi‑Eurocentric imagery. This makes perfect sense when one considers that Gothic sensibilities and art are far more likely to arise, and have arisen, within cold northern climes with medieval heritages than in sunny southern ones. Nevertheless, there is a Southern Gothic, and writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy and William Faulkner produced more psychological and socially violent Gothic works than their European counterparts. My concern in this article is to explore the Southern Gothic of the USA in relation to key southern African texts in order to define what a southern African Gothic might resemble. What I discover is that the Gothic is not merely a fetishisation of the macabre and grotesque, social or aesthetic; it also involves the fantastic and sublime, often conveyed via a wry self-reflexivity in relation to time and mortality. Gothicism as a form of thanatophilia is invariably related to time and timelessness – different time scales that relativise human consciousness. I want to use the exploration and definition of the southern African Gothic to say something more generally about the Gothic in the postcolonial and the postcolonial in the Gothic. The argument that I want to make is twofold: (1) that southern African Gothicism, whilst in many ways undeveloped, conveys something of the transhistorical imagination that is vital to postcolonialism in general and (2) that alterity is approached by this Gothicism. Thus this paper attempts to restore the mythopoeic to southern African texts that were often analysed only via the materialistic and then to read that mythopoesis back into the sociohistorical and literary-critical context.

Opsomming

’n Mens dink tipies aan die dood, geweld, die bose (metafisies en werklik), kranksinnigheid, ingeslotenheid, verdubbeling, gevaarlike seksualiteit, bloedskande, argaïsisme, ruïnes, die evokatiewe, monsters, vlermuise, rotte, katte, eskatologiese godsdienstigheid en hiperboliese opsigtelike donker estetiek wanneer die woord “Gotiese” ter sprake kom. Met ander woorde, die Gotiese roep dadelik Eurosentriese en kwasi-Eurosentriese beelde op. Dit maak heeltemal sin wanneer ’n mens in ag neem dat dit waarskynliker is dat Gotiese ontvanklikheid en kuns ontstaan, en ontstaan het, in koue noordelike Streke met middeleeuse erfenisse as in sonnige suidelike streke. Nietemin is daar suidelike Gotiese literatuur en het skrywers soos Edgar Allan Poe, Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy en William Faulkner meer psigologies en sosiaal gewelddadige Gotiese werke geskryf as hul Europese ewe-knieë. My doel in hierdie artikel is om die Suidelike Gotiese literatuur van die VSA in verband met belangrike Suider-Afrika tekste te verken ten einde te omskryf hoe ’n Suider-Afrika Gotiese literatuur moontlik kan lyk. Wat ek ontdek is dat die Gotiese nie slegs ’n fetisjisering van die makabere en groteske, sosiale of estetiese, is nie; maar ook die fantastiese en verhewe behels wat dikwels oorgedra word deur middel van ’n wrang selfrefleksiwiteit met betrekking tot tyd en sterflikheid. Die Gotiese, as ’n vorm van doodsvrees, hou sonder uitsondering verband met tyd en tydloosheid – verskillende tydskale wat menslike bewustheid relativeer. Ek wil die erkenning en omskrywing van Suider-Afrika Gotiese literatuur gebruik om iets meer algemeens te sê oor die Gotiese in die postkoloniale en die postkoloniale in die Gotiese. My argument is tweevoudig: (1) dat Suider-Afrika Gotiese literatuur, ongeag die feit dat dit onderontwikkeld is, iets weergee van die transhistoriese verbeelding wat oor die algemeen onmisbaar is in die postkoloniale en (2) dat andersheid deur hierdie Gotiese benader word. Dus poog ek in hierdie referaat om die mitevormende in Suider-Afrika tekste, wat dikwels net deur middel van die materialistiese ontleed is, te herstel en om dan daardie mitevorming terug in die sosiohistoriese en literêr-kritiese konteks te lees.