Subversion versus Inversion: The Loss of the Carnivalesque in Janet Suzman's The Free State

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Abstract

According to Gilbert and Thompkins (1996: 5). postcolonial drama is aimed at dismantling the hierarchies and determinants that create binary oppositions in postcolonial contexts and - according to Young (2001: 4) - also actively trans­forming the present "out of the clutches of the past". This dismantling can, however, only occur when the inevitable ambivalence of postcolonial binaries are taken into account (Gilbert & Thompkins 1996: 6). In her text The Free State (2000a), Janet Suzman attempts to appropriate Chekhov's dismantling of power structures in The Cherry Orchard (1904) within the South African context. However, although The Free State is written against the former apartheid regime, it fails to dismantle the hierarchies within its context because it negates the vital carnivalesque subversion of Chekhov's text. Instead of subverting the hierarchies in her context, Suzman merely inverts them. In this article, the concept of the carnival as developed by Mikhail Bakhtin is used to investigate the significance of Suzman's deviation in the treatment of the hierarchies within the South African context.

 

Opsomming
Volgens Gilbert en Thompkins (1996: 5) het postkoloniale drama ten doel om die hierargiee en beslissende faktore wat binere teenstellings in postkoloniale kontekste veroorsaak, te ontbind, en Young (2001: 4) voer aan dat dit die hede aktief trans­formeer f'uit die kloue van die verlede1. Hierdie ontbinding kan egter slegs plaas­vind wanneer die onvermydelike ambivalensie van die binere teenstellings binne postkoloniale kontekste in ag geneem word (Gilbert & Thompkins 1996: 6). Janet Suzman poog met haar teks The Free State (2000a) om Chekhov se ontbinding van magstrukture in The Cherry Orchard (vertaal as Die kersieboord, oorspronklik in Russies gepubliseer in 1904) vir die Suid-Afrikaanse konteks toe te eien. Alhoewel The Free State teen die hegemonie van die voormalige apartheidsbestel geskryf is, slaag dit egter nie daarin om hierargiee te ontbind nie aangesien dit 'n integrale aspek van Chekhov se teks negeer, naamlik die karnavaleske ondermyning van daardie hierargiee. In plaas daarvan om die hierargiee in haar konteks te ontbind deur dit te ondermyn, keer Suzman dit bloot om. In hierdie artikel word die konsep van die karnaval soos ontwikkel deur Mikhail Bakhtin gebruik om die implikasie van hierdie afwyking in Suzman se teks binne die Suid-Afrikaanse konteks te ondersoek.

 

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Author Biographies

Lida Kruger, University of South Africa

Lida Krüger is a research assistant at UNISA, where she is enrolled for her doctorate in theory of literature. The focus of her doctoral study is how the concepts of deceit, authenticity and metatheatre resonate in Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing and Patrick Marber’s Closer. In 2009 Lida completed her MA in English Literature at the North-West University, Potchefstroom. Her dissertation is a comparison between the cultural contexts of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and Janet Suzman’s The Free State: A South African Response to Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard”.

Hein Viljoen, North-West University

Hein Viljoen is professor of Afrikaans and Dutch literature at the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University in South Africa. He studied at the universities of Potchefstroom, Pretoria and Utrecht (the Netherlands). His present research interests are literary theory, space and identity and cultural creolisation in Afrikaans and South African literature (mainly poetry). He has published widely in these fields. With the research team in literary studies he published three collections of essays in recent years, the most recent being Crossing Borders, Dissolving Boundaries (Rodopi, 2013). Apart from being assistant editor of the Journal of Literary Studies/Tydskrif vir literatuurwetenskap he is also editor-in-chief of Literator (See www.literator.org.za).

Marita Wenzel, North-West University

Marita Wenzel is an associate professor of English, mainly involved with research and postgraduate supervision at North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa. She studied at the universities of Pretoria, South Africa, Stellenbosch and North-West (Potchefstroom). She has a PhD degree in comparative literature on Latin American and South African women writers. Her particular fields of interest are feminist studies, comparative literature (South African, postcolonial and Latin American novels) and translation studies. She has published several articles on South African and Latin American authors and has attended numerous national and international conferences on postcolonial topics. Her present field of research relates to topics on boundaries and identity formation in literature. Essays on the above-mentioned topics have been published as chapters in collections by Rodopi (2013, 2009, 2001), Palgrave (2008), Peter Lang (2004, 2007), The Gateway Press (Madrid, 2008) and Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée (2009) respectively. She is a member of various discipline-related associations and an accredited translator and examiner for the South African Translators' Institute (Afrikaans, Spanish and German into English.

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Published

2013-09-01

How to Cite

Kruger, Lida, Hein Viljoen, and Marita Wenzel. 2013. “Subversion Versus Inversion: The Loss of the Carnivalesque in Janet Suzman’s The Free State”. Journal of Literary Studies 29 (3):17 pages. https://unisapressjournals.co.za/index.php/jls/article/view/14243.

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Vol. 29 No. 3 (2013)

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Articles

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