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 CONTENTS

Introduction to the module v

LEARING UNIT 1: A selection from The New Century of South African Poetry by Michael
Chapman 1

LEARING UNIT 2: A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry 19

LEARING UNIT 3: Seven Steps to Heaven by Fred Khumalo 42

LEARING UNIT 4: Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga 53

ENG2603/1iii
ENG2603/1/2014
iv
 INTRODUCTION TO THE MODULE

This introduction was compiled by Prof M Vambe

Welcome
We are delighted to welcome you to this module, Colonial and Postcolonial African
Literatures. The field of African literature is vast. Over the course of this module we
want you to remember that the concept “African literature” itself is controversial.
However, this Introduction is not the space to explore the ways in which the notion of
Africa has been invented and constructed. You should consider this module as merely
an Introduction. Since this is a second-level module, you are expected to engage
actively in making meaning and building knowledge. You can do this by investigating
the multiple connections between what is “Colonial” and what is “Postcolonial” in
the texts. Furthermore, you will be requested to question the very thinking behind
the chronology suggested in the terms “colonial and postcolonial”. Our aim is to
motivate you to read the texts we have selected for you with an open mind. We have
set four critical outcomes that we believe you should be able to achieve by the end of
reading the module, Colonial and Postcolonial African Literatures. Read through these
outcomes and focus on mastering the skills that they emphasise.

Module outcomes
This module has four specific outcomes. A deeper understanding of the outcomes will
be reached through a close focus on each of them in the units that follow.

Outcome 1: Students critically read a wide range of texts in different genres (fiction,
auto/biography, poetry and drama) with comprehension and critical engagement at
this intermediate level.

Outcome 2: Students write well-structured paragraphs and essays that critically discuss
the creative choices made by writers of the chosen texts. Your essay should contain an
introduction that tells what you want to argue and how you want to organise your
ideas.

Outcome 3: Students explain how the politics of representation shapes literary texts
and their reception in postcolonial contexts. Students are encouraged to think beyond
the intended meanings of the text. As developing critics, students are also expected to
come up with new meanings of texts that relate to students’ lived experiences.

Outcome 4: Students can employ the key concepts and debates in postcolonial literary
theory. In order to answer the assignment questions and examination questions

ENG2603/1v
 insightfully, students must reveal that they have understood concepts in particular
contexts. This often means mastering the critical vocabulary of the module and using
these words to explain the complexity of the texts.

Structure of the module

Unit 1 focuses on a selection of poetry from The New Century of South African Poetry
by Michael Chapman. In this unit, you will be invited to explore the complexities that
arise when one tries to offer simple definitions of “colonial” and “postcolonial”. You will
also learn how to apply terms such as “contact zones”, “stereotype” and “urbanisation”
to your readings of selected poems. In Unit 2, the primary text will be a play, namely
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Key concepts such as “representation”,
“feminism”, “race”, “gender” and “class” will be used to guide you through the play.
Unit 3 deals with the primary text, Seven Steps to Heaven by Fred Khumalo, in order
to explore how a postcolonial text can be interpreted in terms of the social, historical
and political context from which it emerged. Finally, Unit 4 considers how gender,
race, patriarchy, identity and resistance are represented in Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi
Dangarembga.

How did we select the primary texts for Colonialism and Postcolonial
African literature?
Here are some of the reasons for our selection of The New Century of South African
Poetry (2002), Nervous Conditions (1988), Seven Steps to Heaven (2007) and A Raisin
in the Sun (1958) for study.

●● First, we want you to form a broad view of literature from different parts of Africa,
and to understand that this literature emerged as a response to specific contexts in
different parts of colonial and postcolonial Africa.
●● Second, we have included poetry, a play and novels so that you understand that
different styles or forms can articulate similar topical issues such as representations
of oppression and resistance in different ways.
●● Third, we hope you will develop a critical understanding of the idea that the com-
munities on which the primary sources are based have experienced “colonialism”
and are now caught up in a phase that we can loosely call “postcolonial”. In each
of these phases there are power relations that authors negotiate through different
literary devices.
●● Furthermore, we want you to note that in this module, we emphasise the terms
“Colonial” and “Postcolonial” because they mean different things to different
people.

In fact, as you progress with the reading of the units in this module, you will discover
that there are differences and similarities in the ways that the authors depict or represent
the matrices of power and powerlessness. You will also observe that the views of your
lecturers who compiled this module may differ in terms of their understanding of what
is meant by the terms “colonial” and “postcolonial”, as represented in the novels, play
and poetry you are going to study. This should not discourage you. As with literary
texts, different readings of theories are possible. Although readings may vary widely, it
is always important to ground them in sound, substantiated arguments.

vi
 Colonialism and postcolonialism
The concepts of colonialism and its aftermath, postcolonialism, arise out of the settlement
of any part of a country by people who originate from another country. They are then
subject to full or partial control by the invading country. A colony, therefore, is the
settlement of a country and it is as old as humanity itself. From the time of the absolute
rulers in Japan, for instance, the establishment of overseas colonies was a way by which
nascent nation-states established their economies and sustained their citizens. William
Shakespeare, for example, wrote The Tempest (the first known printing appeared in
1623) which minutely examines the effects of colonialism on the former inhabitants of
an island. Indeed, most of the modern nations arose as a result of being colonised (for
example, the United States of America). For this reason, it makes sense to include a text
by an African American author, such as Lorraine Hansberry, in a module on colonial
and postcolonial African literature. While colonialism is not limited to Africa, most
of the texts in this module emerged from Africa, since this is the context in which our
university is located.

Colonialism is therefore the process of establishing and maintaining colonies and

domination through political and/ or military means. And yet postcolonialism should
not merely be equated with “after-independence” or “after-colonialism” since all
ex-colonies display various senses of overt or covert forms of domination, be it at a
cultural, economic, or political level. This is often called neo-colonialism. Postcolonial
theory is therefore a complex system of thought that attempts to account for the many
different cultural, economic and political ramifications for countries that had once
been colonised. Formal political independence from foreign domination has not solved
these problems. The writing of postcolonial societies display, in various forms, issues
central to those societies’ evolving cultures as an act of defining the national characters
that have not been left untouched by the colonial experience.

The concepts of “representation” and “stereotype”

We encourage you to observe that “representation” itself is a central concept used by all
the authors discussed here. But what is representation? People sometimes mistakenly
assume that literature “reflects” or “expresses” reality. There is little truth in these views.
“To reflect” suggests that literature comes to us as it is experienced in real life. This
is the same erroneous thinking that informs the view that literature “expresses” life.
The two terms also wrongly suggest that in literature, life is brought to the reader as
a unified whole. You will find that in Colonial and Postcolonial African Literatures, we
prefer to say literature “represents” reality. This is a view that appreciates that literature
is not exactly mirroring life as it is lived. Instead, we want you to think through the
idea that authors manipulate words, create certain images and order them in particular
ways that exclude other potential ways of representing reality through their art. This
is important to remember, because this fact alone explains why authors differ in their
depiction of the same event or portrayal of the same people.

When an author writes in a way that identifies a group of people as possessing unique
values not found in other people, we say that the author is representing life through
a stereotype. A stereotype is one way of depicting characters by emphasising singular
values and not taking into account that a single character may possess different views
or subjectivities that can be revealed in different ways in response to different stimuli.

ENG2603/1vii
 Primary sources
●● Chapman, M. 2002. The New Century of South African Poetry. Johannesburg &
Cape Town: AD. Donker Publishers.
●● Dangarembga, Tsitsi. 1988. Nervous Conditions. London: Women’s Press.
●● Khumalo, Fred. 2007. Seven Steps to Heaven. Auckland Park: Jacana.
●● Hansberry, Lorraine. 1958. A Raisin in the Sun. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

viii
 LEARNING UNIT 1

Poetry: A selection from The New Century of South African Poetry by

Michael Chapman

This unit was compiled by Dr S Maithufi and Dr S Dambe

Introduction
Welcome to the first learning unit of ENG2603. The title of this module is Colonial
and Postcolonial African Literatures. Let us begin by posing the question: What does
“colonial” mean? South Africa comprises many cultures that originate from different
parts of the world. However, in many respects, the heritage of the English culture has
dominated ever since the first arrival of the English people in 1820. There is no doubt
that this supremacy results from the fact that Britain once colonised Southern Africa
and that, with time, black Africans appropriated the English language in processes
of self-reclamation. Therefore, the language that was imported to Africa through the
mission of colonial subjugation ultimately defined its overthrow.

You are required to familiarise yourselves with all the poems to which this Unit
refers. Apart from the poem, “Song of the Wild Bushman”, the relevant excerpt
of which we reproduce in this guide, all the poems are contained in the prescribed
poetry anthology, Michael Chapman’s The New Century of South African Poetry
(2002).

Learning unit outcomes

This learning unit has four specific outcomes, namely:

Outcome 1: Students read a wide range of poems with comprehension and critical
engagement at this intermediate level.

Outcome 2: Students write well-structured paragraphs and essays that critically discuss
the creative choices made by writers of the selected poems.

Outcome 3: Students explain how the politics of representation shapes poems and
their reception in postcolonial contexts.

Outcome 4: Students can employ the key concepts and debates in postcolonial literary
theory in their analyses of selected poems.

ENG2603/11
 Background
How can we differentiate the colonial era from what presumably followed it, that is,
“postcolonialism”?

It seems easy to define the “colonial era” by stating that it refers to a period when a
people from outside presided over and dictated to a local population how it should
define itself. However, it is rather peculiar when, after defeating the coloniser, the
erstwhile colonised continue to use the language and values imposed on them by
the coloniser, such as English, Christianity and Western education. Therefore, irony
appears to colour what may be perceived of as the “postcolonial”. We may refer to the
colonial encounter as the beginning of modernity, because this is where the coloniser
and the colonised began to be entangled in one space with one another. Notice that
this is a theme that you will explore when you study your other prescribed texts such
as Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel, Nervous Conditions.

In your prescribed book, Michael Chapman’s The New Century of South African Poetry
(2002), most of the poems by major English colonial writers such as Thomas Pringle
and William Plomer express concerns for the plight of humanity; these poems do
not appear to support the colonial mission. But we describe these poets as “colonial”,
mainly because, as in the case of Pringle and Plomer, they wrote at the turn of the 20th
century during the British reign over what later came to be known as the Republic
of South Africa. Another reason for using this term to describe these poets may be
found in the fact that their poetry registers an attempt at orienting the self within the
country, speaking on behalf of its indigenous people, sometimes using stereotype and
subtly depicting them as alien and strange. Even some of those who wrote after the
formation of the Union of South Africa (1910) and who experimented in the English
traditions of poetry, such as Guy Butler, seem to fit the category of the “colonial”.

According Homi Bhabha (1994:70), stereotype is used “to construe the colonized
as a population of degenerate types on the basis of racial origin, in order to justify
conquest and to establish systems of administration and instruction”.

Activity 1
Carefully read the following excerpt from Pringle’s “Song of the Wild Bushman”.

Let the proud White Man boast his flocks,

And fields of foodful grain;

My home is ‘mid the mountain rocks,

The Desert my domain.

I plant no herbs nor pleasant fruits,

I toil not for my cheer;

The Desert yields me juicy roots,

And herds of bounding deer

(Pringle, 1881:89)

2
 Then, in a paragraph of four to six lines, discuss whether the definition of stereotype given
above is reflected in this excerpt.

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Feedback on activity 1
In this stanza, the speaker who introduces him/herself as being different from “the
White Man” declares a love for the wilderness. The title of the poem, “The Song
of a Wild Bushman”, hints at this speaker’s identity. However, it is strange that the
poem presents the speaker valorising what appears to be the simple life of a hunter
gatherer. The fact that the title of the poem introduces the speaker in derogatory
terms, “Wild” and “Bushman”, makes us even more suspicious of the poet’s motives.
This representation recalls colonial and 19th century European mythologies of black
Africans.

As you will discover when you go through this study guide and the prescribed
anthology, the so-called “colonial” poems draw extensively on ideas of humanity
without emphasising the racial aspects that violate it. In some instances, black African
poets also expand on this celebration of a common humanity, though often overtly
attributing its violation to white racism and using other tools that are indigenous to
Africa. It is for this reason that, on the whole, this selection of poems in this anthology
seems to make the imagined binary opposition between colonial and postcolonial,
white and black, appear rather fuzzy.

Therefore, the intention is that you take cognisance of how these poems use language
and style. Also in this process, try to appreciate how the poetry that we describe as
“colonial” and those we describe as “postcolonial” contrast according to other related
themes. Taking this into consideration, we attempt to map how South Africa became
the multi-racial or cosmopolitan country that it is today.

In this module, we would like you to keep the following assertion in mind:

By virtue of the colonial encounter, Africa became “contact zones”: “social spaces
where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly
asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as
they are lived out in many parts of the world today” (Mary Louis Pratt, 1991:34).

Activity 2
Let us consider Pratt’s definition of “contact zones” in a reading of Nontsizi Mgqwetho’s poem,
“A Red Blanket Addresses Christians” (p. 91). Read the poem, identifying the speaker, the tone
and the addressee.

ENG2603/13
 Feedback on activity 2

By now, you should be able to establish that the poem presents the speaker who
depicts him/herself in terms of the metaphor “red blanket”. The speaker mentions this
metaphor in the title, and in the last stanza it is preceded by the first person pronoun
in the plural form, “We”.

The colour red is used here to refer to those Xhosas who allegedly refuse to embrace
Christianity and Western modernity, who prefer to follow Xhosa rituals and customs
and to decorate themselves and their couture in red ochre. This colour is dominant in
this culture’s practices (Here you may wish to refer to Zakes Mda’s novel, The Heart of
Redness, 2000).

You will also notice that this speaker addresses “Christians” and further that s/he is
unhappy with them. How do we know this? Refer to the use of the second person
pronoun, in the form of “you” and “your”, throughout the poem and consider how,
through this perspective, the speaker introduces a sense of cold distance from those
he calls “Christians”. However, the speaker’s attempt to establish distance from the
Christians has just the opposite result.

How do we arrive at this assertion? Try this procedure to arrive at the answers:

Jot down in point form the commonality between the speaker and the “Christians”
that s/he gradually discloses in the poem. Good answers should include the following
points:

●● The speaker refers to Christians as “your daughters” in line 1.

●● You should have identified and evaluated the speaker’s reasons for disapproving of
“Christians” in every stanza.
●● You should also have commented on the concluding stanza where the speaker
remarks that s/he also values the Christian God’s “truth”, noting that this speaker
therefore paradoxically discloses his/her sense of entanglement with the Christians.

Activity 3
Write a one-page essay in which you discuss the irony in this poem. Use the following
subheadings:

yy Speaker’s cultural or religious identity

yy Setting

yy Conflict

yy Imagery

yy Tone

Complete Activity 3 on a separate page.

4
 Feedback on activity 3

It is worth highlighting at least two advantages of considering representations of Africa

in terms of “contact zones”:

The colonised appear as active participants, using the very ideological resources based
on racist lines of thought that the coloniser monopolises, as opposed to being mere
objects who do not contribute to history.

Let us consider whether a comparable sense of irony and of “contact zones” informs
another poem, Roy Campbell’s “The Zulu Girl”. Be aware that, in contrast to the
poem “A Red Blanket Addresses Christians”, the speaker in Campbell’s poem mostly
articulates his/her sense of distance from his/her focus, the Zulu girl. Notice that
s/he refers to her, for example, in the generic ethnic identity, that s/he calls her a
“girl” despite also describing her as a mother. Because of this speaker’s ignorance
and tendency to generalise, it may be argued that s/he uses stereotypes (refer to the
definition of “stereotype” given above).

However, also notice that from the beginning of Stanza 3 to the concluding stanza, the
speaker assumes a sense of familiarity with the “girl”, despite opening the poem with a
description of her as being physically distant from him and just a “girl”.

Activity 4
Write a one-page essay in which you map this change mentioned above and argue whether it
is convincing. Be guided by the following points:

yy The identity of the speaker and his/her main focus (“girl”)

yy Setting
yy Imagery
yy Tone

Complete this task on a separate page.

Contestations over land(rural)scape, property and entries into modernity

Primary Sources

yy Thomas Pringle (“The slave dealer” pp. 35–36)

yy Isaac Wauchope (“Praises of Matanzima, Son of Sandile”; “Your cattle are plundered …”
pp. 49–50)
yy Roy Campbell (“Klipspringer” p. 84)
yy Ntsikana kaGabha (“Ntsikana’s Bell” p. 33)
yy Andrew Geddes Bain (“The British Settler” pp. 40–41)
yy St J Page Yako (“The Contraction and Enclosure of the Land” p. 120)

The kind of modernity that dawned in what later became Southern Africa was generally
violent. The poetry written around this time witnesses this inauspicious beginning
graphically by focussing on, for example, the discovery of minerals and subsequent
urbanisation, the demarcation of physical space into racist enclaves, the beginning of
the mining industry and the dispossession of the indigenous peoples of their ancestral

ENG2603/15
 lands. We begin to see a substantive experimentation with style in this poetry and
sharper articulations of political resistance to colonisation. We can therefore surmise
that this poetry also introduces the unfolding of different versions of modernity.

Activity 5
We begin by considering how Andrew Geddes Bain’s poem, “The British Settler”, depicts the
dominant form of modernity.

Read this poem carefully and slowly aloud, taking into account each pause and expressing
each punctuation mark.

Identify the instances in which the speaker addresses himself from a first person perspective,
“I”, and the phrases that highlight the power that he ostensibly possesses.

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Feedback on activity 5
A good answer should include the following points:

●● the authority that the speaker claims as a “British” man or a masculine figure
●● his claims over livestock and the land, and
●● the stereotypes that he uses to represent people of other races.

Activity 6
Use the activity above as a starting point and write a 15-line essay in which you discuss whether
the author presents the speaker as ridiculing himself as well as his beliefs.

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Feedback on activity 6
In this poem, the speaker boasts about his exploits in conquering the Cape, ostensibly
a place he finds alien. He takes particular delight in stating that “Charlie Somerset”, a

6
 reference to the governor of the Cape at the time, officially allocated him the land on
which he subsequently “built a house” (l6) and from which he began to expand as an
entrepreneur. Throughout the poem, he does not shy away from addressing himself as
a settler, and from boasting about how he has repressed and conquered the land and
the indigenous people, whom he refers to in racially derogatory terms. The reader may
find this speaker stupid and insensitive, concluding that the poem makes a mockery
of him and of the brazen sense of masculinity that he espouses. The entire poem may
thus be described as satire. It is interesting that this critique taps indirectly into the
experience of the colonised in order to make a case against the coloniser.

Activity 7
As evident in the poem, “The British Settler” and in other poems written by white authors during
the late 19th and early 20th century, European settlers are depicted either as celebrating their
annexation of Africa or as refusing to address the black racial question. By contrast, the black
authored poems of the same period show African resistance on the rise, though seemingly
not in explicit terms. For instance, Isaac Wauchope’s “Your cattle are plundered” portrays
resistance to Europe’s colonialism in terms of the acquisition of Western education. This is a
point that Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel, Nervous Conditions, expands upon.

Read the poem aloud, emphasising the exclamation marks and the verbs that the speaker uses
at the beginning of some of the lines.

Rewrite the poem in the table provided below, and then account for it in a paragraph of 6 to 8
lines. Good answers will show a restructuring of the poem in a way that identifies the rationale,
imperatives and warning. Here is an example:

Imperialism Immediate imperatives Diplomacy

Your cattle are plundered, After them! After them! Take up the pen.
compatriot!

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Feedback on activity 7
The table should look something like this:

ENG2603/17
 Imperialism Immediate imperatives Diplomacy

Your cattle are plundered, After them! After them! Take up the pen.
compatriot! Seize paper and ink.

Your rights are plundered! Grab a pen.

Put pressure on the

page.

Engage your mind.

Focus on facts.

And speak loud and

clear.

Don’t rush into

battle.

Anger stutters.

At the heart of this poem is the conflict between the immediate and impulsive response
to colonial oppression and the acquisition of Western education as well as diplomacy
or calm rational thinking. The poem suggests that both responses have one rationale
in the form of colonialism. The poem further depicts imperialism using two graphic
metaphors: the plundering of cattle and of rights. It seems that the gist of the poem is
focused on the column on the extreme right, as it is more detailed than the middle and
the extreme left columns. A closer look at these specifics reveals that this poem equates
Western education with reason, and contrasts both to an emotive and aggressive
reaction. It may be argued that the preferred retort recalls the value that many Africans
came to invest in Western education, especially after having been dispossessed of their
land through the Berlin conference of 1884. At this conference, the major European
countries divided Africa into fiefdoms to be shared among themselves. In one way,
therefore, Africans may be seen as having entered into modernity neither on their
own terms nor on those that aptly redressed the coloniser’s brute force. The speaker
introduces this violence in two lines that both contain one common verb, “plundered”,
and end with an exclamation mark. In its plosive sound and simple past tense form,
this verb articulates the coloniser’s authority more forcefully and meticulously than the
verbs that the poet uses to encourage resistance to imperialism.

NB. The apparent contradiction in this poem resonates in many black poems of
this time. A.K. Soga’s poem, “Santa Cruz: The Holy Cross”, is one such example.
Other poems such as H.I.E. Dlhomo’s “Valley of a Thousand Hills” are informed
by contrasting conflict. In the latter poem, paradox takes the form of the author’s
remarkable experimentation with the poetic tropes of the English Romantic period
and his invocation of a South African Pan Africanism.

8
 Urbanisation
In this subsection we will introduce you to the poetic representations of South Africa’s
urban development and its underlying dominant economic order.

Primary Sources
●● William Plomer (“Johannesburg” p. 85)
●● Mongane Wally Serote (“City Johannesburg” p. 199)
●● Elisabeth Eybers (“Witwatersrand” p. 102)
●● B.W. Vilakazi (“Nightfall” p. 109)
●● Sipho Sepamla’s (“To Whom It May Concern” p. 203)

South Africa’s modern mining industry began in the late 19th century. Since then,
the far-reaching consequences of this growth have been the subject of many poems. In
poignant and touching terms, these poems represent humanity mostly as a man who
struggles to deal with the difficult conditions of the industry. At regular intervals, the
images of a polluted ecosystem and of depressed and sometimes tragic men appear
in these poems. However, there are significant contrasts between white and black
authored poems on this theme, and between those who wrote in this period and in the
second half of the 20th century.

Activity 8
Read William Plomer’s poem, “Johannesburg”.

Write a chronological account of how, according to the speaker, Johannesburg came into being.

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Refer to the last 2 stanzas and then, in a paragraph of five lines, discuss the identity of the
people whom the speaker addresses.

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Discuss the “men” working on the “Rand” in the first 3 stanzas and then, in a paragraph of five
lines, show how these “men” relate to those to whom the speaker refers in the concluding 2
stanzas.

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ENG2603/19
 Feedback on activity 8
By now, you should be alert to the following:

●● that the speaker states that Johannesburg came into being from nowhere (line 1),
●● that this city developed in gendered terms and conditions,
●● and further, that it exploited these men and left them out in the cold on their
retirement.

Looking at the 2 last stanzas, it is apparent that

●● The speaker watches or imagines retired mine workers,

●● he remarks that they exemplify the consequences of the exploitative mine industry,
●● in its inception, mining was a gendered enterprise that (ab)used women (“girls”
in line 4 and “whore” in line 12) as a form of entertainment for men at night (ex-
pressed as “light”),
●● as they aged, these men changed from “swashbucklers” or “scamps” into “prim”
and “sedate” elderly people (expressed as “Greybeards” in the fourth stanza).

It may also be argued that the sarcasm in the 6th stanza contains the high point of
the poem’s criticism of the collusion between capitalism, Christianity and patriarchy.
This criticism is carried over into the final stanza, the second and fourth lines of which
rhyme. However, in order to understand how this criticism is built up and sustained,
you need to go back to the first 6 stanzas.

In a paragraph of five lines, discuss how the rhyme scheme of Elisabeth Eybers’s poem,
“Witwatersrand”, supports the critique of capitalism.
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In an essay, comment on whether B.W. Vilakazi’s poem, “Nightfall“, elaborates on the

lament for destroyed nature that is key to Eybers’s “Witwatersrand”.
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Activity 9
In contrast to many poems written by white authors on the regrettable effects of the mining
industry, those penned by black authors directly impute these repercussions onto the political
system of white oppression. In many of these poems, structure is dispensed with and the
articulation of anger seems to happen haphazardly. These poems depict the black experience.
We focus on Mongane Wally Serote’s famous poem, “City Johannesburg”, and on B.W.Vilakazi’s
poem, “Nightfall”, to elaborate on this black experience.

Read Serote’s “City Johannesburg”.

Using a three column table, jot down notes

10
 ●● on the routes that the speaker travels and the regularity with which he journeys on them,
●● on the imagery that he uses to convey his frustrations,
●● on the imagery that he uses to describe the city, and
●● on the imagery that he uses to convey his sense of entrapment.

Feedback on activity 9
Compare your completed table with the notes that follow below, and consider
reconciling your answers with these notes:

Having completed the exercise above, it should be apparent to you that the speaker
describes the city as a product of racist control

●● where he is coerced by regular curfews to accept being discriminated against on

the basis of his race,
●● where the city is charted by racist laws that inhibit free movement,
●● where he is forced to abide by the law’s demand that he must account for his pres-
ence in the city,
●● where poverty and dreadful living conditions affect black people exclusively, and
●● where these effects have turned black people against one another.

Notice that, while documenting the evidence of black oppression, this poem reads
slowly. This calm pace recalls performance and “spoken word poetry”.

Some notes to ponder over: “Spoken word poetry” originates in the Harlem
Renaissance, a widespread phenomenon of art and cultural revival concerned with
articulating black people’s aspirations and outrage at slavery in America at the
beginning of the 20th century. Since then, this poetry has developed into many types,
and across the world.

Activity 10
In order to establish a comprehensive view of the kind of “event” or phenomenon that this
poem enunciates, read the poem again, very slowly this time, and then discuss the following
statement in seven lines:

In the poem, “Johannesburg”, punctuation marks dictate the rhythm of the poem, slowing it
down. This allows the speaker to engage in a process that is musical; this effect is intensified
by the poem’s refrain, “Jo’burg City”. It may further be argued that this constant refrain suggests
a process of healing.

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Feedback on activity 10
Perhaps as a result the frequent occurrence of enjambment or “run-on-lines” in Serote’s
poem, “City Johannesburg”, reading it one feels as if one is involved in a musical
event. The subject that this poem explores is rather weighty, as it concerns the trauma
of the black experience. It is therefore no wonder that Serote deploys what seems to
be the trope of music in order to deal with this history. After wandering through the
depths of the pain of apartheid and driven by the power of the written word, the poem
pauses regularly in the refrain. This refrain is intended to help the reader to return to
a moment of calm. By implication, while the poem immerses the reader in the history
of oppression through graphic images of entrapment, at the same time it overturns the
evoked pain in the refrain.

The critic, Njabulo Ndebele ([1984] 1991, 2006:41–42) calls this type of poetry “the
spectacular”, as, according to him, it merely confirms the surface realities of apartheid.
Ndebele elaborates:

“The spectacular documents; it indicts implicitly; it keeps the larger issues of society in
our minds, obliterating the details; it provokes identification through recognition and
feeling rather than through observation and analytical thought; it calls for emotion
rather than conviction; it establishes a vast sense of presence without offering intimate
knowledge; it confirms without necessarily offering a challenge. It is the literature of
the powerless identifying the key factor responsible for their powerlessness. Nothing
beyond this can be expected of it.”

Activity 11
In a paragraph of seven lines, use these points that Ndebele raises in order to evaluate Sipho
Sepamla’s poem, “To Whom It May Concern”.

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12
 In the next subsection of this learning unit, we will discuss the significance of poetry
in the mediations of the conditions of exile and imprisonment.

Primary Sources
●● Dennis Brutus (“Letter to Martha, 4” p. 174)
●● Jeremy Cronin (“Motho ke Motho ka Batho Babang” p. 357)
●● Arthur Nortje (“Waiting” p. 180)

Systems of political repression across the world have imprisoned people for holding
different views. Attempting to evade this fate, a number of the political activists and
artists such as Dennis Brutus, Ezekiel Mphahlele, Nat Nakasa, Lewis Nkosi and
Keorapetse Kgositsile went into exile. From both exile and prison, poetry emerged in
rich and fascinating textures. One of these textures articulates the ingenuity of these
beleaguered people in their efforts to survive subjugation and the corresponding forms
of distress this caused. South Africa, as well as the rest of the world, boasts intriguing
examples of such poetry. In this section, we introduce you to the poetic representations
of both human rights abuses and individual moments of calm.

Activity 12
Read Dennis Brutus’s poem, “Letter to Martha 4”. Write a paragraph in which you explore the
metaphor of containment that the speaker uses to describe the setting, and the images that he
uses to elaborate upon this metaphor.

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Feedback on activity 12
Good answers should include the following ideas:

●● The metaphor of “containment” is the “single cell” (line 1), and it is elaborated on
in the “awareness of the proximity of death” (line 6) (possibly because the cell in
which the speaker is imprisoned is on death row).
●● This metaphor is further expanded upon in the phrases “grey silence” and “empty
afternoons” (line 14) (possibly because, being in solitary confinement, the speaker
is gloomy and depressed).

Activity 13
According to the speaker, the dominant sense of doom that he expresses in the detailed image
of entrapment in the poem, “Letter to Martha, 4”, is overturned in his religious appeals. He
introduces these pleas in line 3 through the only verb in this first stanza. Identify this verb, and
then discuss its significance in a five to six line paragraph.

ENG2603/113
 Feedback on activity 13
The verb in question is “asserts”. This verb is the only one in this stanza and in the
remainder of the poem which is intransitive, which contains an ‘s’ alliteration sound,
and cadences in the plosive consonant ‘t’. As an intransitive verb, it does not take an
object (or subject phrase). In this case, the phrase expresses the idea of spirituality
or religion that the speaker argues is the prisoner’s refuge. The contrast between
the solution and the adversary in the form of apartheid is very stark. However, the
poem introduces this answer by associating it with the ineffable perseverance of those
who have very remote access to political authority and who recognise themselves as
powerless in the face of the transcendental or God. These are those who still observe
“childhood” prayer rituals in stanza two, the “weak” in stanza four, or those who
commune with “god” in the last stanza, for example. The syntax of this poem appears
to chain together all these images into one sentence so that it is impossible to conceive
of this poem without the dominant images of those who do not command sufficient
power to influence bureaucracy.

Activity 14
Christianity, the religion that we touched on in Activity 1 above, came to Africa with the
juggernaut of colonialism. As evident in Dennis Brutus’s poem, “Letter to Martha, 4”, however,
Christianity is being redeployed to serve the oppressed. The proposal is therefore that religion
can be defined as an aspect of everyday life.

According to the philosopher Michel de Certeau ([1984] 1988: xii), everyday life concerns
individuals who appropriate (or alter and individualise) the dominant economic order for their
own different ends.

Let us now consider whether religion plays any centrality role in the poem, Arthur Nortje’s
“Waiting”, the subject of which is depression. This is an “exile” poem, because it was written in
exile. Read this poem carefully, paying particular attention to the speaker’s overwhelming sense
of gloom.

In “Waiting”, Jacques Berthoud (1984: 5) remarks, Nortje

“presents his subject as located in time and place, achieving this by a subtle manipulation of
depth of field, regularly shifting focus from background to foreground, and from present to past ...
In this poem the community and the self are involved in each other at the deepest level. Indeed,
the self does not appear as an autonomous given, but as something unstable, dependent and
at risk. The art which seemed self-regarding ... is not merely aesthetic, but therapeutic. Floating
up through some basic fracture of the mind, it is hailed as the only thing capable of checking the
disintegration of a subject sundered from its origins.”

In three paragraphs, discuss the imagery that the speaker uses to convey his depression. Show
whether he succeeds in recovering from his depression, and then consider whether this is on
account of his limited sense of spirituality or religion.

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14
 In this subsection, we will be exploring the concept of the “post-anti-colonial”.

Primary Sources
●● Sally-Ann Murray (“Pregnancy” p. 436)
●● Wopko Jensma (“Lo Lull” p. 252)
●● Antjie Krog (“For All Voices, For All Victims” p. 268)
●● Seitlhamo Motsapi (“shak-shak” p. 427)
●● Heather Robertson (“Under the Sun” p. 457)

In this final section, we elaborate on the concept of “contact zones” by considering

how this resonates in the poetry explored thus far that overtly expresses the idea of race.
It is not at all possible to “box” these poems into one pigeon-hole, as they celebrate
multiplicity and are very experimental – even as they articulate discontent with the
human rights abuses that have racial connotations. This poetry may be described as
“post-anti-apartheid” (Loren Kruger, 2003:70). Kruger explains that the “post-anti-
apartheid” refers to the “minorities whose stories, once lost beneath the clash and
clamour of the anti-apartheid struggles, have emerged to reflect but also to refract the
complex of identities or, more plausibly, dynamic identifications in post-apartheid or at
least post-anti-apartheid South Africa.” Altering Kruger’s notion slightly, we arrive at
the “post-anti-colonial”.

Activity 15
Read “Under the Sun” and reflect on these questions:

●● How does the poem construct the antithesis between searing light and feathery darkness?
●● What do you think these antithetical images represent?
●● Is the careful naming of the stars at all significant?
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Feedback on activity 15
The structure of the poem is deliberately clear and stark, the two halves held neatly in
balance by the isolated adversative conjunction “but”. Note how the verse structure is
contained in the tight arrangement of repeated, yet varied specificities:

●● spatial location: “under the sun”.

●● role: daughter/comrade/lover/friend expanded in “they are me”/”I am them”.
●● spatial location: “under the stars” expanded.
●● role: “I am”, expressed not as above through a series of nouns denoting precise
fields of loyalty and duty, to parents, lovers, friends and so forth, but as a statement
of pure, individual existence: “I am”.

The poem’s subtle play on identification: “I am daughter … friend”, “they are me”,
“I am them” artfully mirrors the many facets of this woman’s spirit, the multiplicity

ENG2603/115
 of roles she plays and culminates in the irrepressible surge of freedom and selfhood
in the concluding lines: “I am/wonderfully/less than/vapour”. Note how immensely
descriptive of a free state of mind the combination of adverbs “wonderfully/less” and
the aptly chosen noun “vapour” is. In six words, only one noun: contrast it with the
series of nouns in the opening lines and you will begin to detect the poem’s careful
and delicate artistry. How remarkable that so much “being” is concentrated in the
evanescent, almost imperceptible “vapour”. How is this effect achieved?

Note how the poem unfolds towards this single-word climax through some interesting
rhetorical devices: for instance, the chiastic arrangements of the central portion of the
poem: “I do to please/and please to do” (ABBA structure) and “they are me/and I am
them” (ABBA structure again). This repeated formal arrangement has the effect of
enclosing visually (and rhetorically) the speaker of the poem in a cage-like structure.
Note how, following the adversative “but”, the verse begins to unfold freely and pours
itself out into a catalogue of evocatively named stars. Mythical reminiscences fuse into
the vast vault of the night sky, under whose mysterious and liberating light the being
is nothing but an evanescent form.

And, yet, the accurate naming of the stars provides a specific structure for the human
being observing them, an alternative to the glaring, guiding light of the sun. Does the
speaker in the poem need this alternative? Does she – who is labelled as, and executes
(dutifully, we infer) the role of, “daughter”, “comrade”, “lover”, “friend” – need and
pursue a different role, the role of a human being free of all obligations and duty
(to country and kin)? Is this a sign of disloyalty, or the expression of an irrepressible
impulse towards a state of freedom which is not to be coupled with political and
familial issues? Submerging the self into “vapour”, an indeterminate element not
susceptible of definition and categorisation, allows the speaker to attain a freedom
which is beyond any granted by State, kin or friend. It is from this state of pure liberty
that the speaker can reflect on the inward emotions and aspirations that animate her
hidden life, as an individual untrammelled by quotidian duties and obligations to the
world that exists outside of her own self.

Such a scrutiny of individual aspirations and display of an inner self which does not
adhere to the dictates of duty (as comrade, relative, friend) would have been unthinkable
in earlier poetry. We see, here, an evolution from poetry which responds to important
themes of freedom and justice, to poetry which begins to narrow the scope back onto
the individual, the core of humanity common to all. This development is noteworthy
and ushers in a different aspect of literary creativity in the sphere of ideological
responses to power.

Activity 16
The “post-anti-colonial” is also an outpouring of vitality and the unpredictable. Let us consider
this assertion with reference to Seitlhamo Motsapi’s poem, “shak-shak”. Carefully read this
poem, paying close attention to its musical quality.

Then, on a separate page, discuss how this poem captures the richness of life.

16
 Feedback on Activity 16
This poem reverberates with music, dance and graphic art. The intention seems to be
to depict a people who imagine themselves liberated from oppressive legislations or
the norms. The poem conjures up this alternative space through the word, “carnival”,
mentioned in line one, fourteen and twenty-six. Carnival is a site of imaginative and
spiritual ‘richness’ that people affirm especially during traumatic experiences.

In imitation of carnival, the poem has a set of recognizable motif. I mention only a
few:

“shak-shak”,
the usage of onomatopoeia in ways that call to mind bodily movements such as
dance,
the references to the kind of music that is percussive and sometimes accompanied
by the beating of bells,
voices or animated singing,

The performances identified above may be thought of as multiple voices that constitute
a coherent discourse of political defiance. The latter is a concept that indicates that
the participants merely imagine themselves liberated by engaging in synchronized
choreographies in a communal or social gathering. As the poet states, “so the poor wd
throw pots of paint/ curdled in the heart of the drowsy skies” (lines 5–6), the people
spontaneously intone varied and animated supplications.

The poem powerfully articulates this charisma by beginning with an upbeat, “&”,
and by making it a key motif. By virtue of also functioning as a conjunction, “&”
further suggests an image of a persistent upsurge such as electrical voltage. The poet
proposes this effect in line three–four. He also builds on the image of electrocution
in different ways. In the first, he describes the performers as the “high/voltage jolly
demons” (line 19–20). The second is apparent in his repetition of the phrase, “& the
carnival entered the last streets”. In other words, the usage of the metaphor of electrical
voltage corresponds with the idea of “madness”.

Why does he compare his soul to a site of dereliction, that is, “shantytown” which
brings to mind a sense of improvisation, impermanence and poverty? Also, why is it
important for him that he seems to be concerned about the carnival that appears to
have already happened? It looks as if he is reflecting on how he became affected by
watching the carnival. This means, therefore, that, by virtue of associating carnival
with “madness”, that is, the kind through which emotions are expressed freely, he
deliberately takes the persona of one of the performers of the carnival.

Conclusion
Perhaps, more than any genre that this Module explores, poetry disrupts the sense of
neat division that may be seen to exist between the “colonial” and the “postcolonial”.
As demonstrated in the activities in this Unit on poetry, it highlights individuals
taking charge of those tools of meaning-making such as the English language and
Christianity. In these ways, histories are being constructed in more complex terms
than the ones decided by formal political institutions. To trace these complexities, we
have to pay special attention to the written or spoken word.

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 A summary of unit 1’s core ideas
This unit concerned itself with

●● the ways in which South African poetry establishes its own history of the colonial
encounter,
●● the fact that this poetry highlights this encounter in terms of irony,
●● that the encounter itself signals a “contact zone” where the coloniser and the colo-
nized fight over deploying such tools such as language, Christianity and Western
education as well as Western aesthetics,
●● the notion that this encounter, which we referred to as modernity, is filled with
tension.

References
Berthoud, Jacques. 1984. Poetry and Exile: The Case of Arthur Nortje. In English in
Africa. Vol. 11, No. 1:1–14.
Bhabha, Homi. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
Chapman Michael (ed.). 2002. The Century of South African Poetry. Johannesburg &
Cape Town: A D Donker Publishers.
De Certeau, Michel. [1984] 1988. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Randall.
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press.
Eliot, T.S. Tradition and the Individual Talent. 1986. In Contemporary Literary
Criticism: Modernism through Poststructuralism. Edited by Robert Con Davis. NY
& London: Longman.
Kruger, Loren. 2003. In a minor key: narrative desire and minority discourses in some
recent South African fiction: Farida Karodia: Other Secrets; Rayda Jacobs: Sachs
Streets; Ashraf Jamal: Shades.” In Scrutiny2, Vol. 8, No. 1:70–74.
Mda, Zakes. 2000. The Heart of Redness. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.
Ndebele, Njabulo. [1984] 2006. The Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Essays on South African
Literature and Culture. Scottsville, South Africa: University of KwaZulu-Natal
Press.
Noble, John (ed.). 1881. Afar in the Desert and other South African Poems by Pringle
Thomas. London: Longmans, Green, And Co.
Pereyre Allvarez Jacques. [1979] 1984. The Poetry of Commitment in South Africa.
Trans. Clive Walker. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd.
Pratt, Mary Louise. 1991. Arts of the Contact Zone”. In Profession:33–40.

18
 LEARNING UNIT 2
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

This unit was compiled by Prof S Raditlhalo and Dr A Musvoto

When you start measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him
right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come
through before he got to wherever he is. Lena Younger (ACT III)

Introduction
Welcome to this unit of the ENG2603 module which explores the representation of
African Americans in the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. In the unit
we will consider a number of key themes such as exploitative housing practices that are
racially charged, feminism and how it is actualised by a character who is far-sighted,
family values under erasure and generational conflicts motivated by changing times, as
well as African American identities in relation to Africa and Africans in particular. In
doing this, we shall be using key concepts such as “stereotype”, “feminism”, “gender”,
“race” and “class”. “Stereotype” has already been defined and discussed in previous
units, but in this unit we will apply it to the play, and relate it to the other concepts.
We will define these concepts and learn how to apply them to a reading of a play.

Learning unit outcomes

This learning unit has four specific outcomes, namely:

Outcome 1: Students critically read a play with comprehension and critical engagement
at the intermediate level.

Outcome 2: Students write well-structured paragraphs and essays that critically discuss
the creative choices made by the author of A Raisin in the Sun.

Outcome 3: Students explain how the politics of representation shapes A Raisin in the
Sun and its reception in postcolonial contexts.

Outcome 4: Students can employ key concepts and debates in postcolonial literary
theory, such as representation, gender, stereotypes, race, class, spacing and spaces.
These concepts will be used continually in this and other units of the module.

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 Background
One of the great challenges of any society is to provide affordable basic services for
all its citizens. In South Africa this remains a particularly acute challenge which is
an ongoing process. With so much internal movement of peoples, it will remain a
challenging process for some time to come. The United States of America also
experienced tremendous internal migration in the decades of the 1940s and 1950s
from the states in the south of the country to those situated in the north, such as
Illinois and specifically the city of Chicago, where the play is set. This play is of great
significance because it provides us with insights into how American society has evolved
over the years. The United States, like South Africa, has a history of racially segregated
social services even if, in the American case, this was not enforced by law after legal
segregation was abolished in 1954. However, segregation continued through social
conventions.

myUNISA Activity 1
On the myUnisa site for ENG2603, there is a “Discussion Forum” function. Under
this tab, you will see a heading called “General Subject Related Discussions”. When
you click on this, you will see a topic called “A Raisin in the Sun discussions”. In the
message box, write a paragraph in which you explain whether you could relate the play
to a particular social context. Do you think that knowing the background of the play
will have an impact on your reading of the play, and why? For instance, how do you,
as a reader, relate this particular extract from the play?

RUTH Clybourne Park? Mama, there ain’t no colored people in Clybourne

Park.
MAMA (Almost idiotically) Well, I guess there’s going to be some now.
WALTER (Bitterly) So that the peace and comfort you went out and bought
us today!
MAMA (Raising her eyes to meet his finally) Son – I just tried to find the
nicest place for the least amount of money for my family.
RUTH (Trying to recover from the shock) Well-Well- ‘course I ain’t one
never’ fraid of no crackers, mind you-but-well, wasn’t there no
other houses nowhere?
MAMA Them houses they put up for colored in them areas way out all
seem to cost twice as much as houses. I did the best I could.

Feedback on myUNISA Activity 1

●● As a starting point, you may wish to read about the law enacted by the South
African government entitled the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act No. 49 of
1953. Already in 1948 in South Africa, “Whites Only” or “Slegs Blankes” notices
had been placed prominently in most public places. Laws and regulations con-
firmed or imposed segregation for public amenities such as taxis, buses, elevators,
benches, lavatories, parks, cinemas, restaurants and hotels, as well as schools and

20
 universities. This Act was sometimes amended and given fresh interpretation as
time passed.
●● The play A Raisin in the Sun (1959) is probably the best known work of playwright
Lorraine Hansberry. Hansberry was an African American woman born in Chicago,
USA, in 1930. She died in 1964. Her plays are renowned for their engagement
with the problems afflicting Blacks* in an American context that is plagued by
racial prejudices. A Raisin in the Sun is Hansberry’s first play and it is the first play
by a black woman to be produced on Broadway. The play was also the first by an
African American to win the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for the year.

*Note on vocabulary choice

The term “black” refers to African Americans. In the era in which the play was set
African Americans were referred to as “colored” though the standard term for African
Americans was “negro”. The word “black” gained prominence in the 1960s which saw
massive socio-political changes as well as serious conflicts in the politics of identity.

●● A Raisin in the Sun is celebrated for its particularly robust interrogation of laws that
promoted racial segregation and frustrated the ambitions of African Americans.
Some of these laws, such as the race restrictive covenant, prevented Blacks from
residing in the same areas as Whites. Hansberry’s family was once a victim of this
covenant in 1937. Her father bought a house at 6140 Rhodes Avenue in an exclu-
sive white Chicago neighbourhood resulting in some of the neighbours – not all
– evoking the race restrictive covenant and demanding that the family depart from
the area. This incident resulted in a famous and protracted Supreme Court case
called Hansberry v Lee (1940) in which Lorraine’s father contested the covenant.
He eventually won the court case (on a technicality) and the family was granted
permission to stay in their new house. The Supreme Court decision did not chal-
lenge the constitutionality of the covenants per se. It was not until 1948, in Shelley
v Kramer, that the North’s legal pillar of racial segregation – the race restrictive
covenant – was declared unconstitutional.1
●● From this personal background of the playwright, it is easy to notice that there
is an autobiographical element to this play and that its plot is a fictionalised ac-
count of this earlier event in Hansberry’s life. However, the play cannot be simply
interpreted as a completely autobiographical representation without ignoring the
role of other social, political and economic problems that it explores. As you might
have already noticed from your reading, important issues such as gender, class, race
and stereotypes, among others, are dealt with in the play.

The title of the play

The title of the play comes from a line in Langston Hughes’s poem “Harlem” which
appears as an epigraph at the beginning of the text. The poem is about a dream
deferred, in which the persona makes use of striking imagery to try and describe the
possible fate of a dream that is not realised. Does it end up “dry[ing] up/Like a raisin
in the sun?/Or fester like a sore”. These are all images employed to point to the possible
endings of such a dream. In the wider African-American context, in which Hughes
composed the poem, the dream symbolises the various aspirations and ideals of the
marginalised African Americans, who are continuously frustrated in an environment

1 If you would like to know more aout this background, please read the following article on myUnisa: Gordon, Michelle (2008) “‘Somewhat Like War’: The
Aesthetics of Segregation, Black Liberation, and A Raisin in theSun.” African American Review 42(1):121–133.

ENG2603/121
 that is stricken by racial prejudices. This is the same society in which the characters
in Hansberry’s play struggle to fulfil their aspirations. In the play, dreams appear as
important and recurring metaphors throughout. They embody the hopes, ideals and
ambitions of the characters. It is around these dreams that the plot of the play revolves
and crystallises.

Activity 1
1.1 In a paragraph, explain what the images employed in the poem suggest about a dream
deferred.
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1.2 Select any two characters in the play and identify their aspirations. How do they seek to
fulfil their ambitions? Write your responses in the space below.
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Feedback on activity 1
1.1 What the poem suggests are possible reactions to a situation where a dream
is deferred. The question requires you to think or imagine how an individual
would feel when his/her ambitions are frustrated.
1.2 An overall understanding of the plot and the significance of the dream metaphor
is necessary in engaging with this question.

Defining Representation
Now that you have a better understanding of the background and the title of the play,
it is time to move on to the concept of representation which was introduced previously
but will now be explored further. The concept of representation is widely used and
is one of the most important critical tools in the study of colonial and postcolonial
studies. Here is a short description and explanation of representation, taken from the
website: http://postcolonialstudies.emory.edu/representation/:

“Representation is a critical concept not only in postcolonial studies and academia,

but in the larger cultural milieu. The term itself can be defined in many different
ways. Often, we think of representation primarily as ‘presence’ or ‘appearance’
where there is an implied visual component. Representations can be clear images,
material reproductions, performances and simulations. We understand them to be
re-presenting a particular ‘real’ thing; however, the relationship between the thing
and the representation of the thing is one that has engaged philosophers, linguists,
historians and artists for centuries. In a different context, we use representation
to denote the relationship between a politician and her/his constituency. A single

22
 person is endowed with the responsibility of representing many citizens; this is
the foundational principle of representative democracy. For this discussion, we are
highlighting the visual, political and artistic elements of this concept.

Representations – these ‘likenesses’ – come in various forms: films, television,

photographs, paintings, advertisements and other forms of popular culture.
Written materials – academic texts, novels and other literature, journalistic
pieces – are also important forms of representation. Yet how can simulations or
‘impressions on the sight’ be completely true? How does one judge the accuracy
or truth-content of a representation? Or rather, how does one interpret or read the
representation? Representations can never truly be real or objective. Instead, they
are constructed images, images that need to be interrogated for their ideological
content.”

It should be clear that in the play, A Raisin in the Sun, the characters are enacting the
roles assigned to them by the script, that they are pretending to be the Younger family,
giving us, the readers and audience, a sense of being given the unvarnished truth
about this family. But they are representing characters from the written play itself,
enacting roles that the playwright has written as a re-presence. Although there are
autobiographical elements to the play, this in no way can be claimed as the ultimate
unvarnished story of the Hansberry family itself. Lorraine Hansberry takes from her
family history and dramatises an aspect of their struggle for a home in a segregated,
racially restrictive community.

For another discussion of “representation”, see Learning Unit 5.

Elements of a play: How do we go about reading a play?

When we read a dramatic text, we essentially become engrossed in the playwright’s
vision of what the critical points of conflict in the play are. The play has to give us a
sense of a rising action and with it the accompanying tension that rises to an often
unbearable pitch (Climax) and thereafter the devolution of the tension (Falling
Action) leading to resolution of the initial conflict (Denouement), however satisfactory
or unsatisfactory that might prove to be.

How we are introduced to the characters in a play?

In A Raisin in the Sun, the very first scene of Act One introduces us to the main
characters in the order of their appearance: Ruth, Travis, Walter Lee (Brother),
Beneatha and Mama Younger. The character who does not appear on stage in this
scene but will have a huge impact on the play’s outcome is Willy Harris. We observe
the constricted space of the family home, the shared bathroom with one or more
families, the sagging furniture that has “accommodated too many people for too many
years” which has also been “scrubbed too often”.

It is important to pay particular attention to the stage directions – that is, what
each character is supposed to be doing or how they react at each turn. Stage
directions are usually in italics and are an important element of the play that

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 informs us of the mood, tempo and direction of the action that the characters
carry out. See for instance the description of Walter Lee below. That tells you
something of his character.

The most compelling words of the play at the beginning are uttered by Walter Lee
(notice that he is described as lean, intense, inclined to quick nervous movements and
erratic speech habits) when he immediately asks his wife, Ruth:

●● “(Stopping and thinking) Check coming today?”

The check is the most significant factor that complicates the lives of the Younger
family in the opening scene. This makes the readers/audience alert to the importance
of money for the realisation of dreams and aspirations for the family. Even Travis, at
ten years old, says:

●● “Mama, this is Friday. (Gleefully) Check coming tomorrow, huh?”

Immediately following this observation, Travis complains about the fifty cents he has
to bring to school, and he begs his mother to work as a parcel carrier at a local grocery
store for pocket money. His mother denies him the fifty cents but his father gives
it to him (ironically sacrificing his taxi fare in the process). Walter Lee rails against
his wife’s refusal to help him convince Mama Younger to give him the ten thousand
dollars so he and Willy Harris can open up a liquor store and “move up in the world”.
Walter Lee is also disappointed with his sister Beneatha and his wife for not standing
by his entrepreneurial dream, setting up the gender conflict that is at the heart of the
play:

●● “That is just what is wrong with the colored woman in this world . . . Don’t under-
stand about building their men up and making ‘em feel like somebody. Like they
can do something”.

Walter Lee is concerned about Beneatha’s ambition to go to medical school while the
rest of the family works hard for her upkeep and frivolous pursuits in “discovering
myself”. This sibling rivalry permeates the play till the very end.

Mama’s regal entry onto stage belies the momentous troubles ahead. She shows concern
for the earlier argument, Travis’s bed, Ruth’s wellbeing, and Beneatha’s blasphemous
attitude to God.

Activity 2
What do these small acts tell you about Mama Younger’s character?

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

24
 Feedback on activity 2
Why do you think Mama Younger is central to the play as she draws all the other
characters together as a family?

When Ruth tries to coax her into revealing her intentions for the money she is evasive:

●● “Now don’t start, child. It’s too early in the morning to be talking about money. It
ain’t Christian”.

This shows Mama’s indecisiveness, but also her clear indication that she abhors liquor
trading. When Ruth points out that people will drink on regardless, her answer is
instructive:

●● “Well – whether they drinks or not ain’t none of my business. But whether I go
into business selling it to ‘em is, and I don’t want that on my ledge this late in life”.

Thus the importance of the check is demonstrated as the source of the tension very
early on in the opening scene. Ruth’s pregnancy further complicates the strained
family circumstances as this means, in effect, an extra mouth to feed and house. When
she collapses at the end of the scene the family’s dire situation is revealed in stark relief.
For instance, when Beneatha learns of this pregnancy, her response is rather cutting.
As Ruth tells her to mind her own business, Beneatha says:

●● “It is my business where is he going to live, on the roof?”

Thus the idea of poverty is introduced and what the extra child will mean to the
family’s well being. You should also relate this to the death of Mama Younger’s
Claude. What was the cause of his death that you can surmise?

In the opening scene the play’s major themes are revealed:

●● Upward mobility/class issues

●● Moral responsibility
●● Justice
●● Identity
●● Feminism
●● Racial segregation

You will notice that these themes hinge on the characters’ concerns in life: for instance,
Walter Lee’s and Beneatha’s dreams of improving their lives (through business and
education respectively), Mama’s moral rectitude and Beneatha’s stance about why
women cannot take on roles traditionally preserved for males. The following critical
concepts are therefore crucial in the realisation of the play’s themes:

●● Stereotype
●● Feminism
●● Gender
●● Race
●● Class

ENG2603/125
 These concepts can be defined as follows:

Stereotype – originally taken from a process in printing, the term has become
a Standard English phrase of a concept, term, or description that is fixed and
unchanging – normally with a pejorative ring, suggesting that oversimplification
and prejudice are involved in its formation and use ... [W]e can isolate stereotypes
based on race or culture, on age, on profession, and so on. Moreover, stereotypes
may masquerade as positive: thus the beliefs that women are naturally intuitive,
or that Black people are always happy and have a wonderful sense of rhythm, are
no less stereotypical than more overtly negative views ... It should be added that
according to many theorists a stereotype is only fully effective in disseminating
a particular ideology when it is not recognized as a stereotype but taken as truth
or natural. (Jeremy Hawthorn, A Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory,
2000:334–5)

Activity 3
Read the first scene again and answer the questions below:

3.1 Briefly explain how Walter Lee displays a sexist attitude towards his sister Beneatha’s
ambition/s? What stereotype of a woman is he imagining?
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________

3.2 Comment on the ways in which Walter Lee’s and Beneatha’s dreams might be actualised
by money.
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________

3.3 Think about Mama Younger’s concerns in the opening scene and how they contradict
those of her children. Write a paragraph in which you explain these contradictions.
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________

Feedback on activity 3
When you do the activities above, here are some questions that will guide you.

3.1 Why is Walter Lee incorrect in supposing that his sister should take on a less
challenging occupation? How does this contradict the inherent equality of males
and females?

3.2 Can we truly say that money is necessary for the actualization of our dreams?
Can money make our dreams possible without ambition and drive? Compare
Walter Lee’s ambition to George Murchison (later in the play).

26
 3.3. Is Mama Younger correct in nurturing the family through caring and creating
the right environment without worrying about their ambitions and desires?

Feminism – Toril Moi makes a useful distinction between three cognate terms
which provides a good starting point: feminism is a political position, femaleness
a matter of biology, and femininity a set of culturally defined characteristics
(1986b:204). It should be recognized that Moi’s suggested definitions have
a political edge: she is as much arguing for how these terms should be used as
describing an actual, existing usage. Of the three terms, feminism is probably
the most complex. What is indisputable is that feminism is a broad church,
one in which different persuasions can be found. Feminism as a socio-political
movement experienced a resurgence in the late 1960s and early 1970s, especially in
Western Europe and the United States, a resurgence which continues and which
has established a number of seemingly permanent changes in the developed world
– and which has not been without an effect in the developing world. (Jeremy
Hawthorn, A Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory, 2000:114)

Activity 4
Who in the text is the most outwardly feminine character in the play, and why? Quote directly
from the text to show textual evidence of your assertion.

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_______________________

Feedback on activity 4
In your reading you should pay close attention to what each of the main female
characters has to say on a range of issues and how they defend their positions.

Gender – In current feminist usage, gender is used to refer to those characteristics

of socio-cultural origin which are attributed to the different biological sexes.
Within Linguistics this usage is sometimes varied in order to avoid confusion
with linguistic gender, but generally speaking feminist influence has succeeded
in establishing that gender involves society and culture and sex involves biology.
Thus there are two sexes, but many different genders. The term gender was adopted
by feminists to emphasise the social shaping of femininity and masculinity, to
challenge the idea that relations between women and men were ordained by nature.
(Jeremy Hawthorn, A Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory, 2000:139–140)

Activity 5
Which character in the text is restricted by their traditional gender role and why do you think this
is so? Motivate your response.

ENG2603/127
 Feedback on activity 5
The work that each character does defines what their gender role is supposed to be.
What is the work of each of the adult characters and can such work be done by a
member of the opposite gender?

Race – As applied to groups of living organisms, the term “race” has been used in
at least three different senses. The most common use of the word in biology has
referred to a subspecies, a variety of a species that has developed distinguishing
characteristics through isolation but has not yet lost the ability to interbreed and
to produce fertile hybrids with other subspecies of the same species. Physical
anthropologists used to speak of human “races” in the sense of subspecies, as in
the great tripartite of mankind into Negroid, Mongoloid and Causasoid.

A second usage of “race” is a synonym for species, as in the phrase “the human
race.” That usage is often deliberately antithetical to the first, when the stress is put
on the unity of mankind (or “humankind”). Finally, a “race” is defined as a group
of people who are socially defined in a given society as belonging together because
of physical markers such as skin pigmentation, hair texture, facial features and the
like. (E. Ellis Cashmore, Dictionary of Race and Ethnic Relations, 1991:237–238)

Activity 6
Read the first Act of the play again. What do you think is the role of “race” in this Act?

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________

Feedback on activity 6
Why did the Younger family move to Chicago in the first place, and what was the
experience like for them over the years?

Class – Discussion of social class entered the literary-critical discourse most

obviously with the emergence of a Marxist literary criticism in the 1930s.
Marxist views of class are not completely homogenous, and they have become
more sophisticated in recent years. What is common to them all, however, is an
insistence upon defining class in relation to the economic structure of society.
Thus the traditional Marxist definition of a member of the working class is that
he or she is someone who lives by selling their labour power (rather than, for
example, living off capital, off subsistence farming, or as a self-employed worker).
In general, Marxists have believed that membership of different classes does result
in differences in economic level, culture, and beliefs, and it is this belief which has
made this concept of class appear relevant to literary criticism, for if accurate it

28
 would seem to offer the possibility of relating the content of a writer’s work to his
or her class origins or associations. (Jeremy Hawthorn, A Glossary of Contemporary
Literary Theory, 2000:44)

Activity 7
In reading the play, which class do you believe the Younger family belongs to – working, middle
or upper class? Motivate your response.

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________

Feedback on activity 7
You can usually tell the economic class of a character in a play by the type of work they
do and where they stay.

Extract 1

Read the following extract and answer the question below.

Lorraine Hansberry once complained that:

“Some writers have been astonishingly incapable of discussing [the character of

Walter Lee’s] purely class aspirations and have persistently confounded them with
what they consider to be an exotic being’s longing to ‘wheel and deal’ in what they
consider to be (and what Walter Lee never can) ‘the white man’s world’.” (Robin
Bernstein, “Inventing a Fishbowl: White Supremacy and the Critical Reception of
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun”, 1999:19)

Write a three paragraph response in which you comment on whether Walter Lee’s
class aspirations are valid or not.

The following critical articles on A Raisin in the Sun can be accessed directly from the
Internet. You may read these articles for a fuller appreciation of the play:

(a) “Inventing a Fishbowl: White Supremacy and the Critical Reception of Lorraine
Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun.” By Robin Bernstein in Modern Drama 42(1),
1999. http://0-search.proquest.com.oasis.unisa.ac.za/publication/47987
(b) “‘Somewhat Like War’: The Aesthetics of Segregation, Black Liberation, and
A Raisin in the Sun.” By Michelle Gordon in African American Review. Spring 2008,
Vol. 42(1), 2008. http://0-web.ebscohost.com.oasis.unisa.ac.za/ehost/results?sid=
4d135672-1cc1-4413-8a0c-bed0a3536478%40sessionmgr104&vid=2&hid=127
&bquery=JN+%22African+American+Review%22+AND+DT+20080301&bdata
=JmRiPWFwaCZ0eXBlPTEmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d

ENG2603/129
 (c) “Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun”. By Frank Ardolino in The Explicator, Washington
63(3), Spring 2005. http://0-lion.chadwyck.co.uk.oasis.unisa.ac.za/display/print
View.do?area=abell
(d) “Commitment amid Complexity: Lorraine Hansberry’s Life in Action”. By
Steven R. Carted in MELUS 7(3) 1980. http://0-www.jstor.org.oasis.unisa.ac.za/
sici?sici=0163-755X(198023)7:3<39:CACLHL>2.0.CO;2-B&origin=LION

Rising Action/Complication
Now that the initial scene has laid the groundwork for the main causes of tension in
the play thus far, you should be able to see the development of the plot as part of the
rising tension in the following Scene and Act II. This is the day on which the check
arrives, the day Ruth confirms her pregnancy and the day Joseph Asagai, an African
friend to Beneatha, is introduced as her love interest. The tensions generated by so
much expectancy reach fever pitch at the end of the scene. While everyone goes about
their business, it is clear that they are waiting for the postman who is set to arrive at
10.30 a.m. The stage directions are clear on this point:

●● In spite of all the other conversations and distractions of the morning, this is what
they have been waiting for ...

As Travis plays outside, Ruth confronts her sister and mother-in-law with the truth. A
subtle introduction of the harsh living environment is introduced when we read that
the children are chasing rats as big as a cat, this showing that Southside Chicago at
the time was run down and quite unsafe for human habitation, much less children in
the streets.

The significance of Asagai

Asagai, we learn, is a Nigerian student studying in Canada and who is in love with
Beneatha. She on the other hand is interested, as an African American, in defining her
identity vis-a-vis a fellow African who is not stereotyped as the savage/heathen. Hence
his gift to her is as appropriate as it is suggestive. Hansberry also introduces a subject of
self-love/self-loathing in how African Americans maintain their hair as either processed
(“mutilated” as Asagai wryly notes) or as natural. That points to whether they have
assimilated the values of the dominant culture, or not. Remember this was in 1959,
way before the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power Movement and the adoption
of the slogan “Black is Beautiful” as an affirmation of blackness. Asagai also serves to
show how for all the well-intentioned aims of philanthropy by people like Mama, very
little is known of Africa but even more crucially there is no interest from sections of
the African American community. As Mama says “I think it’s so sad the way American
Negroes don’t know nothing bout Africa ‘cept Tarzan and all that” she herself learnt
this from Beneatha only minutes before Asagai arrived.

Activity 8
Asagai calls Beneatha “Alaiyo” (One for Whom Food is not Enough). What do you think is the
symbolism embodied in that name?

30
 Feedback on activity 8
The name Asagai gives to Beneatha touches on elements of her character.

The check sets in motion powerful emotions in all the characters, from Mama’s rueful
remembrance of her husband, Walter Lee’s rage at being sidelined by his mother and his
pleas seemingly falling on deaf ears, to the discourse on the changing inter-generational
values. He is heartbroken when, referring to his contract with Willy Harris, he says:

●● “You ain’t looked at it and you don’t aim to speak on that again? You ain’t
even looked at it and you have decided – (Crumpling his papers) Well, You
tell that to my boy tonight when you put him to sleep on the living-room
couch ...”

Where previously Mama’s generation valued freedom from anti-black racism in the
South, escaping from being lynched in search of employment, the right to vote and
education for their children (hence settling in Northern America rather than live in
the then segregated and deeply racist Southern America), Walter Lee is adamant that
money is life itself.

It is rather in his treatment of Ruth that Walter Lee exasperates his mother to the
limits of her strength. While Mama tries to tell him that she is pregnant and she
may just abort the child, he flees the house, further adding to the tension and driving
Mama out of the house in frustration.

Activity 9
9.1 Comment on the material conditions of the Younger home. Does this suggest sub-standard
living conditions and negligence? Motivate your response.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _______________________________________________
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _______________________________________________
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _______________________________________________
__________________________________________

9.2 When Walter Lee tells Mama that the job he is currently doing is not a job but “nothing at
all” what do you think he is referring to given his plans? Explain.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _______________________________________________
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _______________________________________________
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _______________________________________________
__________________________________________

9.3 Mama’s injunction to Walter Lee, at the end of the scene is to “be the man he was” in
reference to his father. What does she imply or mean by this? Explain.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _______________________________________________
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _______________________________________________
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _______________________________________________
__________________________________________

ENG2603/131
 Feedback on activity 9
9.1 In a house that is infested with roaches and an area teeming with rats, what may
be the collusion between the sanitation services and the landlord?

9.2 What is Walter Lee’s greatest ambition?

9.3 What was Walter Lee Senior’s most enduring concern for his children?

The politics of identity

Act II Scene I of the play engages us in the politics of identity introduced in the opening
scene of the play when Beneatha begins to enact her perception of why African women
express enjoyment at the return of their folk. As she listens to one of Asagai’s records,
she dances and this pulls in her brother, Walter Younger, as he enters drunk and begins
to dance on the table. Notice what Ruth, ever dutiful, drily says of this scenario:
“Yes – Africa sure is claiming her own tonight.” The entrance of George Murchison
breaks the spell but introduces cross-class conflicts inherent between rich and poor
blacks. His dismissal of Beneatha’s appearance, forcing her to conform to his image
of what a young lady going on a date should look like also shows gender conflict and
his argument with Walter Lee shows how far he has been assimilated in the dominant
white culture with his white shoes and manners. Beneatha’s race pride and Walter Lee’s
stringent class aspirations (“Man, I’m a volcano,” Walter Lee says to him) do not matter
to him at all. His dismissal of African heritage is offset by the presence of Asagai in
the play as the voice that bridges the misconceptions between African American and
African communities at an intellectual level.

What is the cause of Walter Lee’s bitterness towards George Murchison?

Walter Lee’s dismissive attitude towards his wife shows his disappointment at every
turn and when he cuttingly says to her: “Who’s fighting you? Who even cares about
you?” we realise the depth of his bitterness. This theme of gender conflict reveals to us
the stresses between Ruth and Walter Lee as working class people over-laden by the
husband’s vaulting ambitions of success.

It is this conflict that segues into the larger conflict when Mama Younger returns from
an errand. This return accentuates the tensions that have been latent in the play and
introduces a major theme in the play: the segregation of living spaces according to
“race.” As Walter Lee questions his mother, Ruth confronts Travis about his absence,
further heightening the tense situation in the house at that moment. Mama’s revelation
that she bought a house means, therefore, that Travis will eventually own it as a grown
up. This displays care for both current and future generations. In effect it destroys the
dream of Walter Lee who cannot conceive of the money being put to such use.

It is important, at this stage, to note the different reactions to Mama’s news from
Ruth and Walter Lee. For example, Ruth is so joyous she praises God while Walter
Lee sulks in furious anger. For Ruth, domestic bliss at having her own space and the
sense that her coming child can be born and raised in a far better environment is
key to her happiness. The fact that the house is in Clybourne Park, a so-called white
neighbourhood, puts a slight damper on the announcement for the simple reason that
Clybourne Park is an exclusively white neighbourhood that operates a racial segregation

32
 through the “race restrictive covenant.” But Mama’s level-headed response shows also
the exploitative nature that Chicago had to its black residents:

●● “Them houses they put up for colored in them areas way out all seem to cost
twice as much as other houses. I did the best I could”.

It is important to look at the scene in considerable detail. What do you notice and
what do these things suggest?

Ruth is delirious with joy, wishing to know if the house has “sunlight’ flooding it. This
reminds the critical reader of the sunlight that struggles to get through the Younger’s
present residence, the potted plant that symbolically struggles to grow in such an
environment as mentioned in the opening scene of Act I. Walter Lee’s parting shot as
his mother explains herself to him shows us that the rising tension is at breaking point,
when he intentionally says to her:

●● “So you butchered a dream of mine – you – who always talking ‘bout your chil-
dren’s dreams ...”

Extract 2: Read the following extract and answer the question below:

In the early summer of 1937, a mob arrived at 6140 Rhodes Avenue to convince
the Hansberrys of Chicago to abandon their new home. The Hansberrys instead
convinced their new white neighbors to disperse, with a shotgun. As expected,
the neighbourhood “improvement association” sought an injunction against the
Hansberrys, on the ground that blacks legally could not occupy any residence in
any neighbourhood covered by the “race restrictive covenant.” In their attempt
to combat legal segregation in the North, and to open up the desperately needed
housing around Chicago’s Black Belt, the Hansberrys and local NAACP attorneys
took their case before the US Supreme Courts. In its 1940 decision on Hansberry v
Lee, the Supreme Court ruled in Carl Hansberry’s favour on a technicality, while
declining to address the constitutionality of the covenants themselves. It would
not be until 1948, in Shelley v Kramer, that the North’s legal bulwark of racial
segregation – the race restrictive covenant – was declared unconstitutional.

Michelle Gordon, “Somewhat like War,” African American Review 42(1) 2008
[169 words]

In the light of the extract above, write a two page essay in which you demonstrate
why Mama Younger’s buying of a house in Clybourne Park was neither an act
of class nor of de-racialising segregated communities but fulfilling her homely
aspirations. Motivate your response.

In the weeks that follow the dramatic confrontation occasioned by Mama Younger’s
announcement that she has bought a house for the family, the tension dissipates but
in Scene Two we are made aware of the lingering doubts that are present as the family
prepares to move. Mrs Johnson, a neighbour, visits the Younger family brandishing a
newspaper. Mrs Johnson brings false cheer to the family, enthusing about their move
while raising their fears by declaring:

ENG2603/133
 ●● “You mean you ain’t read ‘bout them colored people that was bombed out of their
place out there?”

At the same time she falsely attempts to soothe the Younger family by declaring:

●● “You hear some of these Negroes ‘round here talking ‘bout how they don’t go
where they ain’t wanted and all that – but not me, honey. (This is a lie.)”

In such an instance, it is difficult to imagine what motivates Mrs Johnson enough

to visit the family except envy and a desire to unsettle them. The scene foreshadows
Mr Lindner’s visit in the following scene. It is for this reason that Beneatha is level-
headed enough to declare:

●● “Mama, if there are two things we, as a people, have got to overcome, one is the
Ku Klux Klan – the other is Mrs Johnson”.

In this scene, immediately when Mrs Johnson departs, we encounter the dormant
family tensions: Walter Lee is literally wasting away, dodging work and simply being
listless. His dreams are festering and sagging in him and Mama Younger, showing her
despair at how her son is turning out to be, plaintively asks, addressing the spirit of
her husband:

●● “Oh, Big Walter, is this the harvest of our days?”

Mama Younger realises just how dangerously close to breaking point her son is,
and gives Walter Lee the remainder of the money, $6 500 to put in an account for
Beneatha’s studies and for the rest to be held by him in trust. In effect, Mama Younger
cedes her leadership of the family to him. It is in this recognition that the scene ends
on a high, for Walter Lee, in speaking to Travis, can see the endless vistas of his dreams
unfolding. Walter Lee’s words set the reader audience for a grand finale that evokes his
aspirations, which makes the climax all the more telling. He declares to Travis:

●● “You wouldn’t understand yet, son, but your daddy’s gonna make a transaction ...
a business transaction that’s going to change our lives”.

Activity 10
Provide a possible reason why Mama Younger’s daughter is called Beneatha.

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
______________________________

Activity 11
Is Mama Younger correct in her decision to give up her headship of the family to Walter Lee?
Motivate your response.

34
 _________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________

Activity 12
What sort of action does Mrs Johnson’s visit foreshadow?

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________

Climax
The drama of the events that have been unfolding in the earlier scenes of the play
reaches its climax in Act Two, Scene Three.

The scene opens on an innocuous note with Ruth and Beneatha making plans about
what they are going to do the moment they set foot at the new home. Romance between
husband and wife is blooming and Walter Lee’s happiness is described as “deep in
him.” He slowly dances with his wife and baits his sister. This warm, picturesque scene
is shattered by the appearance of Mr. Lindner, a representative of the Clybourne Park
Improvement Association who is there to attempt to buy back the house from the
family. This introduces a sour note given the prevailing gaiety a moment before he
arrives.

Activity 13
Is the visit to the Younger family justified? Write a two-paragraph response in which you comment
on Lindner’s visit and whether, in you view, it is justified or not. Motivate your response.

———————————————————————————————————————
———————————————————————————————————————
———————————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————

Lindner is the chairperson of the New Neighbours Orientation Committee. As he

makes his presentation, we are made aware of how uncomfortable he is (see the stage
directions in particular) and it is the ever bright Beneatha who is the first to know
precisely what he is there for. Lindner is here to tell the family, on the contrary, that
they would not be welcome in the neighbourhood and as he starts to read from the
form so the Younger’s may sell their home Walter Lee’s anger is palpable when he
admonishes him to

●● “Get out of my house, man.”

ENG2603/135
 A Ray of Hope

Mama returns and for a while the earlier gaiety is re-captured and the banter
between them shows how much everyone is looking forward to going to the
family home. Even Travis has bought his grandmother a gardening hat that she
appreciates as well as the gardening tools from the other children. There is also
Beneatha here chastising her mother for wishing to take her small potted plant
(see Act I Scene One) to the new place.

Into this feel-good part of the scene Bobo comes in, the bearer of very bad news. Bobo
is described minutely as dressed in a not so prosperous business suit, with haunted
frightened eyes. This is a crucial description for it contrasts markedly with Walter Lee’s
exuberance as he goes to open the door, shouting ‘... sometimes it hard for the future
to begin!’ Bobo’s eyes are on the floor as he settles himself, for he is ashamed. Slowly
Walter Lee draws the story out of him. First, he did not go to Springfield with Willy
Harris where the business transaction was to be concluded. Walter Lee’s mood changes
as he senses a disaster and he screams at Bobo to tell him what happened and Bobo
breaks into tears, sobbing that that was ‘... all the extra money I had in the world ...’
This means that Willy Harris ran off with all their money, all of the $6 500 Mama
Younger had entrusted to Walter Lee, including Bobo’s share. Bobo’s words to Walter
Lee seal the fate of the Younger family. As Walter Lee insists on tracking down Willy
Harris, Bobo says:

●● “(In a sudden angry, frightened agony) What’s the matter with you, Walter! When a
cat take off with your money he don’t leave no road maps!”

The Disillusionment of the Family

All of the Younger family members react differently to the new developments and
their reactions are informed by their individual dreams. The development throws
into doubt their collective dream of moving into the new house and also threatens
their individual aspirations. What will happen to Beneatha’s ambition to become a
doctor? What will happen to Walter Lee’s aim of becoming a businessman? What
of Mama’s aim of owning a house? This event becomes a mental test for members
of the family in as much as it stretches their moral fortitude. The tension is also
exacerbated by the reactions of each member of the family. Take a look at the
incident described below after the disclosure that the money has been lost.

●● There is total silence. Ruth stands with her face covered with her hands; BENEATHA
leans forlornly against a wall, fingering a piece of red ribbon from the mother’s gift.
MAMA stops and looks at her son without recognition and then, quite without think-
ing about it, starts to beat him senselessly in the face. BENEATHA goes to them and
stops it.

Mama Younger’s reaction is related to how her husband had slaved for all those years
so they could have a better life. And her striking her son is in mortal frustration at his
stupidity, his sheer lack of foresight to what the consequences may be for the family

36
 if the business transaction went bad. All are devastated. This climatic scene ends on a
sombre note of despair as Mama Younger prays desperately to God for strength.

Also important is that the loss comes in the wake of some telling developments.
Remember Walter Lee’s dialogue with Mama in an earlier scene where he accuses her
of having butchered his dream and how this prompts Mama to put the money that
remains after the down payment of the house into Walter Lee’s care – part of which
should be used to finance Beneatha’s studies? There is no doubt that the realization of
loss throws the entire family into a crisis and prompts each family member to reflect
on their dreams. The event threatens to scupper what the family had hoped for so far.
In short, Walter Lee’s dream becomes a nightmare, a turning point in the play; the
moment at which the characters have to make critical decisions. Remember that all
along, most of the tension has been in anticipation of the check and how it ought to be
used to help each character realise their dreams.

Falling Action
After the climax is reached with the realization that Walter Lee has lost the money
to Willy Harris, a series of events follows. The falling action begins in Act Three. The
reason behind Beneatha’s dream of becoming a doctor is revealed for the first time
in this part of the play; it is not about social mobility, class or money, but something
deeper – an event that she witnessed in her childhood (revisit her dialogue with Asagai
in Act Three). The dialogue between the two significantly reflects the extent to which
Beneatha has been devastated – she is agonized about human strife. The dialogue also
affirms both characters’ commitment to their African roots but Asagai’s faithfulness
to his heritage and idealism about bringing positive change to Africa are not shared by
Beneatha who is wary of post-independence Africa. Beneatha presciently points to the
possibility that the new African rulers might turn out to be as corrupt as the erstwhile
colonial masters.

Consider Beneatha’s views below:

“… All your talk and dreams about Africa and Independence. Independence and then
what? What about all the crooks and petty thieves and just plain idiots who will come
into power to steal and plunder the same as before – only now they will be black and
do it in the name of the new Independence – What about them”.

Beneatha’s comments are probably informed by Willy Harris’s actions and how they
frustrated Walter Lee’s aspirations to start a business and attain financial freedom for
himself and his family. The actions of Willy thus symbolize betrayal and to an extent
demonstrate that race as an identity category does not always provide solidarity. Other
interests such as class aspirations and vices like greed can undermine the cohesion
provided by race. Beneatha warns that it is naïve to believe that African leaders would
serve the interests of their people simply because they come from the same racial
group. However, this does not dampen Asagai’s enthusiasm about returning to Africa.
Instead, he chides her for being pessimistic and having constructed her dreams solely
around her father’s insurance money.

Following this discussion, Beneatha is scathing of her brother’s failures, sarcastically

calling him ‘Titan of the System!’, ‘Symbol of a Rising Class’ at the time when Walter
Lee is considering selling the house to Mr Lindner in a bid to recoup the money lost

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 (Act Two Scene Three). If this act is carried out, it will undermine the family’s dignity
and pride, which Walter Lee had defended when he rejected the same racist offer
earlier on.

The Desperation of Ruth

While Walter Lee is out, Mama Younger announces that the family is staying put,
but this brings out a very desperate plea from Ruth who cannot countenance life in
the dingy flat. She commits herself to work and work and work just to leave the abject
poverty behind:

●● (Turning and going to MAMA fast – the words pouring out with urgency and despera-
tion) Lena – I’ll work ... I’ll work twenty hours a day in all the kitchens in Chicago
... I’ll strap my baby on my back if I have to scrub all the floors in America and
wash all the sheets in America if I have to – but we got to MOVE! We got to get
OUT OF HERE!!

It is this desperate plea that shows the mean conditions that the family lives in and
the sacrifices Ruth is prepared to undergo to make at least this one dream realisable.

Walter Lee’s re-entry marks the lowest point he is prepared to go to in making amends
for his mistake. His miserable rationalisation about life (“Life is just like it is. Who gets
and who don’t get”) and his preparedness to ‘put up a show for the man’ in a coon-like
fashion deeply offends and horrifies his family and Mama sums up the true situation
for her son in words that denote race pride:

●● “Son – I come from five generations of people who was slaves and sharecroppers –
but ain’t nobody in my family never let nobody pay ‘em no money that was a way
of telling us we wasn’t fit to walk the earth. We ain’t never been that poor. (Raising
her eyes and looking at him) We ain’t never been that – dead inside”.

This new development creates an acute sense of suspense and throws into doubt the
final outcome of the conflict as Walter Lee’s family and the audience wonder about his
next action. What surely horrifies the audience and readers is Walter Lee’s intention
to subject himself to Mr. Lindner, re-enacting slaves’ most degrading debasement in
the presence of a master. It is also in this Act that the audience becomes aware that
Mama has lost the hope (at least temporarily) of moving into the new house and
that Beneatha has also given up on her dream of studying medicine. Her words of
damnation regarding Walter Lee are countered powerfully by Mama Younger’s way of
demonstrating that there is worth even in the most abject of individuals:

●● “When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him
right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come
through before he got wherever he is”.

Activity 14
14.1 What informed Beneatha’s aspiration to become a doctor? Is it the need to address her
family’s poverty?

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

38
 14.2 To what extent would you equate Walter Lee’s struggle to achieve financial independence
to aspirations for national independence in Africa?

___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

Feedback on activity 14
14.1 Think of her dialogue with Asagai in Act Three.

14.2 Consider Harris’s betrayal, Asagai’s idealism and Beneatha’s comments about
Africa.

Denouement
It is in the denouement of the play that the conflicts in the plot end and [are] resolved.
There are also certain changes that can be noticed in the characters. Note that the
independence that Walter Lee achieves at the end is not financial. He significantly
chooses to maintain the identity and pride of his family as well as that of his race
by refusing to accept the money. What makes this more poignant are the financial
setbacks that the family has suffered. This ending highlights a change of perception
in Walter Lee; he realizes that money is not life itself. He emerges at the end of the
play as a more mature individual with a more sophisticated understanding of life and
the marginal spaces occupied by people of his race. That growth is revealed in the
reassuring confidence with which he dismisses Lindner.

●● “What I am telling you is that we called you over here to tell you that we are very
proud and that this is – this is my son, who makes the sixth generation of our
family in this country, and that we have all thought about your offer and we have
decided to move into our house because my father – my father – he earned it …
We don’t want your money”.

In general, at the end of the play, the entire Younger family emerges with new
consciousnesses and an acute sense of understanding of most of the things that were
creating conflicts in their midst. When thinking of the resolution of this play, it is
also critical to bear in mind the closure of the subplot – the drama and conflicts of
Beneatha’s love life. She seems, as she decidedly mentions to Mama at the end, to be
enchanted by Asagai’s proposal to marry him and the prospects of accompanying
him to Nigeria. Regard this new development in the context of how it enhances the
audience’s overall understanding of the play, especially Walter Lee’s remark that:

●● “Girl, if you don’t get all them silly ideas out of your head! You better marry your-
self a man with some loot …” (106)

This remark suggests that Walter Lee has not completely transformed as a character;
some earlier traits of him as an individual who overly worships money are retained in
this pronouncement.

ENG2603/139
 Activity 15
15.1 In two paragraphs, comment on the aspirations of any two characters in the light of the
resolution reached at the end of the play.

___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
_________________________________________

15.2 Would you say Walter Lee’s attitude towards Beneatha has changed at the end of the
play?

___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
_________________________________________

15.3 What would you say informs Walter Lee’s decision to refuse Mr Lindner’s offer? Is it the
need to maintain his family’s identity and sense of self worth?

___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________

Feedback on activity 15
15.1 At the end of the play would you say the characters have realized their dreams?

15.2 Think of the statement that Walter Lee makes with regard to Beneatha’s
disclosure that Asagai has proposed to marry her. Are Walter Lee’s remarks
driven by gender or class stereotypes? Consider his comments about George
Murchison and Beneatha’s response.

15.3 Think of Mama’s statement: “He finally come into his manhood today, didn’t
he? Kind like a rainbow after the rain …” (107)

Conclusion
Drama as a mode of representation captures human experiences in ways that are often
different from other genres of literature, such as poetry, short stories and the novel
that you encounter in this module. When you study a play, it is important to take
cognizance of how it creates meanings. Pay attention to its structure – how the plot
unfolds and unravels the themes that are couched in it. The themes that Hansberry
explores in her play are not entirely new to African American literature, but it is how
she effectively appropriates the form of drama to order them, that renders them timeless
and continue to earn her world-wide recognition. (Remember Langston Hughes’s
poem, the epigraph of the play; it is evidence of the broader African American literary
tradition which influences what Hansberry writes about.)

40
 A summary of Unit 2’s core ideas:
●● Lorraine Hansberry’s play looks at the issue of housing in the United States of
America at a time of heightened racial discrimination.
●● It puts on stage the idea that people’s dreams (for instance, with Mama Younger’s
ambition to own a spacious home and Walter Lee Younger’s dream of financial
emancipation) cannot be postponed forever in spite of racial discrimination.
●● It crucially looks at economic disparities in the United States of America regard-
ing intra-communal class differences (George Murchison and Walter Lee Younger’s
positions).
●● It also looks at how economic disparities between races account for better or poorer
living conditions and how this affects housing itself.
●● The play interrogates the need for African American communities or families to
better themselves and the sometimes legal challenges and obstacles that were placed
in their way.
●● The play anticipates the strong feminist movement that would later sweep the
world (consider, for example, Beneatha Younger) and the emancipation of women
in all sectors of society.
●● There is a strong gender thread in the play in which differing ambitions clash with-
in the same gender (when comparing the need and wishes of Beneatha and Ruth
Younger, for instance).
●● The play questions the stereotypes that African American men do not care about
their relationships, that they lack ambition, and that they do not dream of a bet-
ter future for their children (in the character of Walter Lee Younger, for instance).

References
Brown-Guillory, Elizabeth. “Black Women Playwrights: Exorcising Myths.” Phylon. 43.3
(3rd Quarter, 1987):229–39.
Hansberry, Lorraine. To be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own
Words. New York: Signet Classics, 1970.
Harris, Trudier. Reading Contemporary African-American Drama: Fragments of History,
Fragments of Self. New York: Peter Lang, 2007.
___________. “A Raisin in the Sun: The Strong Black Woman as Acceptable Tyrant.”
Saints, Sinners, Saviors: Strong Black Women in African American Literature. New York:
Plagrave, 2001.
Wilkerson, Margaret B. “The Sighted Eyes and Feeling Heart of Lorraine Hansberry.”
Black American Literature Forum 17(1983):8–13. May 12, 2006 http://wwwjstor.org/
search.

ENG2603/141
 LEARNING UNIT 3

Seven Steps to Heaven by Fred Khumalo

This unit was compiled by Prof K Masemola

INTRODUCTION

A hearty welcome to this unit, in which identity and stereotyping are made manifest.
Through a study of Fred Khumalo’s Seven Steps to Heaven (2007), this unit aims to
show you how a postcolonial and/or transitional literary text can be interpreted against
the background of the social, historical, political and personal circumstances in which
it was written. In this unit you will see that a literary text can reflect the zeitgeist of
the period in which it was written. Set in the exciting but uncertain period beginning
in 1991, the year after the release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners, the
novel will enable you to see how literature is employed both to express feeling and to
comment on broader society.

Literary expression is a function of representation, which means that a particular

kind of reality or events are deliberately portrayed using or resisting certain textual
structures to enhance the novel’s varied meanings. A novel such as Seven Steps to
Heaven uses certain forms of expression and stylistic elements and references beyond
the text to construct a form of reality. Narrative techniques are crafted and laid out to
present and map out a certain world or situation. Thus is laid bare – or even rendered
complex – the personal context of larger social themes in the novel.

Learning unit outcomes

This learning unit has four specific outcomes, namely:

●● Outcome 1: Students understand key characteristics of identity and stereotyping

in the post-apartheid novel.
●● Outcome 2: Students understand the deployment of specific forms of representa-
tion in Seven Steps to Heaven.
●● Outcome 3: Students engage critically with literary and contemporaneous critical
texts on gender and masculinities through analysis and synthesis.
●● Outcome 4: Students present sustained arguments about texts, with arguments
substantiated from text and context, in accordance with appropriate academic
conventions, in particular in academic essays.

42
 Background
Seven Steps to Heaven preoccupies itself with the problem of identity, showing how
complex this can be. Using an image such as that of making soup or the peeling onion,
it depicts the complexity of characters associated with the protagonist Sizwe Dube,
who is a talented but strange writer. Although Sizwe defines his identity by asserting
that he is a successful writer, his writing defines him through others. For instance,
he successfully writes as someone else: Vusi Mntungwa, author of Ramu the Hermit.
Writing as someone else is often described as a nom de plume, “an assumed name used
by a writer instead of their real name; a pen-name” (www.oxford dictionaries.com).

Sizwe also has a childhood friend Thulani Tembe, who haunts him later in his adult
life. The haunting spectacle is expressed through anguish when he looks at the mirror
and sees Thulani in it, thus becoming part of him: a part of Sizwe’s split self. Ordinarily
Thulani would be understood as an alter ego. The latter is the other self within the
persona of Sizwe Dube, distinct from the normal personality. This complicates his
identity as it evidences a layered personality. This is also known as multiplicity, that is,
the protagonist’s persona has many facets.

As the title of the novel suggests, there are seven steps, or stepping stones, that, in
oriental religion, lead you close to God. This is a spiritual journey; yet given the life
devoted to bacchanalian enjoyment we could say that the title is deliberately ironic,
because the novel deliberately attends to secular matters. Notably, the title could be
borrowed from Miles Davies’ 1963 album, that is, Seven Steps to Heaven. This is an
interesting trend, for another of Fred Khumalo’s novels, Bitches Brew, borrows its title
from a Miles Davies album of the same name. Through such references, therefore,
we establish that music has a role in defining the setting and the meanings that are
embedded in the context of the social action of the novel.

What could the significance of this be?

Through the Hillbrow setting where we are introduced to Sizwe at the beginning of
the novel, we discover that music is also used to make a statement, as when there is
the blaring sound of Harold Melvin’s “Wake Up Everybody” (6) in Sis Joy’s Oasis in
Hillbrow Heights. Later on we also see the significance of the song “Paradise Road”
as it echoes through a shebeen of the same name in the Exclusive Park setting of
Sizwe’s upbringing in KwaZulu-Natal. This is not simple intertextuality, where one
text migrates across another medium. These songs have meaning and an intention
to both inspire and offer solace to patrons. As Sizwe the writer is an alcoholic, we are
able to understand why time and time again he gets to hear these songs that, from
the narrator’s keen observation of his environment, imbue a new meaning to his life.
Songs add a non-physical dimension to the setting in this case. They are like the score
of a movie.

myUNISA Activity 1
The myUnisa site for ENG2603 provides “Discussion Forums” interactive functions that allow
you to access “General Subject Related Discussions” by clicking on a tab. Click on this and find
“Seven Steps to Heaven academic discussions”. Use the space provided in the message box
to write two short paragraphs in which you explain how the novel’s characterisation is simple
or complex as far as the representation of racial identity and gender are concerned. The rule
of thumb is that reasons from the text must always be provided in support of your answer. Your

ENG2603/143
 written responses in the form of paragraphs will be monitored by lecturers at least once a week.
You may also respond to the paragraphs of other students.

Activity 1
Read through the very first chapter, which is only seven pages long, and determine whether the
many faces of Sizwe Dube say something about his being multiple in terms of identity.

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

Feedback on activity 1
As a writer, Sizwe Dube experiences writer’s block and, as a result, takes heavily to the
bottle. As he contemplates the lack of progress on his book he says “Sometimes I think
I am one of three people; sometimes I think I am Thulani, or Thulani lives in me …
sometimes I think I am the third one” (2007:6). Besides this uncertainty, there is
another sense in which he attributes his determination and resilience to his Zuluness.
“This here Zulu boy will show you what he’s made of” (2007:7).

Further notes on multiple identity:

●● Sizwe Dube’s uncertainty about who he is ironically confirms his multiple identi-
ties.
●● Seven Steps to Heaven involves a writer and a book that is difficult to finish. More
than that, it shows the presence of “a book within a book”, whereas there is likewise
a Thulani “author” who lives in him (2007:6).
●● When Sis Joy exhorts Sizwe Dube to finish the novel, she not only encourages him
but also taunts him through words that cast doubt on his sexual identity. She asks:
“Where are your balls, man! Don’t be a fokken moffie. Stand up and be proud like
a real manne, you donder se jelly-kneed moffie” (2007:7). Casting being gay in a
negative light, i.e., something Sizwe should not be if he is to accomplish anything,
makes one wonder what this bias has to do with anything. It turns out that Sizwe
Dube, as we shall see later, is successful as a writer and also exhibits gay or at least
bisexual behaviour. This adds a new dimension to being multiple.

The ability to discern commonplaces about stereotypes goes hand in hand with a
sense of knowing that identities are not fixed or stable: at one point Sizwe is himself;
at another he is Thulani Tembe or Vusi Mntungwa. Also, for a while he is sexually
involved in heterosexual sex with Nolitha, which is replaced by an intense relationship
with Patrick McGuiness, the white student he meets on the first day at university.
Sizwe is ever changing. He exhibits multiplicity.

Activity 2
Consider the passage below and comment on the relationship between Sizwe and Thulani:

44
 “You are dead. Now you come here bothering me. Who do you think I am? God? You think I can
bring you from the dead?

No, it’s you that are dead. You are dead before dying. You are a nobody because there is
nothing that marks you out as you. You are always trying to be somebody. You are always living
in the shadow of other people’s words, ideas beliefs. That’s why you are here. It is not that you
love me, that you wanted to empathise with me as they pumped bullets into me. You are here
because without me you can’t be you.” (2007:41)

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

Feedback on activity 2
In the above passage the imaginary conversation between Thulani and Sizwe confirms
that the man in the mirror is not Thulani but himself, framed through his alter ego. At
face value, Sizwe is somewhat delusional. Yet the conversation shows that his identity
is split and unstable. In order to fully understand this, Sizwe tells the barman:

“Ideas aside. Words are a sword. Cut the abyss open. So we can plunge together in the
dark abyss. You. Me. Him. The oneness of two in three.” (41)

Sizwe’s identity is complex and multiple, as “The oneness of two in three” suggests.
Further to that complexity, throughout the novel there are signature phrases that uphold
such layered multiplicity. Let us take one example. On page 28, Sizwe remembers his
mother’s aphorism.

An aphorism is a wise and memorable thought, usually expressed in an unforgettable

and impressively clever form.

“People are like onions, his mother used to say, they come in layers. ‘When I was
young, if I made soup and I was chopping onions’ – that’s what she would be thinking.
Layers, everyone has layers. You have to see them in yourself and others”.

This aphorism about layers adds to the sense of being multiple in this novel. We cannot,
as readers, understand Sizwe the protagonist without his connection to others; we have
to take a journey into the interiority of the writer. He finds recourse in this aphorism,
as in page 38, when he wants to defend originality yet recognises that “these were no
longer his stories” (2007:38).

Activity 3
In two paragraphs or so, explain the relationship between Sizwe and Thulani, and compare it
with the one between their fathers.

ENG2603/145
 _________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

Feedback on activity 3
The relationships are ever-changing: from childhood camaraderie and experimentation
with sex and liquor to a serious re-evaluation of relationships with their fathers and,
especially, the women in their lives. Both of them are intelligent and have a flair for
writing that leaves us wondering whether their attitude to sex is not inconsistent with
their obvious intelligence. Sizwe uses Nolitha for sexual gratification. In a strange way,
Rev Tembe and his father have sexual dalliances with Sis Lovey from the Paradise
Road shebeen, too.

Are there any interesting parallels? This kind of thinking is indicative of masculinities,
which is a part of patriarchy. In other words, masculinities – the attitude and practices
of defining manhood in terms of power and undue domination over women – reflect
the priorities of patriarchy. In the next learning unit on Nervous Conditions you will
find a comprehensive description of what counts as patriarchy.

For now, suffice to say that patriarchy is a system where men dominate society,
especially women, through power that disguises itself as “natural” when it is really
culturally constructed and imposed.

myUNISA Activity 2
So far we have seen how masculinities find expression in sexual relations where women gratify
men at their (women’s) expense. Do you find that there are women who resist sexual exploitation?
Write a paragraph in the myUnisa discussion forum detailing resistance to exploitation under
“Seven Steps to Heaven discussion forums”.

myUNISA Activity 3
Visit http://scholar.google.com and enter “Fred Khumalo Seven Steps to Heaven” in the search
bar, with a view to sourcing articles on this novel. It is important that you should be able to
source different perspectives on the novel. You should be able to classify their arguments and
compare at least two articles. Make a list of at least three relevant articles and post them on the
myUnisa discussion forum.

46
 Activity 4
What are the implications of reading the text and character as the “oneness of two in three”?
Use the space below to explain fully.

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

Feedback on activity 4
“The oneness of two in three” complicates characterisation as it defies a simple and
straightforward character development. In other words, an element of doubt is
introduced to the narrative inasmuch as the protagonist is multiple. Clearly this allows
for the undermining of stereotypes too. This means that stereotyping is not allowed
throughout. This multiplicity is part of a narrative strategy of resistance and defiance.

Activity 5
How effective is the aphorism about onions in helping readers to understand multiple and
entwined identities, especially considering the relationship between Sizwe and Patrick?

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

Feedback on activity 5
The use of the aphorism is significant as it shows the many sides of characters. These
sides are facets you discover as you “peel” the onion to reveal character depth.

myUNISA Activity 4
Issues of bias and discrimination against blacks and gays remain prominent and relevant. In
the discussion forum “Seven Steps to Heaven academic discussions” post your thoughts about
racial and sexual stereotyping in the novel.

Activity 6
The mirror at the bar has a symbolic role in explaining the identities of Sizwe Dube and Thulani
Tembe. Discuss the recurrence of the mirror whenever the protagonist contemplates his merits
as a writer. How does it express his identity?

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

ENG2603/147
 _________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________

Feedback on activity 6
The mirror allows Sizwe literally to stare himself in the face. While he sees Thulani
in it, the mirror lays bare his soul and brings to view his confrontation with himself.
One needs to understand that it is a device that allows us entry to his psyche, which is
clearly split. The “reality” of the mirror, however, suggests itself as delusion. As Sizwe
looks in the mirror, he sees Thulani haunting and taunting him, which scares the
barman who witnesses his rants.

Can we proceed to say that there is an alternative reality in the mirror, such that it
functions more and more as an oracle through which he goes to the inner recesses of
his soul? Read the novel and see if you can find positive aspects in the confrontation
with the mirror.

Stereotyping as both symptom and critique of bias in Seven Steps to Heaven.

Whereas the sexual exploits and drinking sprees of Reverend Tembe unseat our
expectations of “a holier than thou” predisposition, it is stereotyping that renders
characters controversial.

Stereotyping, simply put, is a set of false and often negative assumptions about
an individual or group that is taken as natural, often disadvantaging the said
individual or group.

For example, in Chapter 24 of the novel we find an encounter between Patrick

McGuiness and Sizwe Dube on the latter’s first day at university. Patrick McGuiness,
clad in baggy jeans and a Lakers shirt, speaks to him in a pseudo-black American
accent. He uses expressions such as “Yo, bro, I’m talking to you, huh” (141) in one
part of their conversation. In another, he says “You seem lost bro”. Sizwe disapproves
of the condescending manner in which he is spoken to. He is aware of the stereotype
that blacks do not deserve to be spoken to in normal and equal terms. The stereotype
is that Sizwe the student is deficient in standard language use. More than that Patrick
McGuiness is patronising him, asking him “And what is your moniker, dude?”
(2007:141).

Activity 7
Do you agree with the assertion that Patrick McGuiness is merely being friendly, or is he
patronising when he uses non-standard English? Please argue with reference to the text as you
agree or disagree.

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

48
 Feedback on activity 7
Patrick switches between the pseudo-black American accent and South African
English, depending on the authority he asserts. Speaking of his black girlfriend,
Thembi, Patrick seems to have no sensitivity to what Sizwe thinks:

‘You see, Thembi’s a good bitch, but ...’

‘Why are you calling her a bitch?’
That jolted Patrick. Then he smiled, ‘Yo, nigger, where you from, huh?’ He continued
smiling, pointing an accusing finger at Sizwe. ‘Nah, nah, nigger you from the sticks;
you don’t dig the lingo’.
‘Man, don’t call me a nigger’ he raised his voice, attracting the attention of the other
white people in the queue (2007:142).

Patrick patronises and offends. Yet he tries to reach out to blacks, dressing like Afro-
Americans and addressing blacks in a way that controversially allows him, unlike
many other white students, to enter their world. The words “bitch” and “nigger” are
not exactly terms of endearment, especially when used by a white person in a country
with a sad and bitter apartheid past. Studying towards a Masters in Irish Literature,
Patrick’s use of certain words is deliberate. He may want to cross over and use the words
“nigger” and “bitch” as in the American context, where these index close affection.

He proudly explains:

“You see, me, the darkies don’t like me because I get on well with the black dolls. The
honkies don’t like me either ‘cos they say I’m letting them down, trying to be black,
always voting with the black students at SRC meetings. Me, I go to hip-hop when my
white brothers are getting high and puking and smashing each other with baseball bats
at their rowdy rock sessions” (2007:143).

Activity 8
What do the following words mean to you in a South African context? Are they always offensive?

yy Darkies
yy Honkies
yy Nigger
yy Bitch
yy Dolls

Feedback on activity 8
Words operate in a particular context with particular intentions. Patrick seems clearly
not to be racist in his attitude. In fact, he inverts the normal use of these words such
that he blunts their racist edge. Note that these words are not used in anger and tend
to be neutral in attitude instead of being denigrating. The way he describes his “white
brothers” as “honkies” suggest a degree of humour, too. There is a clever intention
to exploit racial stereotypes. He renders these racially explosive words neutral and so

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 undermines stereotypes. Do you think that if these words were used by Sizwe Dube
their meaning would be different?

It is noteworthy that when Sizwe learns of the review of his manuscript “The Oneness
of Two in Three” by Sheree le Roux, the senior editor, without his permission, he cries
foul and uses foul language, too. Neither impressed nor appeased by the prospect of
the novel being published “like yesterday” with huge financial gains, Sizwe’s explosive
reaction is underscored by his language:

“That fucking manuscript is sacred, not to be touched by anyone, not a publisher, not
God himself. The first time I saw you I realized you were a fake, a patronising piece
of shit trying to talk black! A fucking manipulator. You whites are all the same. Every
time we give you a hand of friendship, you chop it off. Fucking patronising pieces of
shit” (2007:158).

These are choice words from one angry gay lover to another in a scene of supposed
betrayal, before they “kissed and exchanged pleasantries over coffee” (2007:158), a far
cry from Patrick being told “You moffie bitch!” in exasperation (2007:157). The use of
discriminatory language is in two directions: veering towards racism on the one hand
and self-deprecating homophobia on the other. The fact that they kiss and make up
does not necessarily mean that Sizwe and Patrick do not have moments of weakness or
lapses, where invidious stereotypes reign supreme.

The narrator places readers in a position where, in retrospect, we realise that there is a
deliberate play on stereotyping with a corresponding language that seeks to upset the
addressee whilst ironically undermining the racial and gender stereotypes. Since they
are an interracial gay couple they could probably not reinforce negative stereotypes
about gay masculinities, for instance.

Activity 9
Describe in very clear grammatical expression the ambivalent use of biased language,
considering for example the manner in which Patrick McGuiness complains about his then
girlfriend, Thembi, at the point where he blurts out: “She is so full of herself, you’d think her
pussy is made of gold” (2007:149).

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

Feedback on activity 9
There are moments in the novel that show the desperation of dealing with false masks.
Just as Sizwe berates Patrick for relapsing into male prostitution, Patrick is upset that
he is being used by Thembi as a trophy white boyfriend as well as a constant supplier
of unaffordable outfits for countless funerals. Thinking about how meaningless
the relationship was, he finds recourse in language that may seem out-and-out
discriminatory yet, upon close scrutiny, has elements of humour. Take as an example
the “pussy made of gold” (2007:149)

50
 Does this generally reflect attitudes to women in the novel, you may ask. Think
about Nolitha, who makes good later in life having had a threesome with Sizwe and
Thulani that resulted in an embarrassing sexual infection. Similarly Sis Lovey also has
a threesome with Rev Tembe and Mandla Dube. Then there is Sis Joy, the shebeen
queen who encourages Sizwe but also lambasts him about the alcoholism which she
directly fuels. What about the white women? Are they invisible or too virtuous to
mention alongside women like Thembi?

Not at all. We are introduced to a very pretty Sheree le Roux, who is the book editor at
the publishing house. She makes an impression on Sizwe as she wears an unbuttoned
floral shirt showing a sexy bra beneath, a very short black skirt and high black stilettos
(2007:168). She makes a revealing statement about the aesthetics of self-representation,
too:

“A lot of men who know that I am a dyke are always amazed about the way I dress.
Hahaha! They expect us to dress like men, as many people expect moffies to dress and
behave like women, with all those spaghetti writs and feminine intonations: Ooooh,
you look gorgeous, doll!” (2007:169).

Sheree as a lesbian defies stereotypes as she plots the confusion about the unnamed
author of the definitive The Oneness of Two in Three as a marketing ploy. She insists, as in
her unconventional sartorial code to Sizwe: “Let’s do a postmodern thing” (2007:174).
No language is stable, no sartorial code denotative, no author knowable: Freedom
Cele and Thulani Tembe, Vusi Mntungwa and Sizwe Dube – these are but one person
in a layered multiplicity, as discovered photographs show. When Sizwe is arrested in
Zimbabwe as being part of the dogs of war, he is in possession of Thulani Tembe’s
passport. It is a curious fact that the name Vusi Mntungwa is derived from Fred
Khumalo’s actual name. “Vusi” is Fred Khumalo’s middle name, while “Mntungwa”
refers to the Khumalo clan name normally used during ceremonies to refer to the
extraordinary deeds of a common founding ancestor. The author is also present in his
work of fiction. It is indeed, a “postmodern thing”, as Sheree le Roux would have it.

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 To add to this, there is a discovery in the courtroom by a psychiatrist and writing
experts of various documents, “including those attributed to the personas he had used”
(2007:208). His defence lawyer, Dries van Wyk, observes that his client keeps calling
himself Freedom Cele. He strategically relents and says to the Zimbabwean State
Advocate, Simba Chigumburi: “Counsel, I don’t know what’s going on. But I think
the identities of the two men have been fused so much that the men themselves do not
know who they are, or who they want to be.” (2007:208). Similarly, as the novel draws
to a close, Sizwe insists from his cell that the part of him called Thulani, who in turn
calls himself Freedom Cele, “must die”. The author must die. Thus closes the novel.

Conclusion
The activities in this Learning Unit have shown how the aphorism borrowed from
Sizwe’s mother is adopted by him as an oft-repeated trope throughout the novel to
show multiplicity regarding gender (including masculinities), representation, race and
resistance to patriarchal codes through defying stereotypes. In many places you should
have noted how surface representation is disrupted by an almost abrupt interjection
that suggests the peeling of onions or the many layers of people, whenever Sizwe cites –
often out of the blue – “if I make soup” as though it is a mantra of layered multiplicity
and split identity.

A summary of Unit 3’s core ideas

●● The book shows how representation is complex, particularly in the depiction of
relationships usually regulated by stereotypes of race, gender and sexuality, even
rurality and urbanity.
●● It shows how the protagonist’s identity is layered, expressed throughout Seven Steps
to Heaven as a multiplicity.
●● The use of aphorisms in the narrative reveals the layered nature of characters; for
example, Sizwe’s mother’s aphorism about soup and onions brings to view the
multi-layered nature of what normally count as fixed categories of behaviour.
●● The novel exhibits the skilful use of creative language and symbols to reinforce
(and complicate) the meaning of the language. Consider for instance the repeated
use of the anagram to draw a link between scrambled words like “Words kill” and
“Sword kills,” and “Ideas” and “Aside”, or “Skill” and “Kills” throughout the novel.
There is word play that is also paradoxically serious. The same can be said reference
to reverie.
●● In this novel the musical references are not simply intertextual: they form part of
the setting as much as they contribute to the making of meaning – from Harold
Melvin’s “Wake Up Everbody” to the famous local number “Paradise Road” by the
Joy trio. The lyrics of these and many other songs in Seven Steps to Heaven are a
pause for thought and function as mood setting, just like the musical score of a
film.
●● The novel’s total meaning and concerns are also articulated in the title of “a novel
within a novel” namely, The Oneness of Two in Three apparently authored by the
protagonist’s alter ego Thulani.

52
 LEARNING UNIT 4
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga

Compiled by Prof J Murray and Ms B Janari

Introduction
Welcome to this module in which we will be exploring the representation of female
and male characters in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel Nervous Conditions. Although we
will be considering the important male characters, our focus will be on how the women
exercise choice and resistance in a context of patriarchal oppression. In order to do this,
we will be using a number of key concepts, including “gender,” “race,” “patriarchy,”
“identity,” “representation” and “resistance”. Over the course of this learning unit, we
will be defining these concepts and we will learn how to apply them to a reading of
the novel.

Learning unit outcomes

This learning unit has four specific outcomes, namely:

Outcome 1: Students read a novel with comprehension and critical engagement.

Outcome 2: Students can write well-structured paragraphs in which they critically

discuss Tsitsi Dangarembga’s creative choices in Nervous Conditions.

Outcome 3: Students understand that representation is political and that it shapes

literary texts.

Outcome 4: Students can meaningfully employ the concepts of gender, race, patriarchy,
identity, and resistance in their analysis of Nervous Conditions.

Background
Whenever we read any text, we must start by paying close attention to the setting.
Remember that a setting has two aspects, namely a spatial and a temporal dimension.
The spatial dimension refers to the geographical space in which a text is set, while the
temporal one refers to the time period.

myUNISA Activity 1
On the myUnisa site for ENG2603, there is a “Discussion Forums” function. Under this tab, you
will see a heading called “General Subject Related Discussions.” When you click on this, you

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 will see a topic called “Nervous Conditions academic discussions.” In the message box, write
a paragraph in which you explain whether you found the novel easy or difficult to read and
understand. Remember to provide reasons for your answer. Your paragraphs will be monitored
by the lecturers once a week. You may also respond to the paragraphs of other students.

Activity 1
Look at the first page of the novel and note any clues about the spatial and temporal setting. In
other words, look for dates and place names.

Feedback on activity 1
The first date we notice is 1968 and we are told about a mission school which is “twenty
miles from the village, to the west, in the direction of Umtali town” (Dangarambga,
1988:1). The country in which the novel is set is Rhodesia. When Rhodesia gained
independence from British rule in 1980, the name was changed to Zimbabwe. When
you write about Nervous Conditions, you need to refer to Rhodesia. It would not make
sense to talk about the setting as Zimbabwe, since the country was called Rhodesia at
the time in which the novel is set.

Further notes on setting

●● Rhodesia was a British colony and as was the case with other colonies, the colonial
power made its mark in many spheres of the indigenous people’s lives. Villagers
were moved to less fertile areas to make way for farms, cattle ranches and massive
plantations of gum trees.
●● Nervous Conditions hardly ever refers to any specific political event. The novelist
seems less concerned with describing national political developments and more
interested in the effects of the political context on the lives of people in a black
community under white colonial rule.
●● However, some very specific dates are recorded in the text, and these help us to
place the novel in an exact historical context.
●● The dates in question range from 1965 when Babamukuru and his family return
from England – an event which precedes the main action of the novel – to 1971
when Tambu, at the age of sixteen, enters form one (grade eight) at the Sacred
Heart Convent.
●● These dates are important: they embrace the bitterest period of white hostility to
black liberation. 1965, the date of Babamukuru’s return, is historically important.
●● Following the freedom and independence of Northern Rhodesia, the government
of Ian Smith declared itself Unilaterally Independent from Great Britain.
●● From this period on, diehard white Rhodesians elected to maintain control of the
country at all costs: repressive measures were introduced by the Rhodesian govern-
ment, sanctions were imposed by the world community, and war, involving the
uprooting and loss of many lives, continued right until 1980 when finally libera-
tion was achieved.

Once you know where and when the novel is set, it is useful to look at the narrator.

54
 Activity 2
Read the first paragraph of the novel. Who is telling the story? What do you notice about the
person telling the story? Which other characters are mentioned by the narrator?

Feedback on activity 2
The first word of the novel is “I” and this tells us that we have a first person narrator.
Later in the novel we learn that her name is Tambudzai, but she is mostly called by
her shortened name of Tambu. We learn that the narrator had a brother who died
when she was thirteen and that she was not sorry about this. This should immediately
prompt you to ask yourself why she was not sorry. She also mentions characters called
Lucia, Maiguru and Nyasha.

Tambu’s account of her early youth is autobiographical. The inclusion of exact historical
dates, specific place names and cultural realities in the former Rhodesia makes the
story seem more “authentic.” We have the impression that whatever is recounted is
based on a woman’s first-hand experience. The story which Tambu narrates seems to
be a faithful account of her own youthful experience. Note, however, that the young
girl’s interpretation and judgement of events is not necessarily reliable: what she says
is mediated (affected) by her own perspective, context and interests. This brings us to
the concept of representation.

Representation means words or signs that take the place of somenthing else. It is
an act of naming and forming connections related to reality. In literary critism,
represntation has three definitions:

●● To resemble something
●● To stand in for something or someone
●● To re-present meaning
We should always remember that representations “are not just a matter of mirrors,
reflections, key-holes. Somebody is making them, and somebody is looking at
them, through a complex array of means and conventions (Kappeler, 1986:3). In
other words, representations are not neutral and they are not direct reflections of
reality. They are constructions and they are ideologically and politically loaded.

Activity 3
How do you think this novel would have been different if Tambu’s brother, Nhamo, or her uncle,
Babamukuru, had been the narrator?

ENG2603/155
 Feedback on activity 3
Do you think Nhamo or Babamukuru would have been as concerned as Tambu about
the fact that boys are given educational opportunities before girls? Do you think they
would have encouraged the reader to wonder whether it was fair that Babamukuru
make decisions about the money his wife earns?

Images of control, and women’s desire to escape from that control, are introduced in the
first paragraph of the novel as Tambu asserts that her story is about “[her] escape and
Lucia’s; about [her] mother’s and Maiguru’s entrapment; and about Nyasha’s rebellion”
(Dangarembga, 1988:1). As a critical reader, you should ask what these characters are
trapped by and what they are rebelling against or seeking to escape.

Patriarchy is an important theme in the novel. The text suggests that one of the
reasons why Tambu and her brother are not treated equally is the patriarchal system.

Patriarchy refers to a system of practices and structures in which men have more
power than women and are able to use their power to dominate and oppress women.

Patriarchal distributions of power affect all the major female characters. Like many
Western and African cultures, the Shona culture is patriarchal in nature. Men make
and implement the rules; women obey. From a very early age, children are sensitised to
their roles in society with the boys being taught that they are stronger, more intelligent
and more important than girls and women, and that females need to be looked after.
These power relations manifest themselves in all aspects of social life. Therefore,
when Nhamo asks Tambu, “Don’t you know I am the one who has to go to school?”
(Dangarembga, 1988:21) he is expressing a belief he has been raised with, namely
that he is entitled to all advantages because he is a man. He has not been exposed to
anything different. When Tambu asks Nhamo why she cannot go to school, he says:
“It’s the same everywhere. Because you are a girl.” It is at this point that Tambu stops
being concerned about him: “My concern for my brother died an unobtrusive death”
(21). Her unexpected opening sentence in the novel, that she was not sorry when her
brother died, is directly linked to her resistance to the prevailing norms of patriarchal
and sexist behavior in her society. Nhamo has been socialised into a system that is both
sexist and patriarchal and he continues to entrench those behaviours and beliefs in his
relationship with Tambu: he sabotages her efforts to go back to school by deliberately
stealing her maize cobs that she had planted to get enough money to go to school, and
he deliberately gets Tambu and Netsai to fetch some of his luggage from the nearby
shops just to make them do things for him.

Gender is a social constrution. This means that particular societies expect women
and men to fulful certain roles and exhibit certain characteristics. In other words,
women are expected to behave in traditionally feminine ways while men are expected
to behave in treaditionally masculine ways.

What do we mean when we say that gender is a social construction?

56
 “The social construction of gender takes place through the workings of ideology.
Ideology is that system of beliefs and assumptions – unconscious, unexamined,
invisible – which represents ‘the imaginary relationships of individuals to their
real conditions of existence ...’; but it is also a system of practices that informs
every aspect of daily life – the clothes we wear, the machines we invent, the
pictures we paint, the words we use ... it authorizes its beliefs and practices
as ‘universal’ and ‘natural’, presenting ‘woman’ not as a cultural construct
but as eternally and everywhere the same” (Greene and Kahn, 1985:2–3).

myUNISA Activity 2
We have now discussed a number of the characters in the novel. Are there any of the characters
you can relate to? In other words, are there some characters whose actions and feelings you
find easier to understand than those of others? Write a paragraph in the myUnisa discussion
forum (in the topic called “Nervous Conditions academic discussions”) in which you respond to
this question.

myUNISA Activity 3
On the myUnisa site for ENG2603, there is a tab called “Additional resources”. When you click
on this, you will see a folder labelled “Useful links”. Here you will find a link (http://www.wmich.
edu/dialogues/texts/nervousconditions.html) to a discussion of the novel that is hosted by the
Western Michigan University. Browse through this website for interesting comments on the
novel and its context.

Activity 4
Below are a list of activities and characteristics. In the space next to each one, write “woman” or
“man,” depending on which gender comes to mind first when you see the activity or characteristic.

Preparing food _____________________________

Taking care of children _________________________

Mowing the lawn _____________________________

Being the family breadwinner _____________________

Wearing trousers ______________________________

Wearing dresses __________________________________

Being rational ______________________________________

Being emotional ____________________________________

Being aggressive ___________________________________

Being nurturing ____________________________________

Working as a surgeon _______________________________

Working as a nurse ___________________________________

ENG2603/157
 Feedback on activity 4
Many people associate domestic tasks, emotional behaviour and caring professions
with women, while outdoor tasks, working in the public sphere and rational thinking
are associated with men. However, none of these connections are innate (something
that someone is born with). Rather, they are social constructions. This is what we mean
when we say that gender, or femininity and masculinity, is a social construction.

Activity 5
Reflect on your own life and think about examples where your gender determined your life
experiences. For instance, if you are a woman, were you raised to like pink clothes and play
with dolls? If you are a man, are you expected to fix the car and change the light bulbs? Did
gender expectations affect your career choices? Does your gender influence the clothes you
choose to wear?

Feedback on activity 5
Think about your answers above and then consider how your choices and experiences
might have been different if you were a different gender.

myUNISA Activity 4
Patriarchy is as relevant in contemporary South African society as it is in the context of Nervous
Conditions. Write a paragraph in the myUnisa discussion forum (in the topic called “Nervous
Conditions academic discussions”) in which you respond to this statement. Remember that you
may agree or disagree with the statement but you must provide reasons for your opinions.

Activity 6
Who is the central patriarch in Nervous Conditions and how does his power shape the lives of
the female characters?

Feedback on activity 6
Go through the novel and try to identify examples of how Babamukuru wields
patriarchal power over the different female characters in Nervous Conditions.
Babamukuru is represented as a man with considerable power. He is well-educated
and he is the headmaster at a mission school. His status and financial resources allow
him to make important decisions for the members of his extended family. Tambu
remembers that it was her “uncle’s idea that Nhamo should go to school at the mission”
so that he could have a career that would enable him to lift his “branch of the family
out of the squalor in which [they] were living” (Dangarembga, 1988:4). He seems
to assume that, because Nhamo is a boy, he should receive an education and take
responsibility for the financial welfare of the family. Simply because Tambu is a girl,
Babamukuru does not even consider that she might be better suited to provide for the

58
 family. It is only after Nhamo’s death that Babamukuru offers her the opportunity to
go to school. Yet he still expects that she should conform to gendered expectations of
what a woman’s role should be when he tells her that an education will allow her to
assist “the family before she goes into her husband’s home” (Dangarembga, 1988:56).
He assumes that, as a girl, her destiny is to become a wife and to join her husband’s
home in much the same way as Maiguru joined his home.

Even though Maiguru is as highly educated as Babamukuru, she has none of his
power. She is expected to be first and foremost a wife and a mother. In her deference
to Babamukuru, Maiguru is no different from the other women in the family. When
Babamukuru finds Lucia a job, Maiguru must join her and Tambu’s mother on
their knees in gratitude. Kneeling in front of another person is a powerful image of
submission. Lucia “knelt in front of Babamukuru, energetically clapping her hands”
(Dangarembga 1988:160) and insisting that they “could not survive without [him]”
(161). After Tambu’s mother “knelt worshipping beside Lucia,” Tambu notes that
“it was Maiguru’s turn to take her place on the floor” (Dangarembga 1988:161). At
this stage, Tambu is still “so impressed with Babamukuru [that she] could not stop
admiring him” (Dangarembga, 1988:161).

Earlier in the novel we said that Tambu was the narrator. We could say even that the
central focus of this book is on the identity of Tambu as she struggles to make sense of
her life in the various contexts she experiences, and struggles to understand who she is.
Both the very first and the last paragraphs of the book suggest that this story explores
the contexts within which Tambu finds herself:

… I shall not apologise but begin by recalling the facts as I remember them that
led up to my brother’s death, the events that put me in a position to write this
account. For though the event of my brother’s passing and the events of my story
cannot be separated, my story is not after all about death, but about my escape
and Lucia’s; about my mother’s and Maiguru’s entrapment; and about Nyasha’s
rebellion – Nyasha, far-minded and isolated, my uncle’s daughter, whose rebellion
may not in the end have been successful (Dangarembga, 1988:1).

Quietly, unobtrusively and extremely fitfully, something in my mind began to

assert itself, to question things and refuse to be brainwashed, bringing me to this
time when I can set down this story. It was a long and painful process for me, that
process of expansion. It was a process whose events stretched over many years
and would fill another volume, but the story I have told here, is my own story,
the story of four women whom I loved, and our men, this story is how it began
(Dangarembga, 1988:204).

Below is an extract from an article about Nervous Conditions. To help you find your
way through it, we suggest you take a dictionary and look up the meanings of the
words listed here if they are unfamiliar to you. You should do this before looking at
the extract.

Activity 7
Find the definitions of the following terms: genteel; insipid; categorical, eclipsed; enigma; linear;
coherent; elusive; composite; enervated; unified.

ENG2603/159
 A critic’s view
One literary critic has this to say about the novel. You may find some of her ideas
difficult to follow. However, you may also find her perspective interesting, even if, for
any reason, you do not agree with her. After reading it, look at the next box, which
contains a short summary and a discussion of this extract.

Tambu describes herself as a young girl wanting to find another self; with her uncle’s
guidance at the mission school, she “expected to find another self, a clean, well-groomed
genteel self who could not have been bred, could not have survived on the homestead”
(58–59). … Tambu’s self-conscious search for an identity reveals the complexities of
the “I” position. She sees herself growing insipid and tentative at the mission school;
her “concrete and categorical” self from her younger days is partially eclipsed as she
attempts to understand the enigma that is her cousin Nyasha (75). For Tambu, Nyasha
is that small part of herself which is adventurous and explorative; everything about
Nyasha spoke of alternatives that could wreck Tambu’s linear plans for her education
and for a clear-cut, wholly unambiguous sense of identity. The myth of attaining a
coherent sense of self that Tambu sets out to find becomes ever more elusive as she
becomes intimately and intricately involved with her cousin, who was the first person
Tambu became fond of and “of whom I did not wholeheartedly approve” (78). Tambu’s
struggle for self-identity evolves into an awareness of her … complexity. She comes to
sense that her identity is a composite of shifting selves; she is not only obedient, hard-
working, … she is also adventurous, rebellious, strong-willed in her enervated position
as daughter, cousin, niece, schoolgirl, confidante and self. Tambu’s narration is that
process of recognition that Trihn Minh-ha explains in Woman Native Other: “ ‘I’ is,
therefore, not a unified subject, a fixed identity, or that solid mass covered with layers
of superficialities one has gradually to peel off before one can see its true face. ‘I’ is,
itself infinite layers. … Despite our desperate, eternal attempt to separate, contain and
mend, [such] categories [of self] always leak” (94).

McWilliams, Sally. 1991. “Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions: At the Crossroads

of Feminism and Postcolonialism.” World Literature Written in English 31(1):103–112.

myUNISA Activity 5
If you are interested in the rest of the article from which this extract is taken, you may read it on
myUnisa under the eReserves.

What does this critic think about Tambu?

●● Sally McWilliams says that Tambu wants to find another identity, a new self. (We
should ask ourselves, though, how her new self will be different from her old self.
You might find it useful to make notes for yourself about this.)
●● She also believes that “Tambu’s self-conscious search for an identity reveals the
complexities of the ‘I’ position.” She feels that Tambu looks for a “wholly unam-
biguous sense of identity” but finds that this is impossible because it is a “myth”
(specifically, a “myth of attaining a coherent sense of self ”). McWilliams thinks
that Tambu discovers that her identity and her ideas about herself (her “sense of
self ”) become complicated when she discovers that she can both like and dislike

60
 someone at the same time. Nyasha causes Tambu to feel contradictory emotions
and this leads her to see that her own life can contain contradictions. Tambu comes
to see that her own identity could contain characteristics that are just as contra-
dictory and complicated as Nyasha’s behaviour and as her feelings about Nyasha.
A “coherent sense of self ” is sometimes difficult because a person’s behaviour and
reactions to situations are not always predictable and do not always seem to make
sense in the light of other things you know about that person. If, like Tambu, you
are interested in thinking about your own identity, you frequently discover that
there are parts of your life which do not fit neatly or in a linear fashion with other
parts. Instead, you find that you are a “composite,” or made up of various parts.

McWilliams compares this with the ideas of another critic, named Trinh Minh-ha.
She says that what Tambu recognises about herself is what Minh-ha discusses in her
academic writing about gender and postcoloniality. This recognition is that any “I” is
not fixed and that it is not useful to think about identity in terms of “true” and “false.”
In other words, someone’s identity should be thought of as a collection of different
aspects all affected by the events and contexts which he or she experiences. There
might not actually be a “true self” under a layer of “false selves,” but instead all the
various aspects and characteristics might together form the “self,” the identity, of that
person.

Activity 8
In the space below, write a paragraph in which you discuss how Tambu tries to escape from
various types of oppression over the course of the novel.

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

Feedback on activity 8
Remember to consider the ways in which Tambu’s gender as well as her race and
economic status contribute to different types of oppression.

Activity 9
In the space below, write a paragraph in which you compare Tambu and Nyasha.

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

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 Feedback on activity 9
When you compare two characters, you should consider that ways in which they are
similar as well as the ways in which they differ. Tambu is completely dependent on
Babamukuru’s continuing goodwill as displeasing him could result in her forfeiting her
chance to get an education. He never misses an opportunity to impress upon her that
he was paying for her school fees, for the house she was living in and for the food she
was eating. Tambu’s “heart swelled with gratitude” for the “sacrifice” (Dangarembga,
1988:88) Babamukuru makes to give her these things. However, her cousin, Nyasha,
refuses to be the silent and obedient daughter that her father expects her to be. When
Nyasha challenges her father’s authority, he is so shocked at her audacity that one
could hear “his voice cracking in disbelief” (Dangarembga, 1988:85). Tambu realizes
that, above all, Babamukuru expects passivity and unquestioning acceptance from a
good daughter. She reflects that she “was not concerned that freedom fighters were
referred to as terrorists, did not demand proof of God’s existence nor did [she] think
that the missionaries, along with all the other Whites in Rhodesia, ought to have
stayed at home” (Dangarembga, 1988:157). It is only as “a result of these things that
[she] did not think or do” that “Babamukuru thought [she] was the sort of young
woman a daughter ought to be and lost no opportunity to impress this point of view
upon Nyasha” (Dangarembga, 1988:157). Although Nyasha attempts to challenge her
father’s control, she cannot escape her relative powerlessness in his patriarchal household
and she starts suffering from anorexia and bulimia. As with Tambu, he reminds her
of his economic power over her: “If she doesn’t want to do what I say, I shall stop
providing for her – fees, clothes, food, everything” (Dangarembga, 1988:193).

Activity 10
Lucia is the most successful at achieving freedom in the novel. In the space below, make some
notes in response to this statement.

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Feedback on activity 10
Lucia’s escape seems highly successful. Some of the factors which enable Lucia to
succeed are:

●● She avoids marriage, which would otherwise draw her into the patriarchal system.
●● She takes advantage of her relative freedom to live according to her own wishes,
even though this brings her into disrepute.
●● She enjoys bodily pleasure but avoids dependence on the male. (This is brilliantly
expressed in her comment on Takesure: ‘“A woman has to live with something,”
she shrugged matter-of-factly. “Even if it is only a cockroach. And cockroaches are
better. They are easy to chase away, isn’t it?”’ (Dangarembga, 1988:153).

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 ●● She wins Babamukuru’s qualified respect for her forthright and outspoken man-
ner. This suggests that, in spite of favouring the male, the community’s culture is
not rigidly dogmatic. It can, therefore, accommodate an unconventional response.
●● She gets Babamukuru to serve her own ends, and thus turns the patriarchal sys-
tem on its head. Babamukuru says of her, “She is like a man” (Dangarembga,
1988:175)!
●● Her solidarity (supportive relationship) with other women prevents her from al-
ienating herself from her family. Note that, unlike Tambu, she enters into the spirit
of the wedding, and, relying on instinct, is able to revive Tambu’s mother.

From these points it is clear that Lucia’s escape implies her freedom to act both in
accordance with her conscience, and independent of patriarchal conventions. She is
thus the most successful at offering resistance to oppression.

Activity 11
Write a paragraph in which you discuss Maiguru’s entrapment.

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Feedback on activity 11
Here are some notes to help you complete this activity:

●● As Maiguru is intellectually highly qualified (she has an MA degree) we might

expect her to be a shining example of women’s emancipation in the novel. How-
ever, as the narrator points out right from the start, she is trapped, and, ironically,
indicates the way to failure rather than success.
●● She is married to a patriarchal male who has high status in the community.
●● She pampers his male-ego, rather than questioning it. For example, look at this
extract: “No, no, my Daddy-dear, chirped Maiguru, fussing with the dishes. ‘We
were only just about to begin. But now you have come. Help yourself, my Daddy-
pie!’ With this she removed the lid from the serving-dish nearest Babamukuru and
put it away on the sideboard. Then she picked up a plate from the pile in front of
Babamukuru and held it for him respectfully with both hands while he spooned
food on to his plate” (Dangarembga, 1988:81).
●● She adopts, by virtue of her advanced education and financial security, the values
and habits of white culture. (Note the description of her house, daily routine,
cooking routines.)
●● She conceals her own inward dissatisfaction in order to keep up the image of the
well-to-do black family. (It is her money which keeps Tambu at school and sup-
ports her family: the details of this are on page 172.)
●● When Maiguru does rebel it is only for a few days. It does her good, but she is
no match for her strong-willed husband. For example, she tells Babamukuru “I
am sick of it Babawa Chido. Let me tell you I have had enough!” (Dangarembga,
1988:174). She explains her feelings to him: “And when I keep quiet you think I

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 am enjoying it. So today I am telling you I am not happy. I am not happy anymore
in this house” (Dangarembga, 1988:175).

It is interesting to note that Dangarembga does not see the idea of patriarchy as
explaining everything in the situations which Tambu experiences. She says that
patriarchy is not a full answer to the question of why Tambu and Nhamo (her brother)
are treated unequally because men in Tambu’s home context are also relatively
powerless. The political situation prevailing in the former Rhodesia at the time of
Tambu’s childhood is colonial, with power belonging to whites: black people, whether
male or female, lacked political power and therefore patriarchy provides only half an
answer in any analysis of the characters’ situations.

It is important to remember that these literary characters are often too complex to just
simply say that they are “good” or bad,” or that they are “victims” or “perpetrators.”

Activity 12
Make notes in the two columns below. In the first column, write down the good things we see
Babamukuru do in the novel and in the second column, write down some of the bad things he
does.

Good Bad

_____________________ ____________________

_____________________ ____________________

_____________________ ____________________

Now complete the table below by indicating whether Babamukuru is powerful or powerless in
these situations. Make a cross in the appropriate block.

Powerful Powerless

While Babamukuru
was studying he was
also “putting in a full
day’s work on the farm”
(Dangaremba, 1988:19).

The missionaries
thought that
Babamukuru “was a
good boy, cultivatable,
in the way the land
was ...” (Dangaremba,
1988:19).

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 Babamukuru tells
Nyasha: “I expect you
to do as I say. Now
sit down and eat your
food” (Dangaremba,
1988:85).

myUNISA Activity 6
Can you think of any other examples in the novel where Babamukuru is represented as
powerless? Note such examples on the myUnisa discussion forum.

Look at the columns and the table above and then write a paragraph in which you offer a critical
analysis of Babamukuru’s character.

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Feedback on activity 12
In your paragraph you should discuss the complexity of Babamukuru’s character. In
some situations we see him wielding patriarchal power, which he has because of his
gender as a man. In other situations we see him disempowered because of his race as a
black man. He is the perpetrator of violence against Nyasha and he oppresses his wife
and other female characters. However, he is also the victim of racial oppression by the
missionaries who regard him as a boy who should be grateful for his education.

Theoretical reading 1: The following is an extract from an academic article by

Lindsay Pentolfe Aegerter:

“Southern African women’s writing resists the social silencing and ploitical
disenfranchisement* of African women in colonial and neocolonial
communities. placing women at the center of textual representation refuses
their relegation to a ‘matrix of marginality’ that oppresses according to
race, class, gendeer and cultur, and restores women’s centrality in cultural
and self-difinition. African women are represented by such writers as Tsitsi
Dangarembga as agents and actors; they engage in multiple experiences,
maneuvering within and around oppression, certainly, but living their lives
in spite of it. The African women of Nervous Conditions do not merely react;
they act. And in their very action-in their refusal to live their lives only

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 in response to oppression-lies their resistance. By defining themselves
within African- and women-centered spaces, Tsitsi Dangrembga’s female
characters becom none ‘other’ than themselves, with all the complexity and
contradiction ‘self’ entails.

The complementary and contestatory voices of Dangerembga’s cast of

women resis prevailing representations of ‘African woman’ as victim and
replace reductive stereotypes with a full yet subtle spectrum of individual
and cultural identities” (Pentolfe Aegerter, 1996:231).

*disenfranchisement: To deprive someone of their power, rights or priviledges.

Activity 13
Read “Theoretical reading 1” a few times and then answer the following questions.

yy Do you agree that Nervous Conditions resists the silencing of African women? Explain your
viewpoint.
yy Look back over this learning unit and then note how different characters experience oppres-
sion because of their race, class, gender or culture.
yy Can you think of any “women-centered spaces” in the novel?

Feedback on activity 13
Remember that some characters can be doubly or triply oppressed. For example, a
woman who is black and poor can be oppressed because of her gender, her race and
her class. Can you identify such characters in the novel? How do you think “women-
centered spaces” could help women offer resistance to oppression?

Conclusion
This unit has demonstrated how we can usefully apply concepts such as “gender,”
“race,” “patriarchy” and “identity” to our reading of Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel
Nervous Conditions. We have also seen how important it is to consider the spatial
and temporal setting of a novel. It would be very difficult to understand this novel
without first understanding the impact that colonialism had on Rhodesia. In this unit,
you have completed activities that guided you in applying a number of postcolonial
theoretical concepts to your critical engagement with Nervous Conditions.

A summary of Unit 4’s core ideas

●● In Nervous Conditions, Tsitsi Dangarembga explores representations of gender,
race, patriarchy and identity through the perspective of a first person narrator
called Tambu.
●● Representations are not neutral and they are not direct reflections of reality. They
are constructions and they are ideologically and politically loaded.

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 ●● In the novel, we see how patriarchal distributions of power affect all the major
characters, especially the female characters.
●● Patriarchy refers to a system of practices and structures in which men have more
power than women and are able to use their power to dominate and oppress wom-
en.
●● Gender is a social construction.
●● A central focus of this book is on the identity of Tambu as she struggles to make
sense of her life in the various contexts she experiences, and struggles to under-
stand who she is.
●● In the novel, we see how Tambu’s gender as well as her race and economic status
contribute to different types of oppression.
●● It is important to remember that these literary characters are often too complex to
just simply say that they are “good” or “bad,” or that they are “victims” or “perpe-
trators.”

Acknowledgment
The material in this Learning Unit has been adapted from a discussion of the novel
written by Prof A Weinberg, and notes written by Dr B Makina.

References
Dangarembga, Tsitsi. 1988. Nervous Conditions. Banbury: Ayebia Clarke Publishing.
Kappeler, Susanne. 1986. The Pornography of Representation. Cambridge: Polity Press.
McWilliams, Sally. 1991. “Tsitsi Dangaremba’s Nervous Conditions: At the Crossroads
of Feminism and Postcolonialism.” World Literature Written in English 31(1):103–
112.
Pentolfe Aegerter, Lindsay. 1996. “A Dialectic of Autonomy and Community: Tsitsi
Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 15(2):
231–240.

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