Browsing by Author "Smit, Lizelle"
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- ItemNarrating (her)story : South African women’s life writing (1854-1948)(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015-03) Smit, Lizelle; Slabbert, Mathilda; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of English.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Seeking to explore modes of self-representation in women’s life writing and the ways in which these subjects manipulate the autobiographical ‘I’ to write about gender, the body, race and ethnic related issues, this thesis interrogates the autobiographies of three renegade women whose works were birthed out of the de/colonial South African context between 1854-1948. The chosen texts are: Marina King’s Sunrise to Evening Star: My Seventy Years in South Africa (1935), Melina Rorke’s Melina Rorke: Her Amazing Experiences in the Stormy Nineties of South-African History (1938), and two memoirs by Petronella van Heerden, Kerssnuitsels (1962) and Die 16de Koppie (1965). My analysis is underpinned by relevant life writing and feminist criticism, such as the notion of female autobiographical “embodiment” (239) and the ‘I’s reliance on “relationality” (248) as discussed in the work of Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson (Reading Autobiography). I further draw on Judith Butler’s concept of “performativity” (Bodies that Matter 234) in my analysis in order to suggest that there is a performative aspect to the female ‘I’ in these texts. The aim of this thesis is to illustrate how these self-representations of women can be read as counter-conventional, speaking out against stereotypical perceptions and conventions of their time and in literatures (fiction and criticism) which cast women as tractable, compliant pertaining to patriarchal oversight, as narrow-minded and apathetic regarding achieving notoriety and prominence beyond their ascribed position in their separate societies. I argue that these works are representative of alternative female subjectivities and are examples of South African women’s life writing which lie ‘dusty’ and forgotten in archives; voices that are worthy of further scholarly research which would draw the stories of women’s lives back into the literary consciousness.
- ItemSouth African female subjectivity (1868-1977): life writing, the agentive "I" and recovering stories(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-03) Smit, Lizelle; Slabbert, Mathilda; Viljoen, Louise; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of English.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation investigates the formation of white female subjectivity in the life writing of three South African women, penned between 1868 and 1977. The subjects are: Betty Molteno (1852-1927), Hettie Smit (1908-1973) and Joyce Waring (1914-2003). I consider subjectivity formation as contingent on geo-cultural, historical, ethnic and socio-political contexts, as well as cultural and political markers of identity such as race, gender and ethnicity. My analysis of Molteno’s journals, letters, autobiographical poetry and life writing about her, Smit’s letters and autobiographical fiction titled Sy kom met die Sekelmaan [She appears with the Sickle Moon] (1937), and Waring’s trilogy of autobiographical texts I’m no Lady (1956), Sticks and Stones (1969) and Hot Air (1977) indicate these three women’s subjectivities as embodied and formed relationally. However, differences in their respective constituted subjectivities and the discursive divergences noticeable in their life writing practices are also examined to argue the heterogeneous and multifaceted nature of female subjectivity in the delineated period. Concepts such as “embodiment” (Cahill Objectification viii; Anderson 90; Grosz ix-xi; Smith Subjectivity 14) and “relationality” (Coullie 7; Smith and Watson Reading 248; Kleinman and Fitz-Henry 53) are employed throughout my examination of the three selected women’s texts. The aim of the project is to examine unknown subjects’ or women’s life writing which has been neglected in literary scholarship to complement the existing body of work on South African women’s life writing. Archives house memories, forgotten texts have important stories to tell: I maintain throughout this dissertation that these unconventional, conflicted and controversial women employed diverse and arresting autobiographical forms to narrate their respective subjectivities; therefore, their materials are worth investigating. By analysing their life writing, I address lacunae in South African scholarship: Molteno’s materials engendered a discussion of nineteenth century lesbianism and the Mazdaznan religion. My analysis of Smit’s letters enabled me to categorise Sy kom met die Sekelmaan as the first published Afrikaans autobiographical fiction and to discuss her split subjectivity, or two “I”s, which she respectively named “Hettie” and “Hessie”. White middle-class feminism of the 19501980s, of which little has been written, and white women’s endorsement of apartheid through their writing, which is rare, is made possible through my examination of Waring’s autobiographical texts.
- Item'Speaking' and 'silence' in the memoirs of Petronella van Heerden(AOSIS Publishing, 2017-04-28) Smit, LizellePetronella van Heerden’s memoirs have received little academic attention. This article aims to contribute to the limited archive of research on her work to highlight women’s involvement in South African and Afrikaner (de/colonial) politics. It will also explore her manipulation of the autobiographical genre to impart what she considered as important to the Afrikaner youth. My investigation considers Van Heerden’s paradoxical shifts between ‘speaking’ and ‘silence’ regarding feminist issues and her lesbian sexual identity. The article illustrates Van Heerden’s employment of certain writing strategies to critique gender inequality implicit within hegemonic and patriarchal discourses - a central issue of her young life that arguably formed her dissident identity. An examination of the ‘opacity’ pertaining to her portrayal of a lesbian identity in the memoirs is also considered.