Die spel van assosiasies in en om “Die verlossing van die beeld” van Breyten Breytenbach
Date
2005-07
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
AOSIS Publishing
Abstract
The play of association in and around “The liberation of the
image” by Breyten Breytenbach
This analysis focuses on the conjunction of memory and
imagination, which is an important impulse in, and key to,
Breytenbach’s work. The play with language and with
associations, the foregrounding, in the short story, “Die
verlossing van die beeld” (Breytenbach, 1983) with its
metafictional title and apparently divergent motifs (rain/water,
watch, onion, the death and burial of a grandfather) acts, as it
were, as an invitation to the reader to become a co-player. The
reader ventures on a search for traces, intertextual links within
the Breytenbach oeuvre and for already acknowledged
influences such as Surrealism (which in turn casts some light on
the strange title of the story) and the Eastern philosophies such
as Zen and the even older Taoism. The analysis also takes into
account the context in which “Mouroir” was written, namely
Breytenbach’s term in prison (1975-1982). Seeing that the
writer had to hand in his manuscripts to the jail authorities
regularly, he might have decided, consciously or by intuition, to
hide some thoughts and feelings behind a screen or a mask, in,
for example in “Die verlossing van die beeld”, a lighter tone and
irony.
Description
Please cite as follows:
Du Toit, P. 2005. Die spel van assosiasies in en om 'Die verlossing van die beeld' van Breyten Breytenbach. Literator, 26(3):23-44, doi:10.4102/lit.v26i3.235.
The original publication is available at http://www.literator.org
Du Toit, P. 2005. Die spel van assosiasies in en om 'Die verlossing van die beeld' van Breyten Breytenbach. Literator, 26(3):23-44, doi:10.4102/lit.v26i3.235.
The original publication is available at http://www.literator.org
Keywords
Breytenbach, Breyten -- Die verlossing van die beeld, Breytenbach, Breyten -- Criticism and interpretation, Memory in literature, Imagination in literature
Citation
Du Toit, P. 2005. Die spel van assosiasies in en om 'Die verlossing van die beeld' van Breyten Breytenbach. Literator, 26(3):23-44, doi:10.4102/lit.v26i3.235.