The primary intention of this study is to establish the theoretical significance of silence within the sphere of the twentieth-century Southern African novel in English. Clearly a feature of recent writing, silence is less overtly thematised in earlier work. Since relatively little critical and theoretical attention has been paid to silence as a positive phenomenon, however, modes of reading it are sought within the broader sphere of the social sciences, and specifically its tradition of social constructionism. Care is taken to address the pressures of the local context, identified in terms of the postcolonial paradigm as relating to language and to culture. A deliberate theoretical innovation is the renunciation of the trope of penetration in favour of the notion of an interface between intact language-culture systems, given an understanding of culture as existing between subjects in relations of power. Fictional narrative which addresses cross-culturality is thus read as a process of cultural translation, and the volitional deployment of silence as an act of resistance to its power. The significance of language is registered in the use of speech-act theory, in the insistence on meaning as generated in spatially and temporally situated conversation, and in the exploration of the influence of pronominal relations on identity. Emerging from my investigation is a recognition of the measure offered by silence of the autonomy of character as subject, and a corresponding recognition of the constitutive capacity of the reader to site the power of narration amongst the polyphonic voices within the culture of the text. The postcolonial paradigm indicates the need for a regional rather than a national perspective; thus the interfaces considered in the case studies include, in Plaatje's Mhudi, orality and literacy, tribal membership and non-sectarianism, Tswana and English; in Paton's Too Late the Phalarope the private domain and apartheid as public hegemonic discourse, narration as possession, and the tragic as structuring textual relations; and in Head's Maru the constitution of a postcolonial identity that resists and transcends the discursive hostility of racism, and the dislocation, displacement and alienation of exilic refuge from apartheid. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1992.

This study seeks to understand colonial narratives of Zimbabwe 1860-1900 as a locus of transgression and opposition. I investigate the range and complexity of discourses within the imperial project open to both European male and female writers, their shifts over time or within one or more texts. Narratives of the explorer, missionary, hunter and soldier are examined as a literary genre in which attempts were made to re-imagine the Western self through an encounter with Africans. I consider how positions from which the European in the colonies could speak and write were reformulated. This study will employ Foucauldian discourse theory in an analysis of the British 'civilizing mission' in Central Southern Africa. The Introduction examines existing historical and theoretical approaches in this field and argues for a particular use of Foucualt's insights and vocabulary. Chapter One is concerned with the way European explorers constituted notions of 'civilized nations' in Europe and 'primitive tribes' in Africa . I then question how this process of division and exclusion was reinforced by the mythography of an EI Dorado in the African interior. In Chapter Two I consider how Colonial Man was constituted in different ways by Victorian discourses of adventure, travel and conquest. I also attempt to account for the effects that followed the activation, within colonial culture, of structures of exclusion and division based on race or class. Chapter Three focuses on the economic dimension of a dissident LMS missionary and the sustained resistance to Western philanthropy among the Ndebele. I also examine the later Mashonaland mission where the missionary-administrator became instrumental in the division and control of Africans. In the final chapter I consider discursive formations which sought to constrain African resistance during the 1896-7 Chimurenga and the institutionalization of a settler order in the post-Chimurenga era. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1998.

More than any other people, the Bushmen - like the Aborigines on the Australian continent - have epitomized the sub-human other in South African historiography. My primary concern in this study will be to interrogate the representations that gave rise to such entrenched notions of Bushman alterity, and the consequences these have had for Bushman lives. Through an assessment of the writings of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century travellers, missionaries, settlers, colonial officials and scholars, I shall examine understandings of ‘otherness’ and ‘difference’, and the ways in which alterity discourse opened up a space for the ensuing colonial policies of genocide and subjugation against the Bushmen. By allowing the Bushman ‘voices’ to talk back - through an exploration of verbal and visual forms of Bushman creative expression - I hope to present a more balanced sense of Bushman ‘identity’, and expose the fundamental intolerance of difference that lies at the heart of alterity discourse. I shall conclude the thesis with a problematization of contemporary trends of representation, an examination of how these often inadvertently continue the process of othering, and a consideration of their repercussions for present-day Bushman lives. Aside from the obvious relevance of such a study to an understanding of both the destructive events and representations of history, and the current traumatic circumstances of Bushman lives, the questions that this thesis raises can be seen to have more far-reaching implications. In a country such as South Africa, with its long history of segregation and discrimination, issues of otherness and difference take on a particularly compelling resonance. It seems crucial - especially at this point in our national progress - to interrogate our historical attitudes towards otherness, and posit more constructive ways of approaching difference, that allow others their distinct identity, without either demonizing or collapsing such difference; or, to phrase it in Homi Bhabha’s question: “How can the human world live its difference? how [sic] can a human being live Other-wise?” (1994:122). / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1998.

The dissertation focuses on the mapping of the southern African urban spaces and how it is linked to the urban dwellers' constitution of their identities, agency and subversion of the obtaining bleak and hegemonic conditions as represented in current fiction set in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Chapter 1 of the dissertation gives an overview of the social and historical developments characterising the construction of the southern African city from the colonial up to the current global city. The subordinate and marginal identities inscribed upon the Southern Africans as well as early forms of agency and subversion of the Western social, political and economic hegemony that has defined the city through out history will be looked at. Michael de Certeau's (1993) ideas showing the hegemonic Western socio-economic agenda's creation of ordinary urban dwellers' invisibility and fragmentation, which they later subvert by renaming and remapping the alienating urban spaces of New York to improve their own lives, will be taken into consideration in this chapter's definition of the construction of the city and urban identities. In Chapter 2, the representation of the southern African urban spaces' cartography in the fiction is discussed. The characteristic spaces ranging from the socially and morally decayed inner-city, the well-built postmodern and elite Central Business District, the affluent low-density suburbs and the far-away impoverished highdensity suburbs will be explored. The discussion attempts a complex unpacking of linkages between the mapping of Harare and Johannesburg with the hegemonic western social and economic agenda as well as the current urban dwellers' state of individual and psychological fragmentation. Chapter 3 examines the way in which the current southern African urban social dislocation is represented in the fiction. The complexity of the urban dislocation signified by the prevalence of violence, xenophobia and HIV/AIDS is discussed. There is also a dialectical analysis ofhow the depicted urban dislocation is located within the legacy of colonialism and apartheid, the western global cultural and economic influence as well as individual effort and decision-making in the chapter. Chapter 4 explores the ways in which gendered urban spaces are portrayed in the fiction. The subordination of primarily women, as well as the weak and dependent irrespective of gender is discussed. The resultant anxieties, alienation, marginalisation of women and the subservient are viewed from the traditional and colonial patriarchy's construction of the city as a predominantly masculine space excluding women. The western global cultural and economic hegemony's creation of a new gendered ideology characterised by the exclusion and feminisation of the poor, invisible and dependent is also discussed in this chapter. Nevertheless, the chapter ends with a discussion of the existing possibilities of female empowerment notably inscribed in the city's open education system, informal trade space as well as the provision of a social space encouraging pragmatic female decision-making especially in relation to HIV and AIDS. Finally the dissertation's concluding note is based on an evaluation of the postcolonial condition of southern Africa in relation to the mapping of the urban spaces and various identities represented in the fiction. An attempt is also made to place the research within the problematic of whether the mapping is based on postcolonialism or postmodernism. The objective here is to offer the importance of a cross-reading between the two as enabling a more meaningful conception of the region's current urban space. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1993.

This dissertation sets out to analyze the manner in which the writers of dramatic fiction deconstruct the mythology and ideology of the private boys' boarding school in their work. It also seeks to interrogate the sociological and philosophical notions that underpin this fictional work. The central thrust of this dissertation is to explore the representation of the private boys' boarding school experience on the South African stage, with particular reference to writers whose work reflects their personal experiences within such institutions. Private boys' boarding schools promote the ideology that they provide a superior education based on liberal and democratic principles. These institutions supposedly oversee the development of the individual's mental, physical, spiritual, cultural and social education. The projected ideology of the private boys' boarding schools has become entrenched and has manifested itself as a pervasive mythology, which glorifies and glamourises the social reality of such institutions. This mythology is challenged and refuted by the appropriation of various sociological, and philosophical theorists, including: traditional Marxist critiques such as the theories of Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis (1976); structuralist theories such as those proposed by Louis Althusser (1971) and Antonio Gramsci (1971), whose notions of hegemony carry much relevance when considering private boys' boarding schools; and finally, Michel Foucault's (1977) theories of power and power hierarchies (Lotringer, 1989; Smart, 1985). Since South Africa's democratization in 1994, a number of fictional works have emerged that have engaged with the social reality of private boys' boarding schools. Most notably, two plays, Anthony Akerman's Old Boys (2000) and John van de Ruit's War Cry (1999), have highlighted issues surrounding private boys' boarding schools in South Africa. Together with a variety of texts written for different media these works have formed a critical base that, to some degree, has undermined the supremely positive resonance of the entrenched private school mythology, and in so doing, challenge the projected ideology. This dissertation's prime focus is on South African private boys' boarding schools; however, it also includes texts that articulate the social reality of private education in England and America. These texts are relevant firstly because the South African private schools are modeled very closely on the English public school system and secondly, because their inclusion adds weight and variety to the discussion. Important areas of study within this dissertation will be the interpretation of the various thematic concerns raised, and character constructions created by the various writers. This will be underpinned by the theoretical framework, which analyzes systems of power and power hierarchies, and the notion of hegemonic masculinity. Finally, the private boys' boarding school will be examined as a site for hegemonic struggle where power and privilege are continually contested in a relationship characterized by coercion and consent. The critical discourse of the fictional texts and its theoretical underpinning will be placed in opposition to the elitist mythology of the private boys' boarding school and the ideology that these institutions espouse. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2001.

This project asserts that much of the cultural anxiety found in Gothic-infused late-Victorian fiction derives from literary revelations of the nested spaces, shifting identities, and spontaneous connections inherent to the late-Victorian metropolis. The three literary texts studied here – The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle, Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman by E.W. Hornung, and The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan – all depict London as fundamentally suitable for those who seek to evade the disciplinary gaze and to pursue menacing schemes of criminality and invasion. Doyle’s text illustrates the interconnectedness of the spaces within London as well as the passable threshold between London and the English countryside; both the villain Stapleton and the hero Sherlock Holmes use these connections to attack and defend, respectively, the city and its inhabitants. Hornung’s stories depict the machinations employed by the gentleman-thief Raffles as he alters his identity and his codes of behaviour in order to free himself to pursue criminal ends and thus as he challenges cultural barriers. Buchan’s text, building on the others, explores the dissolution of cultural boundaries and identities incumbent upon the spontaneous connections made between those who attack English culture and those, like Richard Hannay, who defend it. There emerges in these texts a vision of London (and by extension Great Britain) as a swirling vortex of motion, an unknowable labyrinth perpetually threatened by menacing agents from without and within. I have employed Victor Turner’s theories of liminality and communitas to describe how criminal agents, and their equally menacing “good-guy” pursuers, separate themselves from structured society in order to move freely and to gain access to the contested thresholds they seek to infiltrate. I also invoke theories of the Gothic, surveillance, and travel, as well as Jeffrey Cohen’s monster theory, to characterize the anxiety embedded in such invasions. / The transformation of contested space : Baker Street, Grimpen Mire and the battle for thresholds in The hound of the Baskervilles -- Hornung's code-switching monster : threatening ambiguity and liminoid mobility in Raffles, the amateur cracksman -- Towards a more inclusive Britishness : Richard Hannay's transformative connections and evolving identity in The thrity-nine steps. / Department of English

Thesis (MA (English Studies)--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis is concerned with kitsch as cultural phenomena, which it will approach as a specific ‘aspect’, or ‘product’ of modernity. In doing so, this thesis aims to interrogate the notion of modernity, through an analysis of kitsch. In the first place, modernity can be thought as a collection of progressive material changes, usually associated with the onset of the industrial revolution. In this sense, it is easy to establish kitsch as a typical product of modernity, as the latter literally provided the objective conditions of possibility for the production of cheap, easily reproducible industrial goods, with which kitsch is often associated. In the second place, more than a set of material changes however, modernity also entailed a concomitant series of cultural values, the rational, scientific worldview associated with the onset of the Enlightenment. The thesis will therefore also consider how kitsch can be regarded as a direct expression of these values, in as much as the characteristic falseness and conformity of kitsch might be seen as a typical product of this rational, utilitarian worldview. In the third place, modernity also refers to the combined effect of these material conditions and cultural values. Kitsch will be considered, then, also in relation to this ‘life-world’. Importantly, the thesis seeks to demonstrate how the inherent contradictions of modernity become particularly apparent in kitsch. The connection between colonialism and the Enlightenment is nothing new. Indeed, the colonial project was driven by the notion that the West was responsible for the “modernization” and “upliftment” of the rest of the world. However, the idea of modernity as a universal, ideologically neutral concept is deeply problematic. Indeed, this can also be considered as one of the contradictions inherent in modernity. By looking at South African kitsch, this thesis will examine the possibility that, as a typical product of modernity produced in a local context, it can reveal much about the manifestations or ‘trajectory’ of modernity outside the metropolitan centres, where it is usually located. This will be explored by examining, on the one hand, the local ‘trajectory’ of the discourse of modernity, and, secondly, to the place assigned to people within the creation of these local modernities / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die onderwerp van hierdie tesis is kitsch as ’n kulturele verskynsel, wat dit as volg benader. Eerstens word daar gevra of dit moontlik is om kitsch as een van die mees tipiese ‘produkte’ van moderniteit te beskou. Die bogenoemde vraagstelling maak dit dus moontlik om moderniteit te ondersoek deur ‘n analise van kitsch. In hierdie tesis, word moderniteit as volg benader: ten eerste, die materiële veranderings in terme van die produksie proses wat gewoonlik met die industriële revolusie geassosieer word; en tweedens, die rasionele, wetenskaplike, kommersiële en utilitêre lewensbeskouing ingelei deur die ‘Verligting’ (of sogenaamde Enlightenment) in die sewentiende eeu. Meer as net ’n versameling fisiese en filosofiese omwentelings, verwys moderniteit egter ook ten derdens na die gekombineerde impak van die bogenoemde in terme van die effek van tegnologie op kultuur, en hoe dit die menslike ‘leefwêreld’ betekenisvol beïnvloed en vervorm. Die bogenoemde skep dus ‘n raamwerk waarbinne kitsch benader kan word. Ten eerste is dit maklik om ‘n verband tussen kitsch en tegnologiese ontwikkelinge, wat dit moontlik maak om vinnige reproduksies van ‘n lae gehalte te vervaardig, te trek. Maar soos beskou vanuit ‘n meer filosofiese perspektief, kan die valsheid en patroonmatigheid van kitsch teruggetrek word na rasioneel utilitaristies wêreldbeskouing van die ‘Verligting’, wat deur die neig na abstrakte, universele waarhede, dikwels vervlakking lei en ook spesifieke etiese gevolge het. Derdens, wanneer daar na die impak van modernisasie op die leefwêreld gekyk word, sal faktore soos die opkoms van die middelklas en sekularisasie ook in ag geneem word. Deur die bogenoemde te ondersoek, sal daar dan ook gedemonstreer word dat die teenstrydighede wat noodwendig deel vorm van die konsep van moderniteit self, in kitsch duidelik sigbaar word, juis in die manier hoe kitsch hierdie teenstrydighede probeer verberg. Díe drie areas dan in ag geneem, is dit verder nodig om ‘n vierde definisie in te sluit om die ondersoek van moderniteit, soos dit in hierdie tesis benader word, te verdiep. Die idee dat kolonialisme en moderniteit ten diepste verbind is, is niks nuuts nie. Die gedagte dat die Weste juis die onontwikkelde kolonies moes “ophef” en “moderniseer” was inderdaad dikwels die ideologiese beweegrede vir die koloniale projek. Maar by nadere ondersoek blyk dit onwaarskynlik dat moderniteit bloot ‘n ideologies neutrale konsep is, wat oral eenvormige resultate sou behaal. Inderdaad, laasgenoemde kan ook as een van hierdie sogenaamde “teenstrydighede” inherent tot die konsep van moderniteit beskou word. Dus, deur na kitsch te kyk wat spesifiek in ‘n Suid-Afrikaanse konteks ontstaan het, wil hierdie tesis ook die moontlik ondersoek dat plaaslike kitsch (as tipiese produk van moderniteit) ons iets meer kan vertel oor die spesifieke verloop en gevolge van hierdie sogenaamde “projek van moderniteit” binne ‘n plaaslike konteks. Dit sal gedoen word deur die volgende twee vraagstukke aan te spreek, aan die hand van plaaslike vorme van kitsch. Eerstens sal daar aandag aan die spesifieke “verloop” en manifestasies van die diskoers van moderniteit in ‘n plaaslike konteks ondersoek word. Tweedens, gaan hierdie tesis ook aandag gee aan die spesifieke plek wat aan verskillende groepe mense binne hierdie plaaslike vorme van moderniteit toegeken word. So ‘n ondersoek sal dan op die plaaslike manifestasies van moderniteit konsentreer, om die aanname dat moderniteit oral eenvormige resultate en vooruitgang sou bereik, ongeldig te verklaar. Die idee van “moderniteit” as universele en eenvormige konsep breek dus letterlik uit mekaar, soos dit met die idee van geografiese spesifieke weergawes van moderniteit gekonfronteer word.

Thesis (MA (English))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis interrogates the relationship between body, subjectivity and space in three antipastoral novels. The texts which I will be discussing, Karel Schoeman’s This Life, Anne Landsman’s The Devil’s Chimney and J.M. Coetzee’s In the Heart of the Country, all foreground the female protagonist’s relationship to a specifically South African landscape in a colonial time-frame. The inter-relatedness between the body, subjectivity and space is explored in order to show that there is a shifting interaction between these registers in the novels. Arising from this interaction, the importance of perspective as a way of being in the world is foregrounded. The approach adopted in this study is based on the assumption that our experience depends upon how we make meaning of the world through our bodies as we encounter people, places and objects. The lived, embodied experience is always a subjective experience. The conceptual framework is derived broadly from psychoanalysis and phenomenology. My primary concern in this study is how marginal subject positions are explored in the space of the South African farm, which, traditionally, is an ideologically fraught locus of Afrikaner patriarchy and oppression. The novels are narrated by distinctive female voices, each speaking differently, but all having the effect of undermining and exposing the hegemony of the patriarchal farm space. In all three novels the question of genre is involved as forming the space of the text itself. The novels speak to the tradition of the plaasroman and the pastoral and, in doing so, open up a conversation with the past. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie tesis word die verhouding tussen die liggaam, subjektiwiteit en ruimte ondersoek in drie romans wat teen die pastorale literêre tradisie spreek. Die betrokke romans is This Life deur Karel Schoeman, The Devil’s Chimney deur Anne Landsman en In the Heart of the Country deur J.M. Coetzee. Die romans speel af in ‘n koloniale tydperk waar die vroulike protagonis se verhouding met die Suid-Afrikaanse landskap op die voorgrond gestel word. Die verwantskap tussen die liggaam, subjektiwiteit en ruimte word ondersoek om die interaksie tussen hierdie drie konsepte ten toon te stel. Wat vanuit hierdie interaksie voortspruit is die ontologiese rol wat perspektief speel as wyse om met die wêreld te verkeer. Hierdie studie benader die romans vanuit die siening dat die mens se ervaring afhang van hoe hy/sy die wêreld verstaan deur die interaksie tussen die liggaam en ander mense, ruimtes en objekte. Die beliggaamde ervaring is dus ‘n subjektiewe ervaring. Die konsepsuele raamwerk van hierdie ondersoek is afgelei van psigoanalise en fenomenologie. Die kern van hierdie studie is om te ondersoek hoe die posisie van die randfiguur in die ruimte van die Suid-Afrikaanse plaas ten toon gestel word. Die plaas is tradisioneel ‘n ideologiese bestrede ruimte van Afrikaner patriargie en onderdrukking. Die romans word verhaal deur drie kenmerkende en verskillende vroulike stemme wat dien om die hegemonie van die patriargale opset op die plase te ondermyn en ontbloot. Die vraagstuk van genre is in al drie romans betrokke aangesien genre die ruimte van die teks self uitmaak. Die romans spreek teen die tradisie van die plaasroman en die pastorale roman en tree sodoende in gesprek met die verlede.

Thesis (MA (English Studies))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Texts by women travellers describing their journeys date back almost as far as those produced by their male counterparts, yet women’s travel writing has only become an area of academic interest during the past ten to fifteen years. Previously, women’s travel writing was mostly read for its entertainment value rather than its academic merit and – as Sara Mills notes in her Discourses of Difference – appeared almost exclusively in the form of coffee table books or biographies offering romanticized accounts of heroic, eccentric women who undertook epic journeys to Africa (4). The growing interest in women’s travel writing as part of colonial discourse coincides with the emergence of gender studies and related subjects. The emergence of these areas of academic enquiry can be attributed to the systematic dismantling of the patriarchal structures, which previously dominated social and academic domains. The aim of this study is to examine European women’s travel writing as a subversive discourse which, while sharing some characteristics with traditional male-produced travel texts from the colonial era, was informed by the discursive constraints of femininity. These texts thus differ from male-produced texts in the sense that, because of the different discursive constraints informing women’s travel writing, they offer commentary on aspects of Africa and its peoples which men had omitted in their travel accounts. Three specific texts by British women who recorded their travels in Africa form the basis of the discussion in this dissertation: the travel writing of Lady Anne Barnard (South African Cape Colony, 1797 – 1801), Mary Kingsley (West Africa: Gabon and the Congo, 1896 – 1900) and Barbara Greene (Liberia, 1935). Since, as Mills argues, “feminist textual theory has restricted itself to the analysis of literary texts and has been concerned with analysis of the text itself” (12), which limits the extent to which one can provide interesting, discerning, and relevant comment on women’s writing, the readings of these texts are not limited to feminist theory of women’s travel writing. Social expectations until as recently as the early twentieth century located women firmly in the domestic sphere. It was almost unthinkable for women to undertake travels other than the traditional Grand Tour. To attempt to venture into the predominantly male territory of travel writing was to expose oneself to harsh criticism and to risk being labelled as eccentric and unfeminine. Thus women had to find a way of making both their travels and writing seem acceptable by social standards, while still presenting as true as possible a picture of Africa in their writing. These constraints of the discourse of femininity on their texts necessarily make women’s writing seem concerned almost exclusively with matters of feminine interest. Mills attributes this to women travel writers’ “problematic status, caught between the conflicting demands of the discourse of femininity and that of imperialism.” (Mills, Discourses of Difference 22) / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Reisbeskrywings deur vroue dateer byna so ver terug as dié wat deur mans geskryf is. Tog het vroue se reisbeskrywings eers in die afgelope tien tot vyftien jaar akademiese belangstelling begin ontlok. Voorheen is vroue se reisbeskrywings meestal vir vermaak eerder as akademiese meriete gelees, en – soos Sara Mills in haar Discourses of Difference opmerk – het dit byna uitsluitlik verskyn as koffietafelboeke of verromantiseerde biografieë van heldhaftige, sonderlinge vroue wat epiese reise na Afrika onderneem het (4). Die toenemende belangstelling in vroue se reisbeskrywings as deel van koloniale diskoers val saam met die verskyning van gender-studies en verwante vakgebiede. Die ontstaan van hierdie akademiese vakgebiede kan toegeskryf word aan die stelselmatige aftakeling van die paternalistiese strukture wat sosiale en akademiese arenas voorheen oorheers het. Die doel van hierdie studie is om Europese vroue se reisbeskrywings te ondersoek as ‘n ondermynende diskoers wat, hoewel dit sekere eienskappe van tradisionele reisbeskrywings deur manlike skrywers uit die koloniale tydperk toon, gegrond is in die beperkende diskoers van vroulikheid. Hierdie tekste verskil dus van tekste deur manlike skrywers in die opsig dat dit, as gevolg van die verskillende diskoersbeperkinge waarin dit gegrond is, kommentaar lewer op aspekte van Afrika en sy bevolking wat mans in hul reisbeskrywings uitgelaat het. Drie spesifieke tekste deur Britse vroue wat hul reise beskryf het vorm die grondslag van hierdie verhandeling; dit is die reisbeskrywings van Lady Anne Barnard (Suid-Afrikaanse Kaapkolonie, 1797 – 1801), Mary Kingsley (Wes- Afrika: Gaboen en die Kongo, 1896 – 1900) en Barbara Greene (Liberië, 1935). Mills voer aan: “Feminist textual theory has restricted itself to the analysis of literary texts and has been concerned with analysis of the text itself” (12). Dít beperk die mate waartoe interessante, skerpsinnige en toepaslike kommentaar oor vroue se reisbeskrywings gelewer kan word; dus is die interpretasie van hierdie tekste nie beperk tot feministiese teorie met betrekking tot vrouereisbeskrywings nie. Tot so onlangs as die vroeë twintigste eeu het die samelewing se verwagtinge vroue streng tot die huishoudelike sfeer beperk. Afgesien van die tradisionele Grand Tour was dit bykans ondenkbaar vir vroue om te reis. As ‘n vrou inbreuk sou probeer maak op die tradisioneel manlike gebied van die skryfkuns sou sy haarself blootstel aan skerp kritiek en onwenslike etikettering as eksentriek en onvroulik. Dus moes vroue ‘n manier vind om sowel hul reise as hul skryfwerk sosiaal aanvaarbaar te maak en terselfdertyd so ‘n egte beeld as moontlik van Afrika te skets in hul skryfwerk. Die beperkinge wat die diskoers van vroulikheid op hul tekste plaas, lei noodwendig daartoe dat vroue se skryfwerk as byna geheel en al beperk tot sake van vroulike belang voorkom. Mills skryf dít toe aan vroue-reisbeskrywers se “problematic status, caught between the conflicting demands of the discourse of femininity and that of imperialism.” (Mills, Discourses of Difference 22)