MA, Translation, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, 1993

The purpose of this essay is to describe and examine differences in social behavior and social interactions in Nadine Gordimer’s July’s people. Specifically, attention will be given to the interim order that occurs after the collapse of the former South African regime and before a new regime has been established. In short, the essay attempts to answer the question how power is redistributed after the black revolution that occurs in the narrative. Antonio Gramsci’s Neo-Marxist theory is used to examine who dominates and who is subordinated among the novel’s main characters.

Thesis (M.Phil.) - University of Queensland, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references.

This doctoral project is an analytical study of South African writer, Nadine Gordimer's fiction produced from 1949 to 1994. She presents a theme similar to the post-colonial critic, Homi Bhabha's notion of borderland which he propounds as a place of creativity and cultural hybridity in his work The Location of Culture (1994). The "borderland" in Gordimer's fiction acts as a liminal space and becomes a connective tissue in her characters' lives. It emerges in the form of crossing physical frontiers and mental barriers which existed in South African society. Through moments of transition, Gordimer makes her characters aware of a liberal person's marginal position, between the reactionary colonial past and the "inbetween-ness" of the borderland in radical future of South Africa. Along with this introductory background, Chapter One establishes the dual working of physical and psychological processes through which Gordimer develops the theme of "borderland" in her fiction. The subsequent three chapters focus on the variety in the presentation of "borderland" encounters in her fiction written before and after Sharpeville (1960). The thesis concludes that the dual development of physical and psychological processes is a central narrative strategy which determines a link between chronology and the presentation of "borderland" in Gordimer's fiction.

Cette thèse étudie le thème du mariage interculturel et des identités hybrides de personnages dans The Pickup (2001) de Nadine Gordimer, The Translator (1999) de Leila Aboulela et A Mighty Collision of Two Worlds (2002) de Safi Abdi. L’étude cherche à explorer comment les identités culturelles des protagonistes changent lorsqu’ils se marient avec une personne d’une culture différente des leurs et qu’ils rencontrent de nouvelles traditions et de nouvelles croyances. La théorie de l’hybridité développée par Homi Bhabha et par d’autres théoriciens de l’hybridité peut être un outil pertinent pour analyser l’identité des personnages. Bhabha soutient que ceux qui traversent les cultures vivent dans un “in-between space” ou un “third space,” fluctuant entre leur culture d’origine et leur culture d’accueil. Cependant, les conclusions de l’étude montrent que ces personnages de fiction présentent des cas qui n’ont pas été explorés par les théoriciens de l’hybridité. On s’aperçoit d’autre part, que plusieurs facteurs de nature culturelle, religieuse, personnelle ou sociale influencent les protagonistes dans les romans : soit ils leur identité hybride s’affirme, soit ils conservent la façon de vivre de leur pays d’origine. On remarque aussi que les mariages interculturels et l’identité hybride sont liés entre eux. Le mariage interculturel peut être à la fois la manifestation de l’hybridité, et dans ce cas il est perçu comme une affirmation du vécu hybride servant du même coup de moyen d’aller vers l’hybridité. Contrairement à ce à quoi on pourrait s’attendre, on observe que parfois les relations interculturelles entraînent une réaction anti-hybride / This dissertation studies the subject of cross-cultural marriage and hybrid identities of characters in Nadine Gordimer’s The Pickup (2001), Leila Aboulela’s The Translator (1999), and Safi Abdi’s A Mighty Collision of two Worlds (2002). The study seeks to find out how the cultural identities of the protagonists in the novels change when they marry across cultures and face new traditions and beliefs. Hybridity theory, which is developed by Homi Bhabha and other hybridity theorists, can be a relevant tool for analysis of the characters’ identities. Bhabha contends that those who cross cultures live in an “in-between space” or “third space” in which they oscillate between their native culture and the host culture. However, results show that fictional characters present cases which have not been explored by hybridity theorists. In addition, it is stressed that various factors of a cultural, religious, personal, and social nature affect the protagonists in the novels to either develop a hybrid identity or maintain their native way of life. It is also found that cross-cultural marriage and hybridity are correlated. The former can be both a manifestation of hybridity, where the protagonists’ cross-cultural marriage is seen as an assertion of their hybrid experience, and as a means to hybridity. Contrary to expectations, it is observed that cross-cultural relationships lead to an anti-hybrid reaction