This study investigates a thus far neglected aspect of Olive Schreiner’s feminism, namely her subversion of Victorian gender models in her early novels, Undine and The Story of an African Farm. In order to determine what is being subverted a brief outline is first provided of the nature of traditional male and female Victorian gender characteristics; thereafter, the key arguments of Gender Theory are provided, the cornerstone of which is that gender is a social construct and not determined by biology. Analysis of Undine focusses on Schreiner’s eponymous heroine’s subversion of female gender roles, finding that Undine’s subversion is incomplete, due to her repeated lapses into conventional behaviour, seen mainly in her need to fulfil a role of service. In addition, details in Undine are linked to biographical aspects of Schreiner’s own life as many critics have made a link between Schreiner’s fiction and instances in her life. In The Story of an African Farm attention is given to both female and male gender subversion. Female gender subversion is analysed in the character Lyndall who deviates from accepted female characteristics of women as meek and docile, while discussion also focusses on her more conventional cousin, Em, who by acting as her foil, highlights Lyndall’s subversiveness. Although in comparison to Undine, Lyndall shows great progress in her ability to free herself from traditional roles for women, she remains held back by her inability to break free from the idea that service to something was an inherent part of women’s natures. Finally, Schreiner’s most radical work regarding gender is found in connection with her male characters, Gregory Rose and Waldo. While Schreiner shows the constructed nature of male gender models in her characterisation of Gregory who identifies more with the female gender, Waldo avoids gender categories completely, aligning himself with neither femininity nor masculinity, by finding an “escape” from these artificial social constructs in the natural world. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / English / MA / Unrestricted

M.A. / This study approaches a special area of comparative literature in English which has not been researched in any great detail to date. Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm, first published in 1883, had an Australian counterpart in Miles Franklin's My Brilliant Career, first published in 1901. Both novels stemmed from a deep-rooted discontent with Colonial society and, specifically, with the status of women in that society. Both these novelists were early Colonial writers whose works proved to be watersheds in the development of the literary output of their respective countries. Both novelists have a similar status in their respective literature, and their novels show many comparable attributes ...

Bibliography (leaves 281-294). / vi, 294 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / by Mandy Dyson / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of English, 1998?

M.A. (English) / In the following dissertation, the literary representation of the farm in Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm (18%3), Smith's The Beadle (1926), and Coetzee's In the Heart of the Country (1976) will be examined under two main categories. The first is the treatment of the farm landscape, or the specifically '* South African version of the pastoral myth. The second, and interrelated category, is the stereotypic vision that originated around the inhabitants of the South African farm. In both categories the focus will fallon the stereotypes of both land and inhabitants that existed at the time that Schreiner and Smith wrote, and the ways in which these stereotypes were used, modified, or expanded by these two authors. In the final chapter I shall examine Coetzee' s ironic use of these stereotypes, especially those that were created around the farm landscape during the nineteenth century.

M.A. (English) / The fallen woman is the central figure in much of the fiction written in Britain during the nineteenth century, and she frequently reappears in colonial writing. In this study, fictional interpretations of the English victorian stereotype of the fallen woman in The story of an African Farm and From Man to Man by Olive Schreiner and in The Beadle by Pauline smith are examined. The first chapter of this dissertation is an attempt to establish the fallen woman's classic stereotypical qualities as exhibited in five British novels. Location in their historical context explains the subtle changes in metropolitan attitudes towards women in general, and fallen women in particular, brought about by the advent of organisations designed for the protection of young girls and the assertion of women's rights. Analysis reveals certain clearly defined conventional trends in characterisation, plot and imagery. The novels studied are Ruth (1853) by Mrs.Gaskell, Adam Bede (1859) by George Eliot, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859) by George Meredith, East Lynne (1861) by Mrs. Henry Wood, and Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891) by Thoma~ Hardy. In chapter two, the close interrelation between the predominant Western conceptions of manhood, colonialism, and racism is examined and an explanation given for the exaggeration in the colonies of the dual role of woman - as chaste angel or fallen devil. Examples of the social engineering undertaken in tribal or chieftainly patriarchies in Southern Africa and by the British Imperial administration at the turn of the century are given. The strong link between the oppression of blacks and women is illustrated. Dutch hierarchical notions of social caste and attitudes to women, which were in place when the British arrived, are discussed. The rapid internalisation of white male attitudes towards women of other races as reflected in the writing of white women in South Africa is then shown. Texts examined are The Letters of Lady Anne Barnard to Henry Dundas (1793 - 1803), edited by A.M. Lewin Robinson, Lady Duff Gordon's Letters from The Cape edited by John Purves, Sophie Levisseur: Memories, edited by Karel Schoeman, AVictorian Lady at the Cape (1849 -1851) edited by Alan F. Hattersley, Charlotte Moor's Marina de la Rey (i903), W.P.Livingstone's Christina Forsyth of Fingoland, the Story of the Loneliest Woman in Africa (circa 1911), Gertrude Page's The Pathway, and A Sketch of Women's Work (1893) edited by Lady Loch. It becomes evident in Saul Solomon's collection of letters entitled The contagious Diseases Act : Its operation at the Cape of Good Hope (1897), in G. Emily Conybeare's treatise entitled Womenly Women and Social Purity (1892) and in the Reverend C. Spoetstra's open letter to the editor of the Volksstem, published as a booklet under the title Delicate Matters (1896), that feminists, Members of the Cape Legislature, and clergymen were opposed to the double standard against women enshrined in Cape statutes. The reasons for their opposition are discussed. The character of the Afrikaner patriarchy which predominated at the turn of the century and into the early years of the twentieth century is described, and reasons suggested for the more mystical and sacrificial approach of this group towards the fallen woman as detected in the Reverend Spoetstra's letter. Having outlined the distortion of British attitudes towards women in South Africa in chapter two, I then examine the fictional interpretations of the fallen woman in Olive Schreiner's novels The story of an African Farm and From Man to Man. Her treatment of this character is related to the British stereotypes and to the influence of colonial attitudes to women and race already established. Biographical details and facts related to the composition of From Man to Man, which are of value in determining why the novelist chose, or was compelled, to represent her characters in the way she did, are studied. A progression of ideas regarding female autonomy and independence is traced in her novels by means of close textual analysis. The chapter ends with an evaluation of Schreiner's attitude to race and racism and of Schreiner's colonial version of a fate of women.

The farm in South Africa is an ideologically laden but also ambivalent concept, associated with pastoral ideals and the hierarchy of the colonial past; but also with fear and insecurity. The representation of the farm in the South African farm novel has been subjected to larger processes of development, dissolution and replacement in accordance with changing socio-historical contexts. Accordingly, the farm novel's contribution to the conceptualization of space, place and identity within the South African and postcolonial literary context, needs to be traced and related to the pastoral tradition as well as its mutations and deviations. This dissertation investigates how Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm (1883) and J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace (1999) as anti-pastoral farm novels, in different ways and degrees, rewrite and transcend the pastoral farm novel tradition by rejecting and subverting the inherent ideological assumptions and pastoral values exemplified by this genre. Specific focus is given to the role of space and place in the identity formation of the female protagonists and the conceptualization thereof in a postcolonial society. / Thesis (M.A. (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005

The farm in South Africa is an ideologically laden but also ambivalent concept, associated with pastoral ideals and the hierarchy of the colonial past; but also with fear and insecurity. The representation of the farm in the South African farm novel has been subjected to larger processes of development, dissolution and replacement in accordance with changing socio-historical contexts. Accordingly, the farm novel's contribution to the conceptualization of space, place and identity within the South African and postcolonial literary context, needs to be traced and related to the pastoral tradition as well as its mutations and deviations. This dissertation investigates how Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm (1883) and J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace (1999) as anti-pastoral farm novels, in different ways and degrees, rewrite and transcend the pastoral farm novel tradition by rejecting and subverting the inherent ideological assumptions and pastoral values exemplified by this genre. Specific focus is given to the role of space and place in the identity formation of the female protagonists and the conceptualization thereof in a postcolonial society. / Thesis (M.A. (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005

This study constitutes an inquiry into how Olive Schreiner‟s peripheral position as a colonial woman writer enabled her rewriting of feminine identity, specifically her subversion of Victorian feminine stereotypes. I focus particular attention on three novels: The Story of an African Farm (1890), and the posthumously published From Man to Man (1926) and Undine (1929). I employ a feminist literary approach to examine how Schreiner‟s hybrid identity as a British South African enabled her revisioning of femininity. If Schreiner is situated within the context of her time, it can be demonstrated that her negotiations of feminine identity are influenced by her dual intellectual and cultural heritage. On the one hand, she can be situated within a British tradition of women‟s writing – in particular, the New Woman fiction which emerged in the late nineteenth century. On the other hand, she can be situated within a nascent South African literary tradition – and demonstrates prototypically post-colonial concerns. Schreiner‟s writing style develops out of her colonial heritage and her experiences as a woman living in a patriarchal society. The resultant voice subverts the narrative traditions of the metropolitan novel in an attempt to articulate an alternative view of femininity. I examine in detail how Schreiner undermines and subverts Victorian stereotypes, and focus particular attention on the „fallen woman‟ and the „mother-figure‟. She attempts to challenge conventional Victorian conceptions of femininity by erasing the binary between the „angel‟ and the „whore‟ in order to create a New Woman. In Undine and The Story of an African Farm the full realisation of this New Woman is deferred, since both protagonists die, but From Man to Man is more nuanced, particularly in its emphasis on economic empowerment for women. Schreiner also destabilises traditional notions of motherhood, in order to offer glimpses of an alternative maternal role. It is my contention that, in her depiction of mother-figures and (un)fallen women, Schreiner challenges stock Victorian notions of femininity and, in the process, creates a space in which new possibilities for women can be imagined and negotiated.