M.A. (Afrikaans) / The idea of what a concept is and how concepts change is currently a hot topic of discussion within the cognitive semantics. The term concept has changed significantly from Plato's Idee up until De Saussure's theory early in the twentieth century that the word and its meaning are connected in an arbitrary manner. From there onwards the meaning of the term concept has changed drastically. Linguists like Ogden & Richards and Lyons initially referred to the concept as the mental image one recalls when reference to a certain word is made. But, since the development of the cognitive semantics in the late nineteen eighties, it has developed as a term consisting of image-schemata in the form of gestalts, categories and category models as well as semantic networks. Reinhart Koselleck (2004:84),a historian who focussed on concepts and the change in meaning thereof recommended that any concept is a conglomeration of all the linguistic and semantic networks bedded into the concept but the socio-political factors are especially important when studying a specific concept. Koselleck also focused on the prevalence of key concepts in any society. According to Koselleck key-concepts are those concepts that fulfil a key role in society. Society is depending on these concepts and any change in society will also have a huge impact on the concept. The purpose of this study is to investigate changes in one key-concept namely the concept marriage in the Afrikaner community due to significant changes that has taken place in this concept over the last century. The investigation to what a concept is and how concepts change, take place within the field of the cognitive semantics and this study commences with a theoretical discussion on concepts. After a theoretical discussion on concepts, the historical development and changes of the Western marriage is on the foreground. Seeing that the Afrikaner community developed within the framework of the broader Western civilization, it is necessary to also focus on the broad socio-political and semantic changes. Koselleck stressed the importance of the social changes when any concept is investigated and therefore this study also gives attention accordingly. Focus is placed on the statutory and religious components and changes in the Afrikaans marriage but other socio-politicalfactors impacting on the changes in marriage in the Afrikaner community are also investigated and discussed. The concept marriage and synonyms 'trou (getting married) and "eg' (matrimony) as portrayed in the Afrikaans language system, are also investigated. Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships to the concept marriage are mentioned and all the dictionary definitions are stated. This discussion ends with a demonstration of a prototypical framework of the concept marriage with special reference to changes that have occurred, but also to emphasize pressure that marriage in the Afrikaans community is currently undergoing to change its form and presentation again. To demonstrate how any linguistic change occurs firstly in the social realm before it is transfered to the linguistic system- this study applies cognitive semantic methods in the form of image-schematic structures and force schemas to the novel Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk. The novel Agaat is chosen as example material because of its setting in a pastoral environment before extensive urbanisation took place. The story is also set against the backdrop of the golden era of marriage and the marriage of Milia and Jak de Wet is investigated accordingly. Koselleck (2004:70) states that a concept changes firstly in the social realm before it gets widely accepted in the documented language systems and practice of a community. The language community and practice need to internalize and document any changes before its gets widely accepted as the prototype sample. This study demonstrates how changes commence firstly in the socio-political practice preparatory to these changes getting accepted into the wider language community and semantic networks.

Conrad Aiken’s observation that the “landscape and the language are the same, and we ourselves are language and are land,” depicts the material terrain we inhabit as necessarily informing the language we speak. An important corollary to Aiken’s observation is language itself writes the land. I argue that the binary division between culture and nature, as well as the attempts to universalise languages, abstracts discourse from necessary situated knowledges, alienating the land from the language it embodies. The severing of culture and nature as implied by Aiken’s observation is indicative of humanity’s progressive isolation from the land through language, as well as from their embodied natures. Remoteness results in what Marlene van Niekerk’s novel Agaat (2006) terms a “poverty disease” (2006: 251). Michiel Heyns confirms that the character Agaat relates this barrenness of spirit to her “diagnosis of spiritual ills through human dealings with the soil” (2009: 132). I illustrate the novel’s revitalisation of language as an act of ecological recuperation that alleviates dis-eased consciousnesses by potentially recognising, valuing and responding to situated knowledges revealed in land narratives.1 My argument therefore uncovers the challenges that the novel directs at an unreformed and universal Western2 To this end I use critiques of colonialism that reveal culture’s assimilation of the Other, rationalist discourse that continues to appropriate nature as resource for a hierarchical culture. 3 By combining this literary analysis with a wider eco-theoretical enquiry I position my study in an interdisciplinary field of investigation. This is in response to the damaging consequences of the inherited and fragmentary nature of specialisation. In addition, by detailing literary and feminist especially the work of Val Plumwood, Donna Haraway and Nicole Brossard. I use these critiques to analyse self/Other oppositions that Western culture constructs and patrols to maintain a defensive culture of domination. I show how nature and all those feminised and marginalised by Western discourses that hierarchise culture have been consistently overlooked and under-represented by those who purport to ‘control’ the environment and privilege the symbolic language as the carrier of culture. Agaat provides fruitful terrain for the reflection of marginalised voices; voices that confirm the environment and language as necessarily both feminist and social justice issues. 1 My preference for the hyphenated usage of the word ‘dis-ease’ signals the equation between discomfort or unease and disease or sickness. 2 While I am concerned over emphasising words such as Western and Apartheid by capitalising them, I have decided to retain this form so as not to diminish the magnitude of the effect these discourses have had on global and regional communities. 3 When referring to Others I, like Karen J. Warren, capitalise the term. Warren defines Others as all earth Others subjected to “unjustified domination-subordination relationships” (2005: 252). responses to Western patriarchal discourse and its impact on nature, I show the ways in which literature negotiates the possible re-conceptualisation of our collective cultural imagination. Van Niekerk’s novel offers a sustained critique of the oppressive Western conceptual frameworks that have dominated Others through hegemonic constructions. Furthermore, I investigate what this writer might offer as an alternative to systems of social, political and ecological control and the violence it inflicts.

Thesis (MPhil (Afrikaans and Dutch))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / In this descriptive study, recent translations into English of two highly-regarded Afrikaans novels are investigated. The purpose of this is to describe these translations in a comparative manner, in order to arrive at conclusions about the differing modi operandi of diverse literary translators. The texts studied are Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk (2004) and Hierdie lewe by Karel Schoeman (1993), titled Agaat (2006) and This Life (2005) in English, and translated by Michiel Heyns and Elsa Silke, respectively. The two translators differ in that one is a creative writer in own right, though not being a formally-trained translation scholar, and translated with input from the source text author. The other is not a creative writer, translated without input from the author and has a formal translation-theoretical qualification. In this study, the target texts produced by these two translators are compared with their respective source texts, in order to determine whether there are differences or similarities in their modi operandi. A theoretical framework is compiled using relevant translation theories in order to systematise the comparison of the source texts and their translations. The novels are then compared to their translations in turn, on various levels, in order to describe the modus operandi of each translator. This results in certain conclusions being drawn about the different ways in which diverse translators work. These conclusions are linked to norms apparent in the decisions the translators make, or the lack thereof, as well as the role of the translation skopos. A number of topics for further research are also mentioned.

The novel Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk is a highly complex text. One of the most compelling aspects of the novel is the way in which the author constructs an underlying metaphorical grid which determines the composition of the novel. The motives in the novel cannot be regarded merely as motives because specific prominent and powerful metaphors are continually exploited by variation and extension. The complicated relationship between narrative and metaphor on different levels is of great importance in the interpretation of the novel. Due to the complexity of the text, the dominant metaphors cannot be analyzed in the traditional manner. In this study I want to demonstrate that conceptual blending theory, which can be regarded as a branch of conceptual metaphor theory, offers a theoretical framework that can be used to understand the underlying cognitive functioning of the interaction between author, text and reader. This dissertation will examine the processes of blending shaped from the mottos posted at the beginning of the novel. The three mottos, the music motto, the embroidery motto and the farming motto, act throughout the novel as a backdrop against which events in the novel can be interpreted. The blending formed from these mottos merge with other metaphors in the novel in order to generate meaning. The three mottos were taken from the introductions of the FAKVolksangbundel, the embroidery book Borduur so and the Hulpboek vir boere in Suid-Afrika. The three books are used by Milla to educate and teach Agaat. She uses the books to "create" Agaat and to mould her into the person that Milla wants her to be. The mottos stress the uplifting of the people and the creation of a true Afrikaner identity. Agaat accomplishes everything that the books require of her, she becomes an expert in the areas that determine the Afrikaner identity. However, as a brown woman, she is still not considered a member of community or as a fully acceptable civilized woman. The meanings of the other important metaphor in the novel, the mirror metaphor, are also investigated extensively. The mirror plays an important role in the relationship between Milla and Agaat. The mirror is also important in Milla's confrontation with herself, especially in her experience of her illness and her acceptance of her imminent death. The mirror is also used in the depiction of the relationship between characters and the experience of each other as the "Other". The blending of the mirror metaphor and the link that can be established with the theories of Lacan are part of one of the main blendings formed from the mirror metaphor. This metaphor also interacts with the embroidery metaphor. The mirror reflects images to the characters and via the characters to the readers which enforce moral judgments about perceptions and practices. The final part of the dissertation analyses how the dominant metaphors, namely music, embroidery, farming and the mirror, blend in multiple ways in the text to create new domains of meaning. The four main metaphors also blend with secondary metaphors in the novel in order to generate meaning. One of the important secondary metaphors is the "waterhondjies". The "waterhondjies" blend with Guido Gezelle's poem "Het Schrijverke". There is also emphasis on the relationship between writing and the "waterhondjies". The blending of the caeser butterfly plays an important role in the novel as well. In the final chapter the statement is made that the metaphors and symbols in Agaat cannot merely be regarded and interpreted as traditional motives, but rather as examples of cognitive blending. The types of blending in the novel require the cooperation of the reader in all cases. The reader must, in some cases, as with the mirror metaphor and the metaphor of the "waterhondjies", identify and activate the second domain of the blend. In the case of the mottos the different domains of the blend are activated by the author and the reader only needs to provide an interpretation. At the end of the dissertation the conclusion is made that the blending theory offers a suitable method and terminology to analyze the complex processes of generating meaning in the novel. / Thesis (M.A. (Afrikaans and Dutch))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010

The novel Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk is a highly complex text. One of the most compelling aspects of the novel is the way in which the author constructs an underlying metaphorical grid which determines the composition of the novel. The motives in the novel cannot be regarded merely as motives because specific prominent and powerful metaphors are continually exploited by variation and extension. The complicated relationship between narrative and metaphor on different levels is of great importance in the interpretation of the novel. Due to the complexity of the text, the dominant metaphors cannot be analyzed in the traditional manner. In this study I want to demonstrate that conceptual blending theory, which can be regarded as a branch of conceptual metaphor theory, offers a theoretical framework that can be used to understand the underlying cognitive functioning of the interaction between author, text and reader. This dissertation will examine the processes of blending shaped from the mottos posted at the beginning of the novel. The three mottos, the music motto, the embroidery motto and the farming motto, act throughout the novel as a backdrop against which events in the novel can be interpreted. The blending formed from these mottos merge with other metaphors in the novel in order to generate meaning. The three mottos were taken from the introductions of the FAKVolksangbundel, the embroidery book Borduur so and the Hulpboek vir boere in Suid-Afrika. The three books are used by Milla to educate and teach Agaat. She uses the books to "create" Agaat and to mould her into the person that Milla wants her to be. The mottos stress the uplifting of the people and the creation of a true Afrikaner identity. Agaat accomplishes everything that the books require of her, she becomes an expert in the areas that determine the Afrikaner identity. However, as a brown woman, she is still not considered a member of community or as a fully acceptable civilized woman. The meanings of the other important metaphor in the novel, the mirror metaphor, are also investigated extensively. The mirror plays an important role in the relationship between Milla and Agaat. The mirror is also important in Milla's confrontation with herself, especially in her experience of her illness and her acceptance of her imminent death. The mirror is also used in the depiction of the relationship between characters and the experience of each other as the "Other". The blending of the mirror metaphor and the link that can be established with the theories of Lacan are part of one of the main blendings formed from the mirror metaphor. This metaphor also interacts with the embroidery metaphor. The mirror reflects images to the characters and via the characters to the readers which enforce moral judgments about perceptions and practices. The final part of the dissertation analyses how the dominant metaphors, namely music, embroidery, farming and the mirror, blend in multiple ways in the text to create new domains of meaning. The four main metaphors also blend with secondary metaphors in the novel in order to generate meaning. One of the important secondary metaphors is the "waterhondjies". The "waterhondjies" blend with Guido Gezelle's poem "Het Schrijverke". There is also emphasis on the relationship between writing and the "waterhondjies". The blending of the caeser butterfly plays an important role in the novel as well. In the final chapter the statement is made that the metaphors and symbols in Agaat cannot merely be regarded and interpreted as traditional motives, but rather as examples of cognitive blending. The types of blending in the novel require the cooperation of the reader in all cases. The reader must, in some cases, as with the mirror metaphor and the metaphor of the "waterhondjies", identify and activate the second domain of the blend. In the case of the mottos the different domains of the blend are activated by the author and the reader only needs to provide an interpretation. At the end of the dissertation the conclusion is made that the blending theory offers a suitable method and terminology to analyze the complex processes of generating meaning in the novel. / Thesis (M.A. (Afrikaans and Dutch))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010

Thesis (MA (English))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis proposes a detailed study of the novel Agaat by South African author Marlene van Niekerk (first published 2004). A particular focus throughout is on constructions of identity and subjectivity, and the novel is considered as writing within and against both the Realist tradition as well as the South African genre of the plaasroman and/or farm novel. The translation of the novel into English by Michiel Heyns (published 2006) is used as primary text, which furthermore raises questions of language and interpretation already implicit in the narrative, questions which provide a compelling filter for reading the novel in its entirety. In the Introduction, I briefly delineate the novel’s storyline. This serves to introduce the novel’s thematic concerns and outlines the linguistic complexities which emerge as a result of the novel’s structure. An exposition on Realism in the novel follows, where I suggest how a consideration of the Realist tradition might be useful in exploring the mimetic effect in Agaat. Next the appearance and history of the plaasroman and farm novel in South African literature is considered. In Chapter One, the novel’s structural elements are examined in greater detail, through a close analysis of the five different narrative voices of the novel. I suggest that the novel is an elaborate study of identity and subjectivity which simultaneously uproots questions of voice and authorship. While the subject matter of the novel and the attention to details of farming and the physical environment makes it seem a near-historical record and places Agaat within the genre of the plaasroman, the effect of the different voices of the novel is to undercut fundamentally any stable narrative authority. Agaat is nevertheless an incredible compendium of the nitty-gritty of life. In Chapter Two I explore the manner in which the body and the self are located within a very particular landscape and setting. How and for what purpose is subjectivity and identity refracted and articulated through metaphors of space and the experiences of place? In the course of a close reading of the novel, I draw on broadly post-structuralist conceptions of language, as well as South African critics’ writing on the genre of the plaasroman. The third and final chapter examines the novel Agaat in translation. Agaat is a deeply literary novel, drawing on a remarkably wide lexicon of cultural references, suffused with questions of interpretation and a compelling and complex inquiry of language. The English translation by Michiel Heyns remains a novel of and about Afrikaans. Quite how this is achieved raises questions of translation pertaining both to the ‘postcolonial’, if one reads South Africa as such, and to the specifically local. To this end, a brief context to translation and language politics within the ‘postcolonial’ and South Africa is considered, before engaging in a closer examination of the techniques by which Agaat was translated from Afrikaans into English. I conclude with remarks regarding the success of the translation into English and suggest that the translation is masterful but that its most striking characteristics depend on a local South African reader. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis behels ‘n noukeurige studie van die roman Agaat (2004) deur die Suid- Afrikaanse skrywer Marlene van Niekerk. Die klem val deurgaans op die konstruksie van identiteit en subjektwiteit, en die roman word beskou as ‘n reaksie teen, maar ook ‘n uitbouing van die tradisies van Realisme en die Suid-Afrikaanse plaasroman/“farm novel”. Die primêre teks vir hierdie ondersoek is Michiel Heyns se Engelse vertaling van die roman (2006), wat verdere vrae rondom taal en interpretasie laat ontstaan. Sodanige vrae is alreeds implisiet in die narratief gesetel en verskaf ‘n indringende lens waardeur die roman in sy geheel gelees kan word. In die Inleiding gee ek ‘n kort oorsig van die verhaalloop, wat ook dien as ‘n bekendstelling van die roman se temas en die linguistieke kompleksiteite wat ontstaan as ‘n gevolg van die roman se struktuur. ‘n Beskrywing van Realisme in die roman volg, waarin ek suggereer dat ‘n beskouing van die tradisie van Realisme nuttig kan wees vir ‘n verkenning van die mimetiese effek in Agaat. Volgende word die verskyning en geskiedenis van die plaasroman en “farm novel” in Suid-Afrikaanse literatuur bekyk. In Hoofstuk Een word die strukturele elemente van die roman in groter detail beskou deur middel van ‘n noukeurige analise van die vyf verskillende narratiewe stemme in die roman. Ek stel voor dat die roman ‘n verwikkelde studie van identiteit en subjektwiteit is, wat terselfdetyd ook sekere vrae rondom stem en outeurskap ontbloot. Die onderwerp van die roman en die aandag wat dit skenk aan noukeurige beskrywings van boerdery en die landelike omgewing skep die indruk van ‘n historiese rekord en situeer Agaat in die genre van die plaasroman, maar die effek van die verskillende stemme is dat enige stabiele narratiewe outoriteit op deurslaggewende wyse ondermyn word. Desondanks bly Agaat ‘n indrukwekkende kompendium van die materiële aspekte van die lewe. In Hoofstuk Twee verken ek die manier waarop die liggaam en die self gesetel is binne ‘n baie spesifieke landskap en ligging. Hoe en om watter rede word subjektiwiteit en identiteit versplinter en geartikuleer deur middel van metafore van spasie en die ervaring van plek? Deur die loop van ‘n noukeurige lees van die roman betrek ek breedvoerig sekere post-strukturele gedagtes oor taal, asook Suid-Afrikaanse kritici se beskouings oor die genre van die plaasroman. Die derde en laaste hoofstuk ondersoek die roman Agaat in vertaling. Agaat is ‘n diep literêre roman. Dit betrek ‘n merkwaardige verskeidenheid kulturele verwysings en is deurspek met vrae rondom interpretasie en ‘n indringende en komplekse ondersoek na die aard van taal. Michiel Heyns se Engelse vertaling bly ‘n roman oor Afrikaans. Presies hoe dít bewerkstellig word opper sekere vrae oor vertaling wat verwys na die “postkoloniale”, as mens Suid-Afrika in hierdie lig sou beskou, en ook na die spesifiek plaaslike. Daarom word ‘n opsommende konteks van vertaling en taalpolitiek in die “postkoloniale” en in Suid-Afrika belig, voordat die tegniek waardeur Agaat van Afrikaans na Engels vertaal is, van naderby bekyk word. Ek sluit af met opmerkings oor die sukses van die vertaling na Engels en stel voor dat die vertaling meesterlik is, maar dat die mees treffende aspekte daarvan ‘n plaaslike, Suid-Afrikaanse leser vereis.

Thesis (MA (Afrikaans and Dutch))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study investigates the representation of the female subject in Marlene van Niekerk’s novel, Agaat (2004). The female subjects, Milla and Agaat, are the focus of this study. Both women are subjected to drastic situations, which not only influence their relationship, but also their respective identities. This turn of events lead up to a power struggle between Milla and Agaat, which eventually gets reversed throughout the course of the narrative. The focus is essentially on the complex structure of the novel, where a prologue and epilogue serve as a framework for the four different story lines, each with its own narrative technique. A number of theoretical approaches will be employed in order to explore the discussion of the female subject. The novel, which is presented throughout by a single narrator, leads the study to concepts such as representation, subjectivity and identity. In an attempt to understand “the other”, the central role of language and mirrors with regard to representation is explored. Van Niekerk’s reinvention and even subversion of the farm novel of the late twentieth century involves ideologies of the Afrikaner such as land and religion, gender, politics and culture. This strategy results in the focus on concepts like subjectivity and identity. Both these processes will be explored in an attempt to gain insight into the characters. Key elements such as displacement, substitution and revenge give momentum to the chain of events in the story and lead up to introspection by both women. It is especially Milla’s terminal illness that induces introspection and preparation, for both Milla and Agaat, towards death. The influence of all these events, Milla and Agaat’s mutual dependence on each other, as well as the way in which they position themselves in the face of death, prompt this study. This study explores the influence of these events on women, the power struggle that developed out of this and the way in which their respective roles are reversed. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie ondersoek die representasie van die vroulike subjek in Marlene van Niekerk se roman Agaat (2004). Daar word gefokus op die twee vroue in die verhaal, Milla en Agaat. Beide vroue word aan ingrypende situasies onderwerp, wat ʼn invloed op hulle verhouding sowel as hulle onderskeie identiteite het. Hierdie gebeure lei tot ʼn magspel tussen Milla en Agaat, wat tydens die verloop van die verhaalgebeure volledig omgekeer word. Die fokus val eerstens op die roman se ingewikkelde vertelstruktuur waarin daar sprake is van ʼn pro- en epiloog as raamwerk waarbinne vier verhaallyne, elk met sy eie verteltegniek, gebruik word. ʼn Verskeidenheid teoretiese uitgangspunte word nagegaan ten einde die representasie van die vroulike subjek te ondersoek. Die roman, wat deurentyd uit die perspektief van een verteller aangebied word, lei die studie na ondersoekterreine soos representasie, subjektiwiteit en identiteit. Die sentrale rol van taal en spieëls ten opsigte van representasie en in die poging om die “ander” te kan verstaan, word nagegaan. Van Niekerk se herskrywing van die plaasroman in die laat twintigste eeu betrek op subtiele wyse die ideologieë van die Afrikaner rondom grond en religie, gender, politiek en kultuur. Dit lei tot die fokus op subjektiwiteit en identiteit. Beide hierdie prosesse word in die studie ondersoek ten einde begrip vir die karakters te probeer vind. Elemente soos verplasing, plaasvervangerskap en vergelding gee stukrag aan die verhaalgebeure en lei tot besinning by albei vroue. Dit is veral Milla se terminale siekte wat aanleiding gee tot bestekopname en voorbereiding op die dood. Die invloed van al dié gebeure en hoe twee vroue wat op mekaar aangewese is, hulleself posisioneer ten opsigte van die dood, gee aanleiding tot hierdie studie. Die studie onderneem om ondersoek in te stel na die invloed van gebeure by beide vroue, die magspel wat hieruit ontwikkel en hoe die rolle stelselmatig omruil in die verhaalgebeure.

AFRIKAANS : Die doel van die navorsing was om vas te stel watter metodes Marlene van Niekerk in haar roman Agaat gebruik om die karakters en hulle omstandighede deur middel van verwysings na musiek te teken. Die verhandeling begin met ’n oorsig oor die interdissiplinêre studiegebied van verwysing na musiek in die letterkunde. Op hierdie terrein het onder andere Fuller, Losseff, Scher en Weliver belangrike rolle gespeel. Die wyse waarop uitsprake van onder andere Bakhtin, Barthes, Blanchot, Eco, Kristeva en Van Wyk Louw op die gebied van verwysing, en dus op Van Niekerk se Agaat, van toepassing gemaak kan word, is ondersoek. Deur ’n onderhoud met Van Niekerk is daar meer oor haar houding oor musiek en verwysings daarna in Agaat uitgevind. Sy voel sterk dat die gebeure en musiekverwysings in Agaat nie op haar as persoon van toepassing gemaak moet word nie. Tog is daar baie van die musiek waarna verwys word wat vir haar ook baie betekenisvol is. Sy luister baie na musiek en gebruik dit as ’n stimuleringsmiddel, maar ook om haar in toom te hou sodat sy nie te “maklik” skryf nie. Van Niekerk beskik oor ’n goeie kennis van musiek en van die repertorium en kan dus ’n wye verskeidenheid verwysings maak na musiekterminologie, musiekinstrumente, musiekmaak, Suid-Afrikaanse kultuur waarin musiek ’n deurslaggewende rol speel, FAK- en Afrikaanse volksliedere, psalms, gesange en hallelujaliedere, ander ligte liedere, en komposisies uit die repertorium van klassieke musiek. Daar word in Agaat ook verskuilde, vertaalde aanhalings van versreëls uit getoonsette gedigte uit die Duitse kunsliedrepertorium ingesluit. In laasgenoemde geval (gedigte getoonset deur Brahms, Mahler, Schubert en Schumann) word die woordteks op ’n komplekse manier geïntegreer. Van Niekerk sluit die woordteks van godsdienstige en volksliedere byna uitsluitlik in om ironiese kommentaar op gebeure te lewer. Dit is selde dat hierdie tekste in hulle gebruiklike omgewing aangewend word. Die intertekstuele integrasie van musiekverwysings in Agaat kan as ’n baie groot prestasie beskou word. ENGLISH : The aim of the research was to establish the methods used by Marlene van Niekerk in her novel Agaat (the Afrikaans version) to paint the characters and their circumstances by means of references to music. The dissertation starts with an overview of the interdisciplinary field of music references in literature. In this area Fuller, Losseff, Scher and Weliver (amongst others) have played a major role. The ways in which pronouncements by (amongst others) Bakhtin, Barthes, Blanchot, Eco, Kristeva and Van Wyk Louw can be applied to the field of references, and therefore to Van Niekerk’s Agaat, were investigated. In an interview with Van Niekerk, her views on music and references to music were clarified. She feels strongly that the events and references to music in Agaat should not be equated to her own life. Nevertheless, much of the music referred to is also significant to Van Niekerk. She listens to music much, using it as a stimulus, but also to keep her in check so that she does not fall into “easy” writing. Van Niekerk possesses a sound knowledge of music and of the repertoire. She can therefore make a variety of references to music terminology, music instruments, music making, South African culture in which music plays a decisive role, Afrikaans folk songs and songs from the FAK song album, psalms and hymns, popular songs, and compositions from the repertoire of classical music. Concealed, translated quotations of lines from German poems set to music as art songs are also included in Agaat. In these cases (poems set to music by Brahms, Mahler, Schubert and Schumann) the word text is incorporated in a complex manner. Van Niekerk includes the word texts of religious and folk songs nearly exclusively in order to comment on events in an ironic way. These texts are seldom presented in their proper circumstances. The intertextual integration of music references in Agaat can be regarded as a great achievement. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Afrikaans / unrestricted

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis investigates the ways in which white subjectivity is shaped by colonial and imperial spaces. Jean Rhys’s Voyage in the Dark (1934), Marguerite Duras’s The Sea Wall (1952/1967) and Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat (2004/2006) are vastly different novels from multifarious literary traditions, yet they join each other through their protagonists: white creole women. In this study, I engage most prominently with white creole female subjectivity, framing my study with theories of the subject proposed by Homi Bhabha and Judith Butler. In order to interrogate creolité, I draw on Bhabha’s concept of “thirdness” – a category signifying a position in-between binary categories of representation – and Butler’s conceptualisation of subjectivity/subjection, through which she highlights the ambivalences of the process of interpellation. I also read through lenses proposed by whiteness studies in the United States and South Africa, approaching creolité not as an indication of racial hybridity, but rather a term connoting cultural and political in-betweenness. As my discussions of the novels illustrate, white creole femininity in the (post)colony is a subject position through which intricate webs of “complicity and resistance” (Whitlock 349) have to be negotiated. Looking at the white creole women as textual constructs embedded in genres which advance a particular set of politics, I explore the ways in which the authors, through their novels and protagonists, navigate various political and cultural ambiguities and inconsistencies. Establishing the theoretical framework in the introductory first chapter, in Chapter 2 I read Rhys’s novel as a modernist text that elicits a particular postcolonial politics. I link the protagonist’s social alienation in London and the Caribbean to the experience of the middle passage; this is followed by an exploration of her sexuality with reference to the figures of the European prostitute and the ‘Hottentot’ Venus. In Chapter 3 I investigate Duras’s novel and trace the ways in which a family of impoverished “Colonial natives” (Duras 138) continually fail to establish themselves as ‘legitimate’ white colonials in (French colonial) Southeast Asia. Lastly, in Chapter 4, I approach Van Niekerk’s novel not only as a feminist re-writing of the plaasroman, but also as a “complicitous critique” (Warnes 121) that reflects nostalgically – yet critically – on Afrikaner nationalism. I show how the novel registers a vision of the quotidian that is uncomfortable and unhomely. Together, the three novels speak in highly comparable and complex ways about how white creole women experience (un)homeliness in the (post)colony. This thesis probes the extent to which the novels negotiate ‘home’ (or the lack thereof): displaced, alienated and often expressing forms of nostalgia, the protagonists struggle to establish forms of belonging in spaces within which they oscillate between opposed cultures, ideologies and politics. Ultimately, my study is crucially underscored by the question of displacement and estrangement (in various guises), and the way in which they inflect the establishment and performance of femininity. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis ondersoek die wyses waarop koloniale en imperiale ruimtes wit subjektiwiteit beïnvloed. Jean Rhys se Voyage in the Dark (1934), Marguerite Duras se The Sea Wall (1952/1967) en Marlene van Niekerk se Agaat (2004/2006) is uiteenlopende romans uit verskeie literêre tradisies: nietemin sluit hulle by mekaar aan deur hul hoofkarakters – wit kreoolse vroue. ‘n Bespreking van wit kreoolse vroulike subjektiwiteit vorm die grondslag van my studie, en ek struktureer dit rondom Homi Bhabha en Judith Butler se teorieë van subjektiwiteit. Ek benader kreoolsheid deur middel van Bhabha se konsep van “thirdness” – a kategorie wat ‘n plek tussen binêre opposisies aandui – asook Butler se teorie van “subjectivity/subjection” waarin sy the ambivalente proses van interpellasie belig. Verder lees ek die tekste met behulp van benaderings soos uiteengelê deur blankheid studies in die Verenigde State en Suid-Afrika. Ek beskou (wit) kreoolsheid dus nie as ‘n aanduiding van ras-hibrideit nie, maar eerder kulturele en politieke ambivalensie. My bespreking van die drie romans illustreer postkoloniale wit kreoolse vroulikheid as ‘n subjek-kategorie wat verwikkeld is in vorms van medepligtigheid én opstandigheid (Whitlock 349). Ek beskou die karakters as literêre konstrukte wat ingebed is in genres met spesifieke politieke standpunte. As sodanig, dink ek ook na oor die wyses waarop the outeurs, deur middel van hul romans en hoofkarakters, uiteenlopende politieke en kulturele teenstrydighede uitbeeld. In Hoofstuk 1 lê ek ‘n teoretiese raamwerk uiteen, en in Hoofstuk 2 beskou ek Rhys se roman as ‘n modernistiese teks wat terselfdertyd opvallende postkoloniale politieke temas bevat. Ek vergelyk die hoofkarakter se posisie as sosiale verstoteling in Londen en die Karibiese Eilande met die ervaring van die “middle passage”; daarna vergelyk ek haar seksualiteit met dié van die wit Europese prostituut en die ‘Hottentot’ Venus. In Hoofstuk 3 bespreek ek Duras se roman, en verken die wyses waarop ‘n gesin van “Koloniale inboorlinge” (Duras 138) in Suidoos Asië deurentyd misluk om rykdom en sosiale aansien te bekom. Laastens, in Hoofstuk 4, interpreteer ek Van Niekerk se roman nie net as ‘n feministiese herskrywing van die plaasroman nie, maar ook as ‘n “complicitous critique” (Warnes 121) wat nostalgies, maar ook op ‘n kritiese wyse, oor Afrikaner-nasionalisme nadink. Ek argumenteer verder dat die teks ‘n ongemaklike beeld van die alledaagse, asook die identifisering met die eie, skets. Wanneer die drie romans tesame beskou word, is dit duidelik dat hulle op hoogs vergelykbare en komplekse maniere nadink oor hoe wit kreoolse vroue hul sosiale en politieke posisies in (post)koloniale ruimtes ervaar. Hierdie tesis ondersoek die wyses waarop die romans tuisheid (of die gebrek daaraan) te bowe kom: die hoofkarakters is dikwels misplaas, vervreem en nostalgies, en is dikwels verwikkeld in ‘n stryd om te behoort, midde-in teenoorgestelde kulture, ideologieë en politieke standpunte. Ek baseer my tesis op die groter oorkoepelende problematiek van ontheemdheid en verveemding (in verskeie gedaantes), en hoe dit vorm gee aan die vestiging en beoefening van vroulike subjektiwiteit.