Following the formal conclusion of reconciliatory processes in a newly post-apartheid South Africa, narrative remained a perdurable, centripetal force. Extending into the realm of literature, the inquiries of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission were altered and enlarged. The mode of magical realism, in particular, emerged as a viable method not only for representing the world, but for working through uncertain futures and traumatic histories. Shimmering with the extraordinary and ineffable strangeness of the magical realist text, Achmat Dangor’s short story “The Devil”, offers expansive, recognizable and revelatory ways of dealing with the trauma of apartheid. Crucially, the narrative represents the private efforts of individual, personal healing in contradistinction with official processes of reconciliation. This thesis examines the ways in which “The Devil” proposes the body as a site of exploring the structuring antipodes of individual-collective and public-private, ultimately untethering these binaries through a process of bodily dis/entwining.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CLAREMONT/oai:scholarship.claremont.edu:scripps_theses-2298 |
| Date | 01 January 2019 |
| Creators | Wilson, Corey Carter |
| Publisher | Scholarship @ Claremont |
| Source Sets | Claremont Colleges |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Scripps Senior Theses |
| Rights | © 2018 Corey Carter, default |
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