For Andzani, home has always been a trigger for unpleasant memories, it has become the site for anxiety. After completing his Accounting Degree at the University of Cape Town and securing employment after, Andzani minimizes his visits back home to evade those memories home allows to seep through and confront him. He fears what this remembering will do to him, undo in him. Then one morning he receives a phone call from his uncle, Sontaga, to come fetch his mother, Violet, and take her to a mental institution because her mental health is deteriorating. As if given a last chance, on this trip, long-repressed memories flood his head and dull his days in order to force him to pay attention to them, digest them. In Dorothy L. Pennington conceptualisation of memory as a helix, she states that “the past is an indispensable part of the present which participates in it, enlightens it, and gives it meaning.” Taking this assertion as a point of departure, ‘A Soft Landing' is a novel that explores the implications of a past not decisively dealt with. The novel explores how the past gives meaning to present identities and how new identity formations are negotiated within the eye of the past participating in the present.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uct/oai:localhost:11427/36033 |
| Date | 08 March 2022 |
| Creators | Mushwana, Wisani |
| Contributors | Boswell, Barbara-Anne |
| Publisher | Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Master Thesis, Masters, M.A. |
| Format | application/pdf |
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