Remembering and Belonging: The Gift of Death in Nadine Gordimer

Farahmandfar, Masoud

doi:10.48311/eijh.31.2.56

All

Webpages

Books

Journals

Tarbiat Modares University Press

The International Journal of Humanities

Volume 31, Issue 2 (2024) EIJH 2024, 31(2): 56-70 | Back to browse issues page

‎ 10.48311/eijh.31.2.56

Mendeley

Zotero

RefWorks

Farahmandfar M. Remembering and Belonging: The Gift of Death in Nadine Gordimer. EIJH 2024; 31 (2) :56-70
URL: http://eijh.modares.ac.ir/article-27-70819-en.html

Remembering and Belonging: The Gift of Death in Nadine Gordimer

Masoud Farahmandfar

Associate Professor, English Literature, Allameh Tabataba'i University , farahmand@atu.ac.ir

Abstract: (837 Views)

The present paper examines Nadine Gordimer's The Conservationist (1974) in order to present a postcolonial reading of it in light of Homi K. Bhabha's ideas. It firstly discusses the significance of this novel and its narrative style, along with its context (Apartheid and the Zulu culture). Then it examines the central characters (Mehring and Jacobus) with the help of Bhabha's key concepts of hybridity and mimicry. The paper analyzes the relationship between the foreign white master, Mehring, and his native black servants, and underlines that the displaced colonial subjects (such as Jacobus) can, through mimicry, defy the oppression of imperial hegemony from within. In the text of Gordimer’s novel we can witness the formation of new cultural hybrids. It is characteristic of Gordimer’s fiction to reflect upon interactions between European and indigenous cultures. It is also argued that the funeral at the very end of the novel is in fact a transformation; for one, it brings about a change of focus and the readers shall end the novel bearing the memory of the black man in their minds.

Keywords: Bhabha, belonging, hybridity, mimicry, unhomeliness, othering, death.

Full-Text [PDF 695 kb] (356 Downloads)

Article Type: Original Research | Subject: English Literature
Received: 2023/07/29 | Accepted: 2023/12/31 | Published: 2024/05/30

Send email to the article author

Rights and permissions
	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.