IWIS

1
IWIS

• South African Literature Metaphors and
  Metamorphosis

2
Aims and objectives

• To engage with texts from South Africa,
  understanding the context of Apartheid in which
  they were written
• To think about ideas of metaphor and
  metamorphosis in South African literature
• To discuss how we can take these texts into a
  classroom
• To discuss how to write a self-reflective journal

3
Apartheid A brief history

• system of racial segregation enforced by National
  Party governments of SA between 1948 and 1994
• white supremacy and Afrikaner minority rule
• apartheid as an official policy introduced
  following general election of 1948
• classified inhabitants into 4 racial groups
  native, white, coloured, Asian

4
Apartheid A brief history

• segregation residential areas, education,
  medical care, beaches, public services
• black people deprived of citizenship, political
  representation
• internal uprisings and violence met with
  increasing repression and state-sponsored
  violence
• 1980s mounting opposition, reforms to apartheid
• 1990s President Frederik Wilhem de Kerl began
  negotiations to end apartheid
• multi-racial democratic elections in 1994

5
Nadine Gordimer

• b. 1923
• Nobel Prize in Literature a woman who through
  her magnificent epic writing hasbeen of very
  great benefit to humanity.
• Moral, political, and racial issues, particularly
  apartheid

6
The Ultimate Safari

• From whose perspective is the story written?
• What metaphors do you notice running through the
  story?

7
METAPHORS - Animals
p. 7 but all the same our country is a country
of people, not animals p. 8 He said we must
move like animals among the animals, away from
the roads, away from the white peoples camps p.
8 It was hard to be like the animals p. 9
If they saw us, all they could do was pretend we
were not there they had seen only animals p. 10
even if you lie, like the animals, under the
trees Lions as the Bandits p. 9 Panting,
like we do when we run, but its a different kind
of panting you can hear theyre not running,
theyre waiting, somewhere near
8
METAPHORS - Safari

• Watching / Being watched
• p. 7 the places where white people come to
  stay and look at the animals
• p. 9 We could see the fires where the white
  people were cooking in the camps and we could
  smell the smoke and the meat
• p. 14 Some white people came to take
  photographs of our people living in the tent

9
METAPHORS - SHOES

• Hope / Future plans
• p. 14 No other children in the tent have real
  school shoes. When we three look at them its as
  if we are in a real house again, with no war, no
  away.
• p. 14 I want them to learn so that they can
  get good jobs and money.

10
Exercise 1 Celebrity Furniture

• Think of a celebrity
• Think of a piece of furniture
• Complete the sentence
• _________ is a _________ because ___________

11
Athol Fugard

• b. 1932
• playwright
• political plays opposing apartheid
• Tsotsi is his only novel, made an Academy Award
  winning film in 2005

12
What are the tsotsis?

• menacea force of unbridled violence as pitiless
  and unthinking as the sharks that lay in wait
  outside the nets off Durban beach. Jonathan
  Kaplan
• young black men, gangs, turning on those lower
  down the survival chain
• product of the process of Apartheid
• death methods medically accurate

13
Tsotsi

• p. 170 Instinctively, but for no other reason
  than having awoken, he put his hand under his
  pillow to find his knife. Before he found it,
  another thought crossed his mind
• p. 171 Wheres his front teeth, Tsotsi thought,
  and then, why the hell am I thinking that.
• p. 172 A spider spinning a web but most of all
  my mother. He had to return to that thought.
  Everything started there. It was the beginning
  of himself, and of his memories, spinning like
  silk thread out of the soft shimmer of her
  humming on a day long, long forgotten.
• p. 172 One word. Finished. What now?
• p. 173 So we start again, Tsotsi, hey man. It
  was like this then. So now we find a couple of
  others and we start again and The baby started
  crying.
• p. 175 He rejoiced in the very things that had
  disgusted and angered him in the past

14
Tsotsi

• Some key themes
• becoming life / death
• rebirth past/present/future
• The metamorphosis that takes place in Tsotsi is
  one of reclaiming the past to reshape the present
  and the future.
• Tsotsi is about turning points.
• It is when Tsotsi rediscovers his memory that he
  realises he is alive Jonathan Kaplan

15
Nelson Mandela

• b. 1918
• former President of South Africa (1994- 1999)
• anti-apartheid activist
• 27 years in prison (sabotage and other charges),
  Robben Island
• 1990 released, led part to first multi-racial
  democracy
• 1993 Nobel Peace Prize

16
Long Walk To Freedom

• autobiography
• published 1995
• covers early life, coming of age, education, and
  prison life

17
Long Walk To Freedom

• p. 109 I cannot pinpoint a moment when I became
  politicized, when I knew that I would spend my
  life in the liberation struggle. To be an
  African in South Africa means that one is
  politicized from the moment of ones birth,
  whether one acknowledges it or not.
• p. 109 This was the reality, and one could deal
  with it in a myriad of ways. I had no epiphany,
  no singular revelation, no moment of truthThere
  was no particular day on which I said, Henceforth
  I will devote myself to the liberation of my
  people instead, I simply found myself doing so,
  and could not do otherwise.

18
District 9

• Christy Lemire (Associated Press)District 9
  has the aesthetic trappings of science fiction
  but its really more of a character drama, an
  examination of how a man responds when hes
  forced to confront his identity during
  extraordinary circumstances
• Clips Scene 3, 12, 26
• At what point does Wikus become the Other?
• What are the symbols of this metamorphosis?
  (physical / mental / emotional?)
• How is the film presented?

19
How to write a self-reflective journal

• The journal should show evidence of a variety of
  approaches to creative learning, and where
  possible the use of different literary forms from
  different cultural contexts in the context of the
  classroom.

20
How to write a self-reflective journal

• Use anecdotes about particular placement
  experience
• Critical reflection what perhaps didnt work so
  well but why you think it didnt work
• Analysis what would you have done differently?
• Samples of previous journals are available