social roles in African Literature :: essays research papers

During the uprisings of the 1970s, Nadine Gordimer presented a very dreary and pessimistic prophecy to white and black South Africa in Julys People. This prophecy suggested a presumptive overthrow of the apartheid system which would challenge the currently existing social and racial roles of its inhabitants. Amid the chaos, traditional roles would be overturned and new-fashioned ones are formed as the Smales fill their servants offer of refuge and flee to his village in the bush. Additionally, Zoe Wicomb describes the social and sexual roles that dominate Afrikaaners in You Cant Get incapacitated in Cape Town. Through a series of connected short stories, Wicombs narrator, Frieda Shenton, grows from childhood to womanhood in a community labeled as polished. These colored, people of racially mixed decent, were classified not on ethnic or cultural values, but rather based on skin color and appearance. To gain complete understanding of racial and sexual roles present in the southe rn part of Africa, one must carefully examine both Julys People and You Cant Get Lost in Cape Town for semblances of an old social structure as the birth of a new nation develops.In Wicombs You Cant Get Lost in Cape Town, we are presented with a young girl, Frieda, transforming into a woman in a rural African village. Frieda is faced with the realization that apartheid has ghettoized the coloreds to live in dreadful conditions. It is through the suppression of this ghetto life along with the suppression of racial and sexual stereotypes that Frieda removes herself and gains her independence. Friedas changing sexuality is important for her maturation into a woman. Wicomb presents a sexual hierarchy of women as viewed from a colored perspective. Men can repair their social appearance through education, but for a woman, she must get married. A necessary ingredient for a successful marriage is to be evenhandedly as suggested by Friedas mother Poor child What can a girl do without good looks? Wholl marry you? Well have to put a peg on your nose (164). Even in Friedas teenage years, she never saw herself as attractive, for she saw herself as too plump. This plumpness is a direct result from her father urging her finish all her meals, as he saw skinniness unattractive. In addition, during the train ride to school, Frieda dreamt of a fairy story in which boys were regarded as princes and her role was not that of Cinderella, but rather that of the pumpkin.