“<i>chew me until i bind</i>”: Sacrifice and Cultural Renewal in Marlene van Niekerk's<i>Agaat</i>

Rossmann, Jean; Stobie, Cheryl

doi:10.1080/02564718.2012.677991

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…I acknowledge the prominence of the relationship between Milla and Agaat, and the importance of the relation between land and race in this relationship. These issues have been examined to some extent by Prinsloo and Visagie (2009), by me (Fourie 2011), and by Rossmann and Stobie (2012), and fall outside the scope of this article.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…The operations of race, power and identity in the novel have been explored by Loraine Prinsloo and Andries Visagie (2007), Reinhardt Fourie (2011, Jean Rossmann and Cheryl Stobie (2012), and Gail Fincham (2014). Agaat as the Other has received significant attention from Ena Jansen (2005), Willie Burger (2006), Lara Buxbaum (2011 and2013) as well as Reinhardt Fourie and Melissa Adendorff (2015), while the depiction of Jak's masculinity has also featured in a few other studies (Rossmann 2012, Buxbaum 2014, Pretorius 2014.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

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Identity, gender, and land in Marlene van Niekerk’sAgaat

Fourie

2016

English Academy Review

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The relationships between land and identity are important themes in the plaasroman (farm novel), a subgenre to which Marlene van Niekerk writes back in her novel Agaat (2004). In this article, I explore identity, land and gender in Agaat. I offer a discussion of the ways in which identity and land are inextricably linked in the normative plaasroman, and within this vein, consider the case of Agaat. While I focus on the traditional relationship between patriarchy and the farm, I also refer to the notion of the volksmoeder (literally mother of the nation or people) -a role that Milla attempts to break free from. Through a close reading of the text, I then consider how the relationship with the land -and specifically farming land -is used as a textual device to problematize the gender relations on the fictional farm Grootmoedersdrift. In particular, I consider how the characters Milla and Jak's different approaches to farming on Grootmoedersdrift, both multifaceted and threaded through the entire novel, serve as the basic axis around which their relationship revolves. As a kind of self-aware plaasroman that weaves problematized notions of gender identity through the narrative, Van Niekerk's novel offers a nuanced representation of how gendered power is enacted and subverted in the attachment to and cultivation of farming land and the body.

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Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Identity, gender, and land in Marlene van Niekerk’sAgaat

Fourie

2016

English Academy Review

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Encountering Others’ Empathy Toward Oneself in Marlene van Niekerk’sAgaat

Lal

2023

Postcolon. Lit. inq

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This article examines how Milla, the Afrikaner protagonist of Marlene van Niekerk’s post-apartheid novel Agaat, engages with others’ empathy toward herself. Theorizing empathy as a multivalent engagement with others’ experiences, I argue that Milla attempts to variously invite, avoid, and manipulate others’ empathy as she negotiates the anxiety of being misunderstood, the sense of vulnerability in being understood, and the dependence of her self-image on others’ opinions. Illustrating the fraught experience of encountering empathy toward oneself—a neglected topic in studies of empathy—the novel shows that empathy is neither always welcomed nor received passively by potential empathizees. Further, I suggest, the contrast between Milla’s approaches to empathy as empathizer and empathizee ironizes her struggles by indicating her proclivity for controlling empathic interactions. Demonstrating how power relations inform empathy, Agaat complicates the popular notion of empathy as a straightforward gateway to reconciliation by highlighting its characters’ ambivalences about receiving empathy.

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Beyond the Allegory: The Grotesque Body and the Limits of Liberation in Marlene Van Niekerk’s Agaat.

Pretorius¹

2016

English Studies in Africa

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“chew me until i bind”: Sacrifice and Cultural Renewal in Marlene van Niekerk'sAgaat

Cited by 4 publications

References 3 publications

Identity, gender, and land in Marlene van Niekerk’sAgaat

Identity, gender, and land in Marlene van Niekerk’sAgaat

Encountering Others’ Empathy Toward Oneself in Marlene van Niekerk’sAgaat

Beyond the Allegory: The Grotesque Body and the Limits of Liberation in Marlene Van Niekerk’s Agaat.

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