Sabinet | The mimic women : early women novelists and white Southern African Nationalisms
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Colonial inferiority, Imperialism, Mimicry, Nationhood, Novels, Rhodesian and Women
Abstract HTML Metrics Related Content Abstract <b>Die Mimiek-vroue : vroeë vroueskrywers en wit Suid-Afrikaanse Nasionalismes.</b>
<br>Volgens onlangse teoretisering is koloniale nabootsing van die metropool nie &apos;n simptoom van die gekoloniseerde se verlies van identiteit nie, maar eerder &apos;n ondermynende strategie wat die gekoloniseerdes se weiering om hulle rol as minderwaardige andere te aanvaar, aandui. Mimiek / nabootsing as bemagtiging is tot dusver eksklusief toegepas op gekleurde gekoloniseerdes, aangesien die imperiale ideaal, veral soos deur Kipling gepropageer, was dat die Engelse Engels was, ongeag of hulle in Engeland of in &apos;n kolonie gebore is. Die argument in hierdie artikel is dat die koloniale, veral die koloniale vrou, deur diegene wat in Engeland gebore is, as minderwaardig beskou is. Indien &apos;n Suid-Afrikaanse vroueskrywer ernstig opgeneem wou word en &apos;n nuwe nasionale letterkunde wou skryf, moes sy haar die toon en die perspektiewe van die metropool toe-eien. Voorbeelde hiervan sluit een van Cynthia Stockley se heldinne in wat &apos;n literêre nabootser is, vertellers wat die outeur se bekende realiteit as eksoties registreer, sowel as Engels-gebore vroue wat hulle nuwe tuiste toelaat om hulle &apos;n nuwe taal te laat bemeester. Die groter doel met hierdie strategieë is nie om Engels te word nie, maar om te bewys dat die kolonie, deur in staat te wees om soos &apos;n Engelse vrou te skryf, oor gesaghebbende stemme beskik wat as bewys dien van die reg tot nasieskap.
Recent theory has argued that colonial mimicry of the metropole is not a symptom of the colonised&apos;s loss of identity, but instead a subversive strategy that signifies the colonized&apos;s refusal of their role as inferior others. Mimicry as empowerment has been exclusively applied to the colonized of colour because the imperial ideal propagated in particular by Kipling was that the English are the English whether born in England or a colony. This paper argues that the colonial, especially the colonial woman, was regarded as inferior by the home-born. If the Southern African woman writer wanted to be taken seriously and write a new national literature, she had to appropriate the tone and the perspectives of the metropole. Examples include one of Cynthia Stockley&apos;s heroines who is a literal mimic, narrators who register as exotic what is the writer&apos;s familiar reality, and English-born women allowing their new home to give them command over a new language. The larger purpose of these strategies is not to become English but to show that by being able to write like an English woman, the colony has at its disposal authoritative voices that are evidence of its right to nationhood.