Identity, gender, and land in Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat

Abstract

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.

Key words:

• Agaat
• farm land
• farm novel
• gender
• identity
• plaasroman
• South African literature
• Marlene van Niekerk
• volksmoeder

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Prof. Yves T’Sjoen (Department of Literature, Ghent University, Belgium) who acted as supervisor for the MA thesis on which parts of this article have elaborated.

Notes

1 One could argue that Agaat engages firstly with issues of race, and secondly with issues of gender. This is suggested in the title of the book, which very clearly indicates that it the story of the character Agaat, a coloured woman. On the other hand, as Milla mentions at one point in the novel, Agaat remains unknown to her: ‘What must it feel like to be Agaat? How could you ever find that out? Would you be able to figure out what she was saying if she could explain it? She would have to explicate it in a language other than the tongue you had taught her. How would you understand her then? Who would interpret for her?’ (p. 554). Milla’s thoughts here hold true for the reader, as the reader is only briefly allowed focalization through Agaat, and most of the narrative is told from Milla’s perspective. 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.

2 Van Niekerk also consistently uses the word ‘soil’ instead of ‘land’ (Andersen 2010). This could be read as a deliberate decision to establish a clear correlation with the Afrikaans word grond, which is translated as both ‘soil’ and ‘land’. Ampie Coetzee (2000, 9) notes that in Afrikaans the notions of land and soil are both contained in the Afrikaans word grond: It expresses both the notion of land used for agricultural practices (akkerbou, grondverbouing) and ‘grond-wat-daar-lê’ (literally land that just lies there, in other words, a piece of land).

3 I have elsewhere undertaken a combined ecocritical and postcolonial reading of Agaat (Fourie 2011), wherein both the respective relationships between Milla and Jak and Milla and Agaat are read through Larsen’s notion of ‘experiential boundary marker[s]’ (2007, 343). The scope of the current article unfortunately does not allow for greater engagement with ecocritical theory.

4 The studies of Afrikaans literary critics H. P. van Coller (1995), Ampie Coetzee (1996, 2000; no relation to J. M. Coetzee), Herman Wasserman (1997, 2000), as well as those by Nicole Devarenne (2006, 2009) can be noted in this regard.

5 I use the term English literature in this article to refer to South African literature in English.

6 Herman Wasserman (2000, 31) argues that the newer plaasromans are not writing back to the older form, but instead, they rewrite (herskryf) the genre by broadening and transforming the conventions of the form. Wasserman maintains that while newer plaasromans protest against the ideological assumptions of the normative plaasromans, the textual revisit to the farm reveals a close connection to the tradition of the plaasroman form (2000, 31). Through this argument, Wasserman places the plaasroman within what Vijay Mishra and Bob Hodge (1994, 286) refer to as ‘complicit postcolonialism’. Prinsloo (2006, 17) notes that writing back implies a reaction to key characteristics of the plaasroman, while rewriting requires the recreation of certain generic elements. I agree with Prinsloo that Agaat rewrites the plaasroman, but also writes back to the older form in the way that it problematizes gender roles on the farm.

7 Michiel Heyns (2009, 135) describes the translation of Agaat through translation theorist Lawrence Venuti’s practical notion of what a translator does: ‘[A]n attempt to compensate for an irreparable loss by controlling an exorbitant gain’ (see also Leon de Kock 2009). My article does not expressly engage with issues of translation in Agaat, however, I will briefly refer to how some of these losses impact on interpretations in my close reading.

8 Mary West (2009, 188) offers a somewhat problematic view that Van Niekerk is a kind of successor to Gordimer in post-apartheid South Africa: ‘Certainly, Triomf (1996) … and Agaat (2004) … suggest that [Van Niekerk] is telling the world about white South African preoccupations as fearlessly as Gordimer did in the twentieth century, and there would be some kind of poetic justice in an Afrikaans writer becoming the twenty-first century’s most widely read white South African woman writer, given the English claim to liberalism and universality.’ While this view may be controversial, especially as it implies a simple continuum of whiteness and essentialized white experience between these authors, it does speak to the important position Van Niekerk has come to embody within the South African English literary canon.

9 Milla acts as narrator for most of the novel, except for the prologue, which is told by her son, Jakkie, and a short part of the epilogue, where Jakkie recalls ‘Gaat’s story’ (Van Niekerk 2006, 683) – the only time Agaat narrates. Milla’s narration includes her recollections and thoughts, told from her perspective as paralysed and in the present (1996); her journals, kept on the farm over the decades and read to her in the present by Agaat; and lyrical stream of consciousness-like episodes, interspersed throughout the text. The quotes I utilize are taken mainly from Milla’s narration. In her narration, she often refers to herself in the second person.

10 Rossmann and Stobie (2012, 17) assert that Agaat ‘presents the future of Afrikaner culture in a new matrilineal and racially hybrid genealogy.’ Within such a reading, Milla remains true to her lineage. Accordingly, Rossmann and Stobie argue that the death of Milla (the white matriarch) ‘serves symbolically to reunite the divisiveness caused by the structural violence of apartheid and to allow the renewal and regeneration of the land, Afrikaans culture and, arguably, the South African nation.’ I do not entirely agree with Rossmann and Stobie. Firstly, their allegorical reading seems to imply that self-sacrifice on the part of Afrikaners is a necessity for the renewal to which they refer. Secondly, this utopian reading of the end of the novel with its implied feelings of reconciliation between races is hard to support when one considers that the novel’s ending is left open. Though Milla dies and Jakkie, returning to Canada, leaves the farm to Agaat, the reader does not know what happens beyond that. In many ways, Agaat’s conduct and her treatment of the other farm workers suggests that the farm in her possession will be no less harsh than it was under its previous matriarch. Lastly, though it can be argued that Jakkie is the heir of both Milla and Agaat, he severs his ties to the farm, and Agaat has no other heir known to the reader. This may support a more sceptical reading of the novel, which undermines the reconciliatory potential of the story, as Rossmann and Stobie seem to briefly admit (2012, 29).

11 While the exploration of Jak’s masculinity falls outside the scope of my reading, I agree with Antoinette Pretorius (2014) who argues against the predominant reading of Jak as a stereotype of Afrikaner nationalism. She effectively explores ‘how the tension between [Jak’s] privately and publicly constructed masculine identities causes him to experience a crisis of masculinity’ – a crisis that she argues directs the character in his attempts to distance himself from Milla and everything that she may represent (29). Also see Buxbaum (2014), who offers a reading of Jak as ‘parody of the heroic farmer’ (171).

12 Buxbaum (2014) offers an insightful reading of rape in Agaat. In her analysis, she reads Jak’s masculinity through the sexual abuse depicted in the novel: ‘Jak’s abuse of Milla, while sexual, should not only be considered “sexual in nature”, but also a means by which Jak attempts to reinforce patriarchal “assumptions about the feminine body” and simultaneously … to reinforce and assert patriarchal assumptions about the ideal masculine body and its meanings, which he strives to maintain’ (p. 168) Regarding the specific scene of sexual violence under discussion here, she writes that ‘Milla allows herself to be debased in order to reclaim the power in their relationship. Milla can no longer be victimised by rape – not only because she is pregnant but also because she has diluted any power Jak might have had’ (p. 170).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Reinhardt Fourie

REINHARDT FOURIE lectures on literature and literary theory in the Department of English Studies at the University of South Africa. His current research focuses on comparative readings of English and Afrikaans literature.