3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/45
Browse
4 results
Search Results
Item Representations of the 'enemy' in military narratives of the South African frontier wars of 1834, 1846 and 1851(2014-06-20) Baker, Marian JoanThis study examines representations of the ‘enemy’ found in the published and unpublished military narratives of the 6th, 7th and 8th Frontier Wars which took place in the Eastern Cape between 1834 and 1853. The Xhosa were most frequently represented as the ‘enemy’, however, there were also references to the Khoikhoi ‘rebels’ in the 8th Frontier War. It will be argued in this thesis that an elaborated discussion of military narratives could assist in an analysis of the complicated process of colonization and the establishment of British control at the Cape. The study pays attention to the accretion of representations of the Xhosa in the military narratives and it focuses on the formative military ideas which underpinned the delineation of the Xhosa and how writers adopted these ideas to describe the conditions of frontier warfare. The thesis does not focus only on the conflict it also asks how the regular army presented itself as a ‘knowledge-based’ institution. Further questions relate to what soldiers did besides fight and whether their ‘knowledge’ led to the power to enunciate on and control South Africa’s indigenous inhabitants. Some narratives, such as Harriet Ward’s and Edward Napier’s, were deeply tendentious especially in their opposition to contemporary ‘philanthropic’ ideas; these polemical interventions also will be traced. Furthermore, the study will argue that representations of the Xhosa were mobile and commentary on the frontier wars fed into the metropolitan publication circuit. The substance of the military narratives was heterogeneous and the publications included passages which conveyed evidence of pronounced forms of colonial violence and a distinctly racialized vocabulary. However, concomitantly, colonial, guerrilla warfare threw up reciprocities and borrowings in that both the Xhosa and the regular army exhibited flexibility in their tactics. This meant that the insights of soldiers in the narratives were often ambivalent: regular army protagonists asserted a sense of cultural superiority but intimations of vulnerability and alienation were also revealed in the texts. Keywords: Eastern Cape, frontier wars, representation, enemy, narrative, the Xhosa.Item Neil Gaiman's The Sandman : From interpretive narrative to postmodern myth(2008-10-21T09:24:44Z) Skikne, Taryn SaraThis thesis will explore the proposal that Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman is, as Gaiman describes it in its epilogue, a “story about stories” (The Wake, epilogue). Its particular focus will be on Gaiman’s conception of humans as essentially narrative beings, who use narratives to interact with the world around them, to impose order on information, to provide interpretive paradigms, and as models for their behaviour. Gaiman has not only explored this idea, but used the fantastic mode to create a universe in which these types of ‘interpretive narratives’ directly affect physical reality. Gaiman’s ideas about the way narratives work have been heavily influenced by both postmodern and Jungian legacies. The thesis will propose that the dynamic between postmodern intertextuality and the Jungian idea of the archetypes is a driving force in The Sandman. While Gaiman embraces a playful, bricoleur intertextuality, he also retains a belief that humans can invoke the archetypes to access profound meanings, which transcend the particularities of their expression in any individual instances. Under these influences, Gaiman concieves of a postmodern, Jungian approach to mythology. We will see that Gaiman’s interactions with narrative, postmodernism and Jungianism eventually lead him to formulate an ethic for the contemporary world, and that he encodes it in his own mythology. This ethic both empowers individuals and demands that they take responsibility for their power. It also focuses on how the individual can productively and tolerantly interact with a heteroglossic world. Instead of a fact to be sought out, meaning becomes a process of active creation.Item The narrative and the commemorative in the ceramic vessels of Hylton Nel, Wonderboy Nxumalo, Grayson Perry(2008-05-27T12:02:20Z) Kopping, JenniferThis study explores the narrative and the commemorative aspect of the contemporary ceramic vessel. It examines the context of the narrative and the commemorative and how it manifests in the works of Grayson Perry, Wonderboy Nxumalo and Hylton Nel. I have tended to take an approach that is Post Modernist and deconstructive which attempts to be inclusive. The narrative and the commemorative are explored and defined within the discourse of literary theory. Hence the concept of memory, history, time, narrative structure and semiotics are evident within these definitions. The relationship between the image and text is also explored and how the artist exploits this narrative device. The contemporary vessel is used within the narrative in the appropriation of ceramic tradition and is explored in the works of these artists. Futhermore these traditions are subverted and manipulated in order to convey the narrative, whose content is both private and collective and extends and transgresses the confines of societal boundaries. It will be demonstrated how each of the artists convey their own dialogue that is driven by their own personal histories. The chapters therefore explore thematically, many aspects of the narratives, all of which are relevant to the artists: · The Concept of the Child · The Didactic Nature of the Narrative. · Narrative, Genre and sign. · Sexuality, Transgression and Queer Politics. · Recalling the Past; History and Nostalgia. I n the final chapter I explore my own work from the required exhibition. Object /Vessel: Narratives of Containment. The subject of the narrative is explored within the context of the ceramic vessel and the mixed media drawing. Many of the aspects of the narrative explored in this study have influenced my own work, in particular the concept of memory, nostalgia and the past.Item Creative Writing(2007-02-14T12:09:01Z) Sandnes, Charmaine HenriettaIn this Theoretical Introduction the reasons for the choice of the historical fiction genre for the creative component of this Research Report will become clear in relation to other notable examples of the genre, indeed the academic essay will revolve around primary concerns with regard to the narrative of historical fiction and the debates around the representation that the work engages. In the postscript to the academic essay the possible destination for publication will be considered, as well as a summation of the writing and revision process, and a rumination of the projected readership or audience. As the creative component will be submitted in partial form, the postscript to the theoretical introduction will extrapolate the rest of the project, so as to provide some sense of the intended eventual work. Finally a special thanks to Ashleigh Harris, whose untiring help and encouragement is deeply appreciated; and to my husband, Norman, whose concern and enormous patience has sustained this endeavour.