African. The African subject (for example, Friedman's mother) is constructed as having been pure until she is seduced by a Western way of life. The possibility that poverty or hardship experienced by people in rural areas, and the need to survive which has driven African people to seek employment opportunities in urban areas is not explored in the suggested answer. Instead the suggested answer is inscribed within the singular reading of the 'Content' and 'Comment' sections.
The suggested answers provide plausible explanations and responses, but within the constraints of firstly, a very limited content-thematic approach to literary practice; and secondly, within this singular or dominant reading of the text. Other readings of the text involving a disruption of the dominant reading in terms of role reversal or gender reversal, are absent in the summary of the guide.
2.4.2 'The Comment'
The 'Comment' section opens with the following paragraph:
The first paragraph sets the tone for this short story. The hatred of 'poor Bruns' is so disproportionate that the reader is prepared for an extravagant, almost soap style story. Certainly the storyline itself is exaggerated - the confrontation between Bruns and Du Toit is farcical, and Bruns's revenge is so unbelievable as to be comic (Guidelines, 2000, 34).
This statement underscores the singular reading of the guide. In fact the entire
'Comment' and 'Content' summaries comprise an attack on the role of the narrator (the anthropologist) without any undertaking of an explanation of concepts such as feudalism, pacifism, class distinction or tribalism, which form part of the backdrop to the narrative.
In emphasising a singular reading of the story in terms of limiting the synopsis of the story to the inadequacies and shortcomings of the narrator, the guide presents its version of the narrator as being prejudiced and lacking in understanding of events and characters in the story. It is precisely in what the guide views as a limited and inadequate role of the narrator that the possibility for alternative readings, as well as critical engagement with the text exists. In this regard I elect to investigate the gaps and silences conveyed in the version of the story presented in the guide.
2.4.3 GAPS AND SILENCES IN THE 'Comment'
The 'Comment' does not explain the concepts of prejudice, conflict nor disharmony, which could be argued as being central themes of the narrative. Instead the limitations of the role of the narrator are highlighted and criticized throughout this section.
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I argue that the theme of conflict or disharmony may be considered in terms of the narrative of the story. For example, this theme is conveyed through the differences regarding issues of power and privilege, which characterizes both the Boer and Bakorwa groups, and is not engaged with in the 'Comment'. Instead the 'Comment' engages with the role of the narrator as the central concern of its engagement with the story.
According to the 'Comment' the narrator's attitude towards events in Keteng regarding both the Boers and the Bakorwa, is a contemptuous one. This version of the story is limited to a critique of the narrator's role in the story. There is no engagement with issues of power that are conveyed through the discourses of race, class and patriarchy that underpin the text, nor is there engagement with the deliberate construction of an outside narrator to ensure distance, nor is there empathy for the narrator. The 'Comment'
attempts to create a particular subjectivity in the reader regarding the role of the narrator as being inept and inadequate.
Location of the two groups within a socio-cultural specificity, and an investigation into the hegemony enjoyed by the Boers in Keteng are absent in the 'Comment'. The guide's reading of the story conveyed through the 'Comment' ignores any other attempt at constructing different readings of the story through a critical discourse analysis of the text. For example, the discourse regarding gender with reference to the construction of the Boer wives as decadent, subjugated and accepting of physical abuse at the hands of their husbands, and the women of the Bakorwa tribe as being passive and accepting of their public beatings and suppression are not addressed as issues of any concern in the
'Comment'. The singular reading in the guide is silent with regard to the reasons for patriarchal control exerted by the men in Keteng, or why these women accept their fate.
A more active engagement with the text may reveal that the women are relegated to inferior positions because firstly, only men hold positions of authority, in the political, economic and social spheres in Keteng, which is also governed along feudal and racial lines, where economic control is vested in the hands of the Boer men, who maintain this control in an African state through corrupt and devious means. For example, the Bakorwa chiefs (all men), are bribed by the men of the seven Boer families, into allowing feudal lords like Du Toit to operate at will.
In this segment of the narrative no significance is attached to the role of the women, in fact the construction of the Boer wives in the dominant reading of the narrative appears to be that of bored sex partners of slothful men, whilst the Bakorwa women are presented as slaves. The violent subjugation of the Bakorwa women and the laid-back, meaningless roles of the Boer wives are not explored in terms of the possibility of these women being accepting of subservient roles. The assumed power relations the singular reading
engages, regarding hegemonic masculinity, conveyed through the Boer and Bakorwa men is limited to the presentation of these men as slothful and primitive, and also constructs the women as willing subjects and passive recipients of abuse.
The 'Comment' is also silent about the complex role of a third person narrator employed in the short story. It does not talk about this as a narrative device frequent in short stories, which works precisely to avoid a singular reading. Instead the 'Comment' maintains a
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persistent criticism of the narrator and her failure as an anthropologist. This is conveyed through the following example:
The anthropologist's version of the last part of the story is wildly improbable, yet she appears to believe it ... it shows her to be a spiteful woman, since she is an anthropologist, she expects us to accept everything she says.. .in every word she utters her prejudice shows (Guidelines, 2000, 36).
Yet it is in the 'Comment's' perceived lack in the role of the narrator that the possibility of a critical interrogation of the dominant reading exists, whereby a critical discourse analysis of the story may be undertaken with an investigation into how the language (semiotics) of the story engages with issues of power. Instead the comments are
constrained to a preferred reading of the story conveyed in the reference to the narrator as 'she is bigoted; she takes herself and her opinions very seriously; the obvious prejudice her opinions reveal allows the reader to laugh at the anthropologist's expense'
(Guidelines, 2000, 36).
2.4.4 'Questions and Suggested Answers'
I make reference to this section as it links to the 'Comment' and it reinforces the singular reading of the 'Comment'. The following questions appear in this section, and they focus on the narrator:
-How does Rush maintain the illusion that the anthropologist is an impartial observer?
-Mention two incidents, which the anthropologist offers as fact but which simply add to our belief that she is prejudiced.
-Although the anthropologist attempts to portray Bruns as heroic, why does he come across to the reader as rather pathetic?
-There are many places in the story where the narrator is shown up as being an unpleasant character. Write about three of these (Guidelines, 2000, 37).
The suggested answers to these questions are in keeping with the guide's reading of the text and none of the other issues raised in the text are engaged with, for example, the discourses underpinning the text regarding pacifism, racism and class which draws on both the characters of Bruns and Du Toit. In this regard Bruns's feat or defeat within the narrative are not explored, neither is the origin of economic control by the Boers in Keteng investigated. The fact that the narrator is a white female anthropologist and a relief aid worker is left unexplored in terms of defining relief aid workers and possible reasons for them being in Keteng whilst the seven Boer families lived as 'feudal lords'.
The 'Comment' refuses the potential for different readings of the text and is limited to the content-thematic approach to the teaching of texts, and conveys information about the story by engaging with the design grammar of the content-thematic approach.