in the fictional world of the narrative, which presents the middle class lifestyle of Vukani and his family. A complication is introduced in the form of Vukani being forced to play the violin by his mother, which causes him immense pain and personal trauma as he is mocked and taunted by the township boys, and his peers. A resolution occurs when he finally stands up to his mother by refusing to play the instrument any longer, thereby resolving the complication in his life through his own intervention.
The short story also employs significant language features such as cohesion, vocabulary, grammar and other overall language features, which construct characters and themes in the story. In this regard,
[t]exts and authors represent and construct a version of the social world; and they position and locate the reader in a social relation to the text and the world.
They do so through various lexical and grammatical, generic and semiotic features (Fairclough in Tuke et al, 1995, 35).
Such insights provided suggest a concern for the characteristics and conventions that constitute the short story as a sub-genre to enable a critical reading which investigates how semiotics, narrative theory and discourse work together to construct particular readings and positioning of the reader subject. In the following section I examine the short story sub-genre as a postcolonial work.
writers who are not part of the canon of Great English Literature. Second, it is a post 1994 production21, which includes literary work in the form of short stories that address issues of race and class within a South African context. Previously these stories were considered to be part of banned literature, but at present this type of anthology attempts to incorporate the life world and views of colonised or dominated groups in order to engage with the interests and issues of those groups who are viewed as having been marginalised by colonial powers.
Postcolonialism is a term, which refers literally to the state or condition of a country after it has achieved independence from colonial rulers. The prefix 'post' signifies 'after', while the word 'colonialism' refers to the practices of a
dominant culture or group in its attempts to rule those who are politically weaker.
Postcolonialism [therefore] is a term which signals the breaking down of colonial structures and is relevant to many countries today (Martino, 1999, 6).
Since 1994, with the advent of democracy in South Africa, literature syllabi for English Primary Language, have expanded to include literary works that address the interests of marginalised groups who still remain in the margins or the periphery of Southern African society.
The work of postcolonial writers involve
[p]ostcolonial approaches to reading and writing which are informed by a
knowledge about the workings and effects of colonial practices and powers. Such approaches, therefore, may involve examining power relations between colonised groups and the colonial rulers who often exploit and force them to adopt a way of life that is alien to their culture. Postcolonial perspectives make available a language for making sense of practices of the colonisers, while at the same time, allowing those who have been colonised to be heard (Martino, 1999, 6).
Postcoloniality selects particular texts for study and includes perspectives that provide a framework for reading texts by foregrounding the point of view of those from
marginalised groups. In doing so, postcoloniality attempts to challenge dominant colonialist assumptions at the basis of traditional texts.
The anthology of short stories "Being Here", which is used in this research, draws
attention to issues such as racist practices and attitudes, class distinction, the political and economic disempowerment of rural people and colonialism.
By using texts written from the point of view of the colonised these world views produced from the 'centre' can be challenged. The 'centre' becomes a metaphor for representing the dominant cultural position, while 'margins' represent those who are outside, inhabiting the fringes (Martino, 1999, 12).
As a prescribed setwork, the anthology provides a means for readers to gain access to and read texts from the margins, in keeping with political transformation in the country. Such an anthology also allows for different worldviews or versions of reality of former
colonised groups to be engaged with.
Postcolonial reading and writing practices involve examining power relations, as it calls in question the extent to which colonial attitudes and values are embedded in the socio- political structures of postcolonial countries. Thus postcolonialism incorporates a set of strategies that enable an interpretation or critiquing of the dominant culture from a different standpoint on the margins. As such a postcolonial reading practice focuses on multiple and conflicting ways in which cultural identity is constructed and negotiated by drawing attention to the links between reader, text and context.
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The three short stories selected from "Being Here" for this research share common themes and attempt to address issues that convey, among other things, a hostility to modernity, to colonialism, to class distinction and to Eurocentric influences that accompany colonization. The term Eurocentric is frequently used when exploring a postcolonial reading position. This is because many European countries were colonised in the eighteen hundreds. This term conveys the dominant, White, European worldview, which has dominated historical and fictional writing in European settlements.
This view may also be applied to the stories in this research. As a postcolonial work, the stories in this anthology espouse particular thematic concerns that highlight a tension between Black and White racial groups; the European coloniser (Westernism) and the African colonised; and the privileged and the underprivileged. These tensions are conveyed through the short story narratives that attempt to address issues of poverty, exploitation experienced by African people, together with African people having to cope with an embattled identity against the dominant influence of Westernisation. These tensions, which are presented in the form of postcolonial discourses in the subject matter of the short stories, will be critically investigated in the following chapter when I explore three short stories, using critical tools for analysis.