The madness of the Black man on his own: an analysis of the silences of history, in search of herstory
The primary purpose of this thesis is to examine the autobiographical works of three Black South African women -- Mamphela Ramphele, Bessie Head, and Ellen Kuzwayo -- to see if and how they were impacted by the masculine discourse of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), which was articulated in terms of "the Black man" and his struggle. One of the first points I make and use as a premise throughout the thesis is that the term "man" is neither inclusive nor universal; it, instead, refers specifically to men and cannot refer to both men and women. What could have motivated the use of this masculinist language, particularly in light of the fact that the Nguni and Sotho languages of South Africa do not have a gender differentiation system for the third person pronoun? This question led me to an examination of the English language since English was the language chosen by the activists to conduct the business of the Movement. But, there was yet another factor to consider besides the language. The Black Consciousness Movement took place through the 1960s and into the late 1970s, during the latter part of an era of many other Black nationalist struggles around the world (Negritude, the U.S. Black Power Movements, liberation struggles of many of the other African countries). So, I look specifically at men's writings ' from Negritude and the Black Power Movements and compare them to a sample of writings from male writers in the Black Consciousness Movement, showing that all of these writers articulate employ this masculinist language. The significance of the timing of Black Consciousness (BC) is that it emerged into an international context with a readymade nationalist discourse of the liberation of Black people and the struggle of Black men. That discourse, however, might not have emerged if the usage of the masculine as universal were not already an acceptable practice the English language. Thus, the first chapter is an examination of the masculinity of the English language, primarily through feminist, postructuralist, psychoanalytic, and Marxist theories/theorists. The analysis begins from the premise that masculinity is a system of domination that requires femininity, a small, enclosed space designated for women. Key to the existence of masculinity and femininity is the facade that they are natural7 i.e., inherent to the male and female bodies, respectively. Thus the chapter is largely a deconstruction of that assumption, and the 18th century European assumption of a direct link between hysteria and femininity. I argue that at the base of female hysteria is a much more pervasive and normalised male hysteria, driven by the either/or binary logic of Western philosophy that shows itself in the English language. Indeed, it is masculinity, not femininity, that is irrational, illogical, and mad in its obsession for understanding and control. I move from that assertion into an analysis of how capitalism works to create femininity through Marx's structure of the non-producer, the labourer (to whom Marx consistently refers as he), and the product to examine the relationship between men and women, the masculine and the feminine. After establishing the madness of masculinity and its place in the English language, I move into how this examination of a Western context correlates to the Black Consciousness Movement. I argue that when the male BC activists entered into the English language, they simultaneously entered into its legacy of masculinity, and they adopted that masculinity. Thus their absenting of women was driven by the very same madness of masculinity. In the midst of this oppressive madness called masculinity, how, then did Black women conceive of themselves as agents? Of the three women, only one, Mamphela Ramphele, was an activist in the BCM. She is the onlywoman activist from the BCM who has written her autobiography, or who has written a sizeable body of material on her experience in the Movement. She is also the only of the three who never engages in the masculinist discourse of the Movement. I also look at Ellen Kuzwayo's autobiography, Call Me Woman7 which is dedicated to documenting the contributions of other Black women to the liberation of South Africa, despite which there are curious moments in the text when she slips into masculinist discourse in talking about the BCM and the importance of the Black man's struggle. The third is Bessie Head and her novel, A Question of Power7 which I use as an autobiographical text on the basis of her own admission that it is largely grounded in her own life experiences. Hers is an important text for the framework of madness it provides. I conclude that, true to my previous analyses, she is driven into madness by the hysteria of masculinity.
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Department of English Language and Literature