๐ ๐ฐ๐ถ Equals ๐๐ฐ๐ต-๐: avowal, disavowal, and second- person narration in Marlene van Niekerkโs ๐ข๐จ๐ข๐ข๐ต
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Date
2023
Authors
de Villiers, Rick
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Publisher
Taylor and Francis Group
Abstract
This article examines the second-person narrative mode in Marlene van Niekerkโs Agaat. Its function is explained by situating the novel within that niche known as the โyou-text.โ But the generic function must also be accounted for within the thematic tensions of the novel, specifically those oscillations of avowal and disavowal. So a second concern is this: how does the novel speak back to narrative theory? How does its โcompulsion to tell the truthโ โ shadowed by South Africaโs Truth and Reconciliation Commission โ trouble, expand or extend the typologies used to talk about texts where โyouโ consolidates narrator and narratee? Considering this consolidation as part of what might be called a narratology of the self, I suggest that Agaatโs โyouโ can be seen as further collapsing the roles of confessor and penitent. Such collapse reinforces the interiority of Millaโs self-addressed excoriations, since it mirrors the doubled consciousness of Protestant confession. But it also inaugurates a new type of address โ the โimplied youโ โ which turns on the reader as much as on the novelโs protagonist.
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de Villiers, R. (2023). You Equals Not-I: Avowal, Disavowal, and Second-Person Narration in Marlene van Niekerkโs Agaat. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, (2024): 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/00111619.2023.2270418