Abstract
M.S. Burger debuted in 2012 with the short story collection Bloedfamilie (Blood relatives) consisting of 14 stories featuring a consistent unnamed first-person narrator (except for one story with a third-person narrator where the narrator-character remains identifiable). Consequently, there is a strong connectedness among the individual stories, further unified by recurring characters such as the father, mother and sister, and overarching motifs like sexuality, depression and family relationships.
Bloedfamilie is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on the narrator’s family history; the second part explores the narrator’s experiences of sex, violence, and mental illness; and the third part intertwines family issues with sexuality. Central to the text are expressions of sexuality, the body and violence, resulting in a crude narrative style. In her review of Bloedfamilie Hambidge (2013) describes this crudeness as cynical, unsettling, and disquieting, questioning whether it should be interpreted as a sign of wounding, with specific reference to abjection. Hambidge’s (2013) commentary on abjection activates Julia Kristeva’s well-known theorisation of the abject as outlined in Pouvoirs de l’horreur: Essai sur l’abjection (1980), translated into English in 1982 by Leon S. Roudiez as Powers of horror: an essay on abjection.
According to Kristeva (1982:4), abjection disrupts identity, system and order, disregarding boundaries, positions or rules. While abjection originates as a psychological process, Arya (2014:2) explains that it influences all aspects of social and cultural life, as the systems, laws and taboos designed to protect society and communities are challenged by the process of abjection. The abject is, therefore, not a clearly definable object but exists somewhere between the object and subject position, with abjection representing a response to a threat that may arise internally or externally. In Kristeva’s abject theory, significant attention is given to how infants separate from their mothers’ bodies to develop their own identities. Since the subject is repulsed by “something”, this symbolic revolt is directed at the mother. However, as total revolt against the maternal body is impossible, this impossibility becomes the essence of abjection.
This hopeless revolt against the maternal body is explored throughout Burger’s Bloedfamilie via the narrator’s complex relationship with her mother. This article offers an analytical investigation into how the narrator in Bloedfamilie abjects her mother. Five selected stories – “Sere in die mond” (Sores in the mouth), “Oom Koos” (Uncle Koos), “Miskraam” (Miscarriage), “Wildekus” (Wild Coast) and “Bloedfamilie” (Blood relatives) – are analysed using Kristeva’s Powers of horror as the theoretical framework. Kristeva’s theory is grounded in a psychoanalytic perspective, drawing from predecessors such as Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. Secondary texts, such as book reviews of Bloedfamilie and additional theoretical insights on abjection, are also consulted.
Although different forms of abjection emerge in Bloedfamilie, the narrator’s attempt to revolt against her mother is the most prominent. Aspects like the bodily, sexuality, violence and disease are encapsulated in the narrator’s association of her mother with the abject. Since the mother represents the social order that disapproves of the narrator’s lesbian sexuality, she becomes an object of revulsion for the narrator. In “Sere in die mond” violence is used to articulate the narrator’s disgust and repulsion towards her mother, as she symbolically confronts her through her writing. The narrator’s writing thus serves as a defence mechanism against the threat her cold and distant mother poses to her identity.
The mother perceives the narrator’s sexuality as a threat to femininity and motherhood, as illustrated in “Sere in die mond”, “Miskraam”, “Wildekus” and “Bloedfamilie”. In “Miskraam” the narrator’s hysterectomy functions as a symbolic murdering of the mother, rejecting her own potential for motherhood. This rejection of motherhood also signifies the destruction of her familial bloodline, thereby undermining patriarchy.
The narrator’s efforts to revolt against her mother not only highlight their complex relationship but also reveal the extent to which the mother has wounded (and continues to wound) the narrator through her rejection of her daughter’s lesbian sexuality. The narrator’s trauma stems from her mother’s extramarital affairs and her parents’ subsequent divorce during her childhood – themes explored in “Sere in die mond”, “Oom Koos”, “Miskraam”, “Wildekus” and “Bloedfamilie”.
Hambidge (2013) questions the author’s use of crude and vulgar language in Bloedfamilie, viewing it as mainly sensationalist; yet it seems that the crude language is functional, symbolising the narrator’s wounding. Due to her complex relationship with her parents (especially her mother), the narrator demonstrates an inability to communicate meaningfully with them. This leads to instances where the narrator reverts to what Kristeva (1982:72) calls the semiotic – referring to preverbal communication of the child (like crying or babbling), which is later replaced by the symbolic, consisting of linguistic language and structure. The narrator’s facial deformations (“Sere in die mond”) and her disruption of coherent language through the use of alliteration, assonance and sound imitation (“Oom Koos”), attempt to express her emotions. Given the intensity of her trauma, the narrator appears to enter the semiotic during moments of abjection, pain, anger, and fear. Coherent language (proper and/or civilised language) seems insufficient or inadequate for the narrator to articulate her unresolved trauma, prompting her to turn to the abject to embody her wounded identity.
The article ultimately argues that Bloedfamilie shows that the abject does not merely serve as sensationalism or an association with filth and contamination, but can be functionally employed as a critique of discriminatory sociopolitical and cultural orders such as heteronormativity, which, through systems like patriarchy, religion, and family can threaten and destroy identity.
Keywords: abjection; Bloedfamilie; M.S. Burger; identity; Julia Kristeva; motherly
- This article’s featured image contains elements obtained from Canva and the cover of Bloedfamilie by M.S. Burger (Human & Rousseau, 2012).
Lees die volledige artikel in Afrikaans
The post The abject mother in M.S. Burger’s Bloedfamilie (2012) first appeared on LitNet.
The post The abject mother in M.S. Burger’s <i>Bloedfamilie</i> (2012) appeared first on LitNet.