Arm Afrikaner in die Knysnabos : witwees in Dalene Matthee se Moerbeibos (1987)

• Published in: Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe
• Main Author: Rabie, Delia
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Afrikaans
• Published: Suid Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns 2022
• Subjects: Mulberry Forest; Moerbeibos; Dalene Matthee; Witweesstudies; African landscape; Afrikalandskap; Whiteness studies; Poor whites; Wit armoede; Afrikaner nationalism; Afrikanernasionalisme; Knysna forest; Knysnabos; White poverty; Armblankevraagstuk; Forest novels; Bosroman; Human-nonhuman-relationship; Mens-niemenslike-verbintenis; Postcolonialism; Postkolonialisme; Self/Other; Self/ Ander; Postcolonial ecocriticism; Postkoloniale ekokritiek; Dalene; Wylie; First Nations
• Online Access: https://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/85813; https://doi.org/10.17159/2224-7912/2022/v62n2a7

Dalene Matthee’s four forest novels, translated into English as Circles in a Forest (1984), Fiela’s Child (1985), The Mulberry Forest (1987) and Dreamforest (2003), are characterised by what Wylie (2018:96) calls an “uneasy but deeply respectful symbiosis” between the forest community and the Knysna forest. This multifaceted connection between humans and the Knysna forest is also present in Matthee’s second last forest novel, The Mulberry Forest. In The Mulberry Forest, protagonist Silas Miggel lives with his daughter, Miriam, in the Knysna forest. The story is set between 1881 and 1882 and tells of Silas’ plight in caring for Italian immigrants who were brought to South Africa under the pretence of farming silk in a mulberry forest. Silas cares for the immigrants, who are forced by the British government to live in tents in the forest, in exchange for his right to live on crown land. As the novel unfolds, it becomes clear that the British government aims to utilise the immigrants as cheap labour for cutting and milling wood. The novel ends in the closure of the mill, the devastation of the forest and Silas’ incarceration for unlawfully squatting on crown land. Whilst the analysis in this article is situated within the postcolonial ecocritical framework, in which the human-nonhuman-relationship and the effects of colonisation thereon are analysed, the emphasis in Matthee’s forest novels on the human-nonhuman-relationship is also underlined by the focus on specifically a poor white Afrikaner community’s connection with the African landscape. As a result, the forest novels are characterised by the absence of the first nations residing in the Knysna forest and instead promote, to a certain degree, the poor white Afrikaner community’s claim to the African landscape. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard (2007; 2015) argues that the emphasis in Afrikaans literature on the connection between poor white Afrikaners and the African landscape is a political and social strategy, aimed to promote and uphold Afrikaner nationalist ...