Islands under threat : heterotopia and the disintegration of the ideal in Joseph Conrad's Heart of darkness, Antjie Krog's Country of my skull and Irvan Welsh's Marabou stork nightmares

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:The stories and histories of the human race are littered with the remnants ofutopia. These utopias always exist in some far away place, whether this placebe removed in terms of time (either as a nostalgically remembered past, or anidealistically projected future), or in terms of space (as a place that one mustarrive at). In our attempts to attain these utopias, we construct our worlddefinitionsin accordance with our projections of these ideal places and ways ofbeing. Our discourses come to embody and perpetuate these ideals, which aremaintained by excluding any definitions of the world that run counter to theseideals. The continued existence of utopia relies on the subjects of that utopiacontinuing their belief in its ideals, and not questioning its construction.Counter-discourse to utopia manifests in the same space as the original utopiaand gives rise to questions that threaten the stability of the ideal. Questionschallenge belief, and therefore the discourse of the ideal must neutralise thosewho question and challenge it. This process of neutralisation requires that moredefinitions be constructed within utopian discourse - definitions that allow thesubjects of the discourse to objectify the questioner. However, as these newdefinitions arise, they create yet more counter-definitions, thereby increasing thefragmentation of the aforementioned space.A subject of any dominant discourse, removed from that discourse, is exposedto the questions inherent in counter-discourse. In such circumstances, thedefinitions of the questioner - the other - that have previously enabled thesubject to disregard the questioner's existence and/or point of view are no longerreinforced, and the subject begins to question those definitions. Once thisquestioning process starts, the utopia of the subject is re-defined as dystopia, forthe questioning highlights the (often violent) methods of exclusion needed tomaintain that utopia.Foucault's theory of heterotopia, used as the basis for the analysis of the threetexts in question, suggests a space in which several conflicting and contradictorydiscourses which seemingly bear no relation to each other are found groupedtogether. Whereas utopia sustains myth in discourse, running with the grain oflanguage, heterotopias run against the grain, undermining the order that wecreate through language, because they destroy the syntax that holds words andthings together.The narrators in the three texts dealt with are all subjects of dominant discoursessustained by exclusive definitions and informed by ideals that require thisexclusion in order to exist. Displaced into spaces that subvert the definitionswithin their discourses, the narrators experience a sense of madness, resultingfrom the disintegration of their perception of order. However, through embracingand perpetuating that which challenged their established sense of identity, thenarrators can regain their sense of agency, and so their narratives becomevehicles for the reconstitution of the subject-status of the narrators, as well as ameans of perpetuating the counter-discourse.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University