Also sprach Treppie : taal en verhaal as muurpapier in Marlene van Niekerk se Triomf (of "it's all in the mind")

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Authors

Burger, Willie

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Bureau for Scholarly Journals

Abstract

In Marlene van Niekerk's Triomf "wall paper" becomes a central metaphor for the idea that language, narratives, ideologies, religion etc. are lies, because it leads to generalisations. These generalisations deny "reality" and are in Treppie's words "all in the mind". Treppie's efforts to tear down the wall paper could be described in Nietzschean terms as resistance to Apollinian veils (especially the veils of Christian national ideology) in order to expose Dionysian chaos. It is a resistance to any form of generalisation and a distrust of language. In the end Treppie turns to language (poetic language) in order to make sense of life, to lay bare the particular. In poetry (literature) an intersubjectivity is discovered which subverts the possibility to deny the specificity of individuals like the 8enade's of Triomf.

Description

Article digitised using: Suprascan 1000 RGB scanner, scanned at 400 dpi; 24-bit colour; 100% Image derivating - Software used: Adobe Photoshop CS3 - Image levels, crop, deskew Abbyy Fine Reader No.9 - Image manipulation + OCR Adobe Acrobat 9 (PDF)
This article was written by Prof. Willie Burger before he joined the University of Pretoria

Keywords

Generalizations, Intersubjektiwiteit

Sustainable Development Goals

Citation

Burger, W 2000, 'Also sprach Treppie : taal en verhaal in Marlene van Niekerk se Triomf (of "It's all in the mind")', Literator, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 151-153.