Department of English

Charles G. Finney’s 1936 novel The Circus of Dr. Lao was published to
enthusiastic reviews, but fell into relative obscurity shortly thereafter. Since its
publication, it has been the subject of one peer-reviewed critical essay, a number of
reviews, one non-peer-reviewed essay, and a master’s thesis. It was published in a world
where the fantastic and unique found only barren desert soil, with no scholarly tradition
for the fantastic, nor a widely receptive lay audience for something truly unique, or sui
generis. The concept of the sui generis, meaning “of its own kind,” provides a useful lens
for examining the novel, as Finney develops not only creatures, but people, which are
truly of their own kind, borrowing from existing mythologies, traits of humanity, and
aspects of nature, recombining them in a singular way which resists classification.

George Lamming portrays his characters in In the Castle of My Skin as a people who are deeply alienated by slavery's "middle passage" experience. Since the actual middle passage failed to destroy the peasants' cultural tropes, the Empire perpetuates the middle passage process through its education and religious systems. As a sign that this alienation is absolute, the peasants are portrayed as weak, and yet ever dependent on the English landlord for stability, identity, and sense of purpose. In the midst of this dependency the peasants find that they are locked in a mimetic world where their desire for freedom and identity can only be met by imitating the very source of their alienation. The satisfaction that they derive from imitating the landlord---and the English in general---is never sufficient to stop their search for freedom and identity, even as they achieve some level of replication of the landlord's power. But their quest for meaning in a colonial world is dashed when the representatives of the new black elite who have taken over from the landlord deny them political and economic freedoms, proving that any mimetic interaction with the oppressor, when replicated in a new political era, produces the same oppressive results.

Olive Schreine'rs novel, The Story of an African Farm, and nonfiction work, Woman and Labor, have compelled critics to apply the term New Woman to her main character, Lyndall, who speaks out for change against the established gender roles. The thesis proposes that by placing Lyndall in a colonial context, Schreiner creates a plot where place and language embody the possibilities for change. Considering that Schreiner's life consisted of a life in the colonies, first as a governess, later as a wife, one sees Schreiner's personal interest in change. Analyzing Schreiner's style of representing Lyndall's relationship with nature and other characters, one discovers the way Schreiner balances a feminist (and hence radical) shadow discourse of masochism with the discourses of nature and evolution. Schreiner registers an interest in change in her language by turning the linguistic-mental neighborhoods of Jane Austen inside out in favor of a more extrinsic language, the dialect of real South African neighborhoods. In her personal details, furthermore, Schreiner brings to life the language and landscape of her beloved country, creating the conceptual groundwork for political change. Read in this way, Olive Schreiner's work can be seen as creating space for more literature about social change like the award-winning work of the South African writer, Nadine Gordimer.