Beyond the walls of the lunatic asylum: Christopher Hope’s early fiction

F Wood

doi:10.4102/lit.v25i2.255

Abstract

This article examines an under-explored aspect of Christopher Hope’s early fiction: its capacity to suggest the potential for imaginative and psychological freedom through its comic, carnivalesque qualities. Hope produced various novels and stories set in South Africa during the 1950s and 1960s, including A Separate Development (1981), Black Swan (1987) and the short story collection Learning to Fly (1990). It is argued that Hope’s vision in these works tends to be perceived as essentially satirical, ultimately limited by bleakness and pessimism; while the carnivalesque, potentially liberatory aspects of his writing tend to be overlooked. By utilising comic and carnivalesque features Hope’s work indeed offers creative, liberated ways of apprehending reality. Mikhail Bakhtin’s discussion of the ability of the carnivalesque to open up new ways of seeing, through the “nonofficial” versions of reality that it proffers, is particularly relevant in this regard. It is argued that this latter aspect of Hope’s work is especially significant, bearing in mind the sense of constraint and confinement that seemed to dominate much of South African fiction during the apartheid era and that still remains a key concern in many postapartheid novels.

Highlights

This article explores an under-investigated dimension of Christopher Hope’s early fiction: his fantastical, carnivalesque transformations of aspects of South African society during the apartheid era
Hope’s most striking work seems to be that which engages with South African society during the dark days of Nationalist Party rule
This study argues that this other dimension of Hope’s early novels and stories – which has more often than not, been overlooked – remains of relevance to South African fiction today

Summary

Introduction

This article explores an under-investigated dimension of Christopher Hope’s early fiction: his fantastical, carnivalesque transformations of aspects of South African society during the apartheid era. It is argued, Hope’s fiction offers opportunities for subversive ridicule of representatives of the established order and holds out the possibility of psychological and imaginative liberation. Lack the outrageous humour and imaginative vitality of Hope’s earlier writing While his artistic vision in works dealing with South Africa under apartheid tends to be viewed as primarily satirical in nature, characterised by a blackly cynical vision and culminating in images of death and defeat, Hope himself ascribes a far larger purpose to his fiction. The short stories in Njabulo Ndebele’s Fools (1983) and the comic writing of Casey Motsisi represent some illustrations of these – as does, against all surface appearances, Hope’s early fiction

The satirical

The carnivalesque

Escape

Imaginative recreation

Conclusion