The Queer Son and the Declining Patriarch in Post-Apartheid South African Literature: The Subversive Symbol of Water in Mark Behr’s Kings of the Water

Abstract

SummaryThis article traces how the character of the father in post-apartheid South African literature is symbolic of the spectral yet enduring legacy of apartheid and the types of rigid masculinities which underpinned the oppressive system. I use this framing to demonstrate the conflict between the traditional South African father and the queer son. Queer male characters, and queer identities within South African society, are represented as disruptive to traditional conceptions of masculinity and fatherhood, and act as deconstructionist elements within the home and the family unit. In demonstrating these trends, I analyse Mark Behr’s novel, Kings of the Water (2009), which focalises a gay Afrikaans-speaking expatriate character who returns to the country and confronts his father at the family farm. The symbol of water in this text allows for the queer character to resist the stifling influence of his father and to queer his environment, renegotiating a connection with the family home as well as with South Africa.