Abstract
This paper undertakes an analysis of Breytenbach’s prison book in terms of the autobiographer's psychological response to his experience of incarceration. Breytenbach’s ‘gallows humour' is shown to parallel the Bakhtinian ‘carnivalesque' with its symbolic destruction of official authority on the one hand, and the assertion of spiritual renewal on the other While looking into the carnivalesque dimension of gallows humour as mediated through the literary device of the trickster figure, I shall show that ‘the laughter of irreverence' goes beyond mere verbal playfulness in that it is part of a spiritually-based programme of opposition.
Highlights
Breytenbach the poet, prose writer, painter, public figure and exile is an ex convict and, as he calls himself mockingly in his prison book, an “albino terro rist”
What may have led Coetzee to this conclusion was that, Breytenbach wrote the memoir after his release from prison, the general tenor o f the book suggests to readers that they are in the company of a mind experiencing the immediacy o f the daily prison condition while in full control o f all its faculties
Intrigued by Breytenbach’s ability to cope with the evil effects o f imprisonment, especially with prison space, Coetzee goes on to ponder that what will survive of True Confessions is not the narrative o f capture, interrogation and imprisonment, absorbing though that is
Summary
Breytenbach the poet, prose writer, painter, public figure and exile is an ex convict and, as he calls himself mockingly in his prison book, an “albino terro rist”. Intrigued by Breytenbach’s ability to cope with the evil effects o f imprisonment, especially with prison space, Coetzee goes on to ponder that what will survive of True Confessions is not the narrative o f capture, interrogation and imprisonment, absorbing though that is. The trickster and the prison house tenbach’s transformation o f the physical constraints of the prison cell into the metaphysical state of the internal exile It is the “metaphysical cell” (Davies, 1990) that leaves its mark. Come onto my tongue and never leave me again May my intellectual faculties never go astray May my errors not weigh unduly on my becoming Give that I be freed from the vicissitudes of life hi times of peril, may my spirit not go mad May my intelligence function without obstacles
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