The Wild <i>Volksmoeder </i>in the Forest: An Analysis of the Human-Nonhuman Relationship in Dalene Matthee’s <i>Dreamforest</i> (2003)

Abstract

South African novelist Dalene Matthee’s last forest novel, Dreamforest, was published in 2003. This novel concludes her tetralogy of historical fiction novels focusing on the poor white timber community living in the Eastern Cape’s tropical Knysna forest. Initially the representation of a human-nonhuman relationship in Dreamforest suggests a connection between the sexist and classist treatment of the protagonist, Karoliena, and the deforestation of the Knysna forest. When Karoliena rejects the town’s prescript of Afrikaner nationalist volksmoeder identity, which South African theorist, Elsabé Brink (1990: 280), describes as an emulation of characteristics including a ‘sense of religion, bravery, a love of freedom, the spirit of sacrifice, self-reliance, [and] housewifeliness’, it is suggested that she opposes homogenous, monolithic racial and gender classifications. However, the reunion of Karoliena and Johannes at the end of the novel initiates Karoliena’s acceptance of the volksmoeder identity, and by implication, her rejection of the forest. Her return to Johannes therefore suggests that the nonhuman is only ever an instrument in the poor white Afrikaans woman’s search for identity and her feminist upliftment project(s). The following article analyses the depiction of this human-nonhuman relationship, primarily utilising Tiffany Willoughby-Herard’s work in whiteness studies.