Twee Kersverhale van Henriette Grove

Abstract

Two Christmas stories by Henriette Grove Three of the short stories in Jaarringe (Annual Rings) by Henriette Grove (1966) bear relation to Christmas: Kom herwaarts getroues (Come hither faithful followers) , Die Betlehem-ster (The Star of Betlehem), and Gebed om 'n wonderwerk (Prayer for a miracle). All of them, as most of the other stories in this volume, were previously published elsewhere. As they have not been arranged according to their original dates of publication, this deviation from a chronological order has to be interpreted as a deliberate strategy by the writer to influence the reader's reception of the single stories as well as of the volume as a whole. Grove juxtaposes Kom herwaarts getroues and Die Betlehem-ster, but places a considerable amount of text between these two and the third Christmas story, creating a close alliance between the first two. The story that was published at a later date, now appears before the earlier one. By this arrangement, the ending of the first story, where a star is fixed to the head of a broken doll, is clearly linked with the title of the second and a circulating symbol is created. This is a typical unifying element in a volume of stories. Both stories show very few signs of the joy of Christmas, but emanate disillusionment. In both of them values are debunked, and they bear the stamp of the lie, which clearly removes them from the realm of the typical Christmas story and adds to their importance within the corpus of Afrikaans short stories.