"The Madonna of Excelsior" by Zakes Mda: The Garden Party

Résumé du document

"The Garden Party" is the second chapter of Zakes Mda's fourth novel The Madonna of Excelsior which was published in 2001. The author was born in Hershel in 1948 and grew up in Lesotho where his family emigrated for political reasons. He left South Africa in 1963 for the United States where he studied literature at Ohio University, and lived abroad for 22 years before returning to his birth country in 1995. He is now a dramatist at the Market Theatre of Johannesburg and a professor in the Creative Department at Ohio University. His work has been mainly influenced by his personal experience and by the diversity of the African tradition. Zakes Mda's The Madonna of Excelsior deals with the life of the small farming community of the town of Excelsior during two periods: "now", that is to say 1971 and "then", right after the abolition of apartheid. Each chapter starts with the description of a painting from an artist priest, Father Frans Claerhout, who lived in the Free State town of Tweespruit.

Extraits

[...] Indeed the understanding of Garden party” lies in the fact that Mda's use of time is rather unconventional. The unusual use of time in the chapter As we start reading we notice that grown-up Popi is at trinity's studio “Popi knows all these things” on line 4 page 5. The use of present tense helps us to understand it. We know that she is then thirty and is looking at a painting: The Garden Party which is a canvas by trinity who was at that time “nourished by Flemish Expressionists”. [...]

[...] Excelsior as the embodiment of apartheid In the dialogue between Niki and Tjaart Cronje, the reader is reminded by the narrator that Popi is lighter in complexion than her mother Niki: looks like a hotnot child. Like a boesman. You must have stolen her.” On lines 21-23, page 9. Popi is the living proof of a forbidden sexual relationship between a white and a black person. We will later learn that Tjaart is in fact her half brother and that Niki went to prison. [...]

[...] He left South Africa in 1963 for the United States where he studied literature at Ohio University, and lived abroad for 22 years before returning to his birth country in 1995. He is now a dramatist at the Market Theatre of Johannesburg and a professor in the Creative Department at Ohio University. His work has been mainly influenced by his personal experience and by the diversity of the African tradition. Zakes Mda's The Madonna of Excelsior deals with the life of the small farming community of the town of Excelsior during two periods: that is to say 1971 and right after the abolition of apartheid. [...]

[...] We will see what specific tools are used by the author to reach his aim. The painting of the garden party The insertion of visual details in the narrative firstly gives the reader the feeling that he can actually the painting, and then that he can enter the canvas. The first impression we get is linked to the use of the ekphrasis which is the description of a work of art, or in other words, a representation of a representation. [...]

[...] Then things seem to clear out and Niki becomes the focalizer: “Niki could see their old bakkies ( on lines 14-15 page 8. We now see what is happening at the garden party through an adult's eyes, with a more realistic point of view. This might be the reason why we start to understand things better and make the difference between the description of the painting and that of the actual garden party. But this shift in focalization also gives the reader real elements of the condition of the Natives in South Africa in 1971 during Apartheid. [...]