Olive Schreiner (1855-1920) was born to (English) Wesleyan missionary parents in what is now Lesotho. Her father struggled to earn a living and she grew up in poverty. Her formal education didn’t begin until she was 12, when she was sent to live with her school teacher brother. As a young woman she moved from farm to farm as a governess, her agnosticism and views about sexuality probably always a source of conflict with her employers.
The Story of an African Farm, written between 1874 and 1875 and published in two volumes in 1883, is a complex novel both thematically and in terms of narrative structure. The book was first published in 1883 in London, under the pseudonym Ralph Iron. It was South African author Olive Schreiner's first published novel. Schreiner was one of South Africa's earliest literary figures.
Jill Roe in her biography of Miles Franklin writes that to coincide with the release of Old Blastus of Bandicoot in 1931, Miles’ first novel under her own name for 22 years, Nettie Palmer “published an impressive article” describing MF as “The Olive Schreiner of Australian Literature”. Both Schreiner and Franklin wrote their signature works as young women on isolated farms, and both in adulthood were fiercely opinionated feminists.
My intention with AWW Gen 0 Week is for us to look at those works which influenced and/or paralleled the rise of the Independent Woman paradigm in Australian Lit. and so I am pleased that the first story I have chosen can so clearly be shown to have been an influence on My Brilliant Career (1901), though the stories aren’t particularly similar except in their settings, their feminism, and their general ‘free thinking’ (though Franklin’s thought is clearer in the later My Career Goes Bung) . Later, when she was working in the US women’s trade union movement, Franklin read Schreiner’s Woman and Labour (1911), “the bible of Edwardian feminism”, which I plan to review in January.
My Brilliant Career is a romp, written by a teenager. The Story of an African Farm is a tragedy, written by a young woman already thinking about sex in ways with which Miles Franklin struggled all her writing life.
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Setting and Characters
Schreiner’s novel features three children, Em, Lyndall and Waldo growing to adulthood on a remote South African farm in open, scrubby, plains country - the Karoo - dotted with low rocky hills - kopjes. It would seem that the owner of the farm is Em, although most of the time she’s more a servant.
Em and Lyndall are orphans and cousins, of English descent; Waldo is the son of the German farm manager, a widower. Head of the household until late in the story is Tant (aunt) Sannie, a Dutch/Boer woman who had been Em’s father’s second wife. She is a large woman, Em is small and plump, Lyndall goes away to school where she grows into a great beauty. Black Africans are around, as housekeepers, servants and farm workers, though I was never clear where they lived. They are not given names.
The novel details the lives of three characters, first as children and then as adults - Waldo, Em and Lyndall - who live on a farm in the Karoo region of South Africa. The farm itself, an unremittingly bleak landscape, serves as a symbol to counter the romantic traditional version of the frontier. The story is set in the middle- to late-19th century - the First Boer War is alluded to, but not mentioned by name. The novel is in two parts, roughly equating to the main characters’ childhood, and then their young adulthood.
Characters:
- Em: Represents traditional womanhood.
- Lyndall: Foreshadows the New Woman, opposed to domesticity and male domination.
- Waldo: An idealistic boy tormented by religious doubt.
- Tant’ Sannie: Represents the most practical of the characters.
Setting Places:
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- Karroo: Arid, dusty plateau of the southwestern part of what is now the Republic of South Africa
- Farm: Ostrich and sheep ranch on the Karroo that gives the novel its title.
- Kopje: Stony hill on the Karroo to which Waldo likes to go to think about such things as life, God, and history.
Olive Schreiner - The Story of an African Farm
Plot Overview
The first part sets the scene, an impoverished farm in the grip of drought. To an Australian this seems like outback country, not fit for farming, and indeed I don’t think they put in any grain, but run a mix of cattle, goats and ostriches.
In the first, an English con man, Bonaparte Blenkins, ingratiates himself with Tant Sannie, thinking that through marriage he might become the owner of the farm. Especially after Waldo’s father dies and he temporarily assumes the role of farm manager, he is, to Tant Sannie’s amusement, increasingly cruel to the children. Interestingly, Blenkins, who speaks only English, must communicate with Tant Sannie, who speaks only Dutch, by sign language or via one of the Black servants who acts as interpreter. Presumably the children speak both languages.
There is very little narrative, though various of the characters from time to time fall in and out of being engaged, only a couple of them actually making it to the altar. The first half of the novel follows these characters through their childhoods, showing how they are all exposed to abuse and respond differently to it.
The second part seems much more important to Schreiner. With the children now nineteen or twenty she uses Waldo and Lyndall in particular to explore views about atheism and independence for women. The second part seems much more important to Schreiner. With the children now nineteen or twenty she uses Waldo and Lyndall in particular to explore views about atheism and independence for women.
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The second section makes almost exclusive use of the first-person plural pronoun ("we", "us" etc.). This is followed by a shorter, lyric section, called “Time and Seasons,” in which Schreiner describes what appears to be Waldo’s spiritual journey, although he is only mentioned at the beginning of the section, with Schreiner then switching predominately to first person plural pronouns. The rest of the second part of the book follows: the three main characters are now young adults and Em is helping run the farm, waiting for a marriage proposal. Lyndall is off at school, and Waldo is working the farm but preparing to journey into the world.
The story is told in vignettes, rather than conventionally plotted, and these events are not always strictly chronological. In addition, much of the story is revealed as a series of vignettes - often devoid of context, or (deliberately) out of sequence. The author also frequently interjects into the narrative to address the reader directly.
Although only still in young adulthood by the end of the book, these different paths lead two to early deaths and the third to the eve of a marriage to a character introduced at the beginning of the second half of the novel.
The third section covers the lives of the three main characters as adults. The first section of the book deals with the lives of protagonists as children and teenagers. Waldo is initially presented as a deeply devout Christian, a philosophy he appears to have inherited from his widower father Otto, the kindly German farm-keeper.
The English South African Bonaparte Blenkins is an inveterate liar and confidence trickster. He arrives at the farm spinning a tale of woe, presenting himself as a successful businessman who has fallen on hard times. Tant Sannie reluctantly agrees to allow Bonaparte to remain on the farm, under the care of Otto. Bonaparte's cruelty towards the children borders on sadism. He is especially hard on Waldo whom he seems to despise.
Although technically the first chapter of Part II of the book, "Times and Seasons" differs in style and narrative from those that surround it. "Times and Seasons" follows the journey of faith from infancy through adulthood. The rationalist becomes enamoured with the natural world, taking delight in its many mysteries and revelations. The dream cannot continue - reality rudely awakens the dreamer. He sees the World as it really is, unjust, evil - no evidence of a supernal, all-consuming love. As a consequence, the one-time believer becomes the Atheist.
The Hunter's Allegory is somewhat similar to "Times and Seasons" in theme, tracing the journey from blind superstition to the painful search for Truth, this time using the literary device of Allegory. He states that will search for her, whatever it may take. Gregory is under no illusions. He is fully aware that Lyndall would more than likely throw him aside should he find her.
Lyndall returns to her room to gather her belongings. On the way there, she stops at Otto's grave to bid him farewell. It is here that she reveals that she is tired and lonely - aching for something to love.
Some time later, Gregory returns to the farm, alone. He overhears a conversation between the landlady and a Mozambiquian nurse. The Nurse must leave - her husband wants her back home. The landlady frets that "the lady" is still unwell. Gregory hatches a plan. Fetching his belongings, he changes into a dress and a kapje. He shaves himself. Later that day, he returns to the hotel, hoping that the landlady will not recognise him. She does not. Gregory tells her that he is a nurse looking for work. The landlady leads him into the room where he finds Lyndall and Doss.
While Gregory watches over Lyndall, she grows weaker by the day. Eventually, Gregory and Lyndall agree to return to the farm. Gregory makes the arrangements, although he knows that Lyndall will not survive the journey. His fears are realised: a few days into the journey, Lyndall wakes one night to find that the fog has lifted from her mind. She sees...
Originally published under a pseudonym in 1883, Olive Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm provides an account of colonial life in 19th-century South Africa. The novel uses the omniscient narration style typical of 19th-century Realism but blends elements of a bildungsroman and philosophical fiction in telling the story of cousins Lyndall and Em and their friendship with Waldo, the son of the farm’s German overseer.
Themes
Deeply informed by the political economy of John Stuart Mill, the Social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer, and the Transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Schreiner's strongly intellectual novel courageously faced up to the increasing agnosticism of her age, its growing doubts about the sanctity of marriage, and the violence incurred by imperialist expansion.
In her novel, Schreiner subverts the traditional gender relations by portraying gender role reversal, female sexuality and female intellectual power. As the children grow older, the novel explores themes of Finding God and Unity in Nature, The Value of Education, and Women’s Status in Marriage.
Key Themes:
- The conflict between science and religion
- Education
- Loss of faith
- Gender relations and the "Woman Question"
- Colonial concerns
Karoo landscape
Feminism
Her feminist awakening forms the most important theme of the novel which centers on the struggle of a woman for gender equality, personal freedom and sexual liberation. Elaine Showalter calls her “the first wholly feminist heroine” (199).
As a New Woman, Lyndall points to the phenomenon of sexism in Victorian gender relations. In a patriarchal society young women were generally described in terms of their looks and behaviour towards men. They were assessed not as “intelligent” or “thoughtful”, but rather as “pretty”, “fragile” and “amiable”, i.e. possessing sweetness of disposition. Women were expected to please men, bear children and suppress their own desires.
Lyndall’s refusal to marry the father of her child is attributed by some scholars to her refusal to participate in societal conventions, so that she will not lose the "freedom she had won for herself through her determined resistance" to those forces. Marriage is seen as an institution to put a woman's neck beneath a man's foot - there is no alternative, in Lyndall's view.
Narrative Style
Monsman notes that African Farm displays many narrative modes: dream, sermon, confession, polemic, allegory, song, letter, etc. This diversity of modes is stitched together through a careful, symmetrical pattern of events, imagery, ideas, and allusions -- what Monsman calls "an almost coldly rational design" (82).
As Monsman says,The text continuously turns back upon its events and images, contrasting and diversifying them, prohibiting definitive form. Its narrative web is undercut by chronological and scenic disruptions and juxtapositions that deliberately frustrate any attempt to fix a unilinear sequence of events, a rigid structure that encloses the story like a frame around a landscape painting.
The Story of an African Farm is not characterized by difficult language (with the exception of some South African phrases, which are explained in a glossary at the beginning of the novel), syntax, or structure. In short, it should be a relatively easy read for most students.
Schreiner's sense is that the "story" of her African farm is simply a fragment of a larger context of incident, one story behind another like the layers of a lily bulb. While Olive Schreiner was born and lived for years in South Africa, she remains important to the British writing tradition as the first colonial novelist held important by British readers.
Her style omits all sentimentality as she adopts a tone of frank hostility, sketching the unpleasant reality of the lack of women’s rights, the spiritual struggles caused by isolation and sexual harassment. In addition, two sections resemble allegory; in those sections, Schreiner imitates, in order to subvert, biblical diction.
