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The Story of an African Farm
The Story of an African Farm was South African author Olive Schreiner's first published novel. It was published in 1883 under the pseudonym Ralph Iron. It was an immediate success and has become recognised as one of the first feminist novels.
Schreiner was one of South Africa's earliest literary figures. Her novel The Story of an African Farm was written during the era of first-wave feminism and has been recognized for its revolutionary feminist politics, though some scholars have criticized the novel as racist and exclusionist. The themes of love, marriage, motherhood, empire, and race feature in the novel through the main female character Lyndall's engagements with these issues. Some scholars have argued in favour of the transnational and transracial value of Lyndall's views and their applicability beyond the context of historical South Africa. She describes the differences in how men and women experience love:
A man's love is a fire of olive wood. It leaps higher every moment; it roars, it blazes, it shoots out red flames; it threatens to wrap you round and devour you – you who stand by like an icicle in the flow of its fierce warmth ... The next day, when you go to warm your hands a little, you find a few ashes! 'Tis a long love and cool against a short love and hot; men, at all events, have nothing to complain of.
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. The novel addresses the contemporary discourses of race, gender and empire and shows an "acute awareness of the intellectual and cultural mood" of Victorian-era modernity.
The novel variously describes motherhood as "the mightiest and noblest of human work" and a "terrible thing". Heidi Barends says "Lyndall's ambivalence about motherhood stems, in part, from the fact that while she deems motherhood to be mighty and noble, motherhood is not meant for her as in individual". According to Louise Green, the restrictions and expectations socially incumbent to motherhood prevail over her wishes for self-sufficiency, gender equality and social, intellectual equality. Lyndall says her pregnancy costs her "the right to meet on equal terms". She describes the moral responsibility of motherhood, calling it a "terrible thing" to bring a child into the world, as her own mother "knew she had nothing to support" Lyndall yet still "created her to feed like a dog from stranger hands".
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 story is set in the middle- to late-19th century – the First Boer War is alluded to, but not mentioned by name. The book is semi-autobiographical: in particular, the two principal protagonists (Waldo and Lyndall) display strong similarities to Schreiner's life and philosophy.
The book was first published in 1883 in London, under the pseudonym Ralph Iron. It quickly became a best-seller, despite causing some controversy over its frank portrayal of free thought, feminism, nonmarital sex and pregnancy, and transvestitism.
As there is only minimal narrative in the novel (and what there is only serves to support the book's many themes), it is a difficult book to summarise. 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. In general, the book may roughly be divided into three sections:
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The Story of an African Farm
The Story of an African Farm was South African author Olive Schreiner's first published novel. It was published in 1883 under the pseudonym Ralph Iron. It was an immediate success and has become recognised as one of the first feminist novels.
Schreiner was one of South Africa's earliest literary figures. Her novel The Story of an African Farm was written during the era of first-wave feminism and has been recognized for its revolutionary feminist politics, though some scholars have criticized the novel as racist and exclusionist. The themes of love, marriage, motherhood, empire, and race feature in the novel through the main female character Lyndall's engagements with these issues. Some scholars have argued in favour of the transnational and transracial value of Lyndall's views and their applicability beyond the context of historical South Africa. She describes the differences in how men and women experience love:
A man's love is a fire of olive wood. It leaps higher every moment; it roars, it blazes, it shoots out red flames; it threatens to wrap you round and devour you – you who stand by like an icicle in the flow of its fierce warmth ... The next day, when you go to warm your hands a little, you find a few ashes! 'Tis a long love and cool against a short love and hot; men, at all events, have nothing to complain of.
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. The novel addresses the contemporary discourses of race, gender and empire and shows an "acute awareness of the intellectual and cultural mood" of Victorian-era modernity.
The novel variously describes motherhood as "the mightiest and noblest of human work" and a "terrible thing". Heidi Barends says "Lyndall's ambivalence about motherhood stems, in part, from the fact that while she deems motherhood to be mighty and noble, motherhood is not meant for her as in individual". According to Louise Green, the restrictions and expectations socially incumbent to motherhood prevail over her wishes for self-sufficiency, gender equality and social, intellectual equality. Lyndall says her pregnancy costs her "the right to meet on equal terms". She describes the moral responsibility of motherhood, calling it a "terrible thing" to bring a child into the world, as her own mother "knew she had nothing to support" Lyndall yet still "created her to feed like a dog from stranger hands".
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 story is set in the middle- to late-19th century – the First Boer War is alluded to, but not mentioned by name. The book is semi-autobiographical: in particular, the two principal protagonists (Waldo and Lyndall) display strong similarities to Schreiner's life and philosophy.
The book was first published in 1883 in London, under the pseudonym Ralph Iron. It quickly became a best-seller, despite causing some controversy over its frank portrayal of free thought, feminism, nonmarital sex and pregnancy, and transvestitism.
As there is only minimal narrative in the novel (and what there is only serves to support the book's many themes), it is a difficult book to summarise. 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. In general, the book may roughly be divided into three sections: