Original Research
'Ek is besig om iemand heeltemal anders te word ...': die ontginning van liminaliteit in Vaselinetjie deur Anoeschka von Meck
Literator | Vol 27, No 1 | a178 |
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/lit.v27i1.178
| © 2006 D. van Zyl
| This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 30 July 2006 | Published: 30 July 2006
Submitted: 30 July 2006 | Published: 30 July 2006
About the author(s)
D. van Zyl, Departement Afrikaans en Nederlands, Universiteit van Stellenbosch, South AfricaFull Text:
PDF (145KB)Abstract
'I am becoming someone completely different …': the utilisation of liminality in Vaselinetjie (Little Vaseline) by Anoeschka von Meck
The concepts of liminality, transition and borders are utilised extensively in “Vaselinetjie” by Anoeschka von Meck (2004). This is especially the case regarding her use of characterisation, focalisation, time and space (including place and landscape) in the construction of identity. As a liminal character, Vaseline finds herself in different kinds of liminal spaces on a regular basis, like the children’s home, which is foregrounded in the novel, as well as in consecutive preliminal, liminal and postliminal phases. The children’s home is an essentially liminal space, but from the perspective of Vaseline it is firstly gradually transformed into a place to which meaning is attached, and secondly to a landscape of belonging, as she expresses her solidarity with the scorned group of children in the home. On the one hand the children’s home is characterised by a certain liminal essence, but on the other hand it can be regarded as “a realm of pure possibility” (Turner, 1967:97).
The concepts of liminality, transition and borders are utilised extensively in “Vaselinetjie” by Anoeschka von Meck (2004). This is especially the case regarding her use of characterisation, focalisation, time and space (including place and landscape) in the construction of identity. As a liminal character, Vaseline finds herself in different kinds of liminal spaces on a regular basis, like the children’s home, which is foregrounded in the novel, as well as in consecutive preliminal, liminal and postliminal phases. The children’s home is an essentially liminal space, but from the perspective of Vaseline it is firstly gradually transformed into a place to which meaning is attached, and secondly to a landscape of belonging, as she expresses her solidarity with the scorned group of children in the home. On the one hand the children’s home is characterised by a certain liminal essence, but on the other hand it can be regarded as “a realm of pure possibility” (Turner, 1967:97).
Keywords
Construction Of Identity; Liminality; Place And Landscape Space; Anoeschka Von Meck
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Literator vol: 40 issue: 1 year: 2019
doi: 10.4102/lit.v40i1.1592