Also sprach Treppie: Taal en verhaal as muurpapier in Marlene van Niekerk se Triomf (of 'It’s all in the mind')

Abstract

Also sprach Treppie; Language and narrative as wall paper in Marlene van Niekerk's Triomf (or, ‘it's all in the mind’)
In Marlene van Niekerk’s Triomf “wall paper" becomes a central metaphor for the Idea that language, narratives, ideologies, religion etc. are lies, because it leads to generalisations. These generalisations deny “reality” and are in Treppie’s words “all in the mind”. Treppie’s efforts to tear down the wall paper could be described in Nietzschean terms as resistance to Apollinian veils (especially the veils of Christian national ideology) in order to expose Dionysian chaos. It is a resistance to any form of generalisation and a distrust of language. In the end Treppie turns to language (poetic language) in order to make sense of life, to lay bare the particular In poetry (literature) an intersubjectivity is discovered which subverts the possibility to deny the specificity of individuals like the Benade’s of Triomf.