Hybridity In English Literature
The term hybridity has formed a discourse of racial mixing which is useful in understanding the impact of interrelation of different cultures in contemporary postcolonial theory. In this light, I will look at Coetzee’s ‘Disgrace’ and Matlwa’s ‘Coconut’ to explore the various ways in which hybridity appears in the novels. I will look at the way in which the issue of hybridity in both these novels have a strong connection to the history of race and thus history will be an important part of this essay. And with history, the notion of power is also closely linked, thus I will look closely at history and the imbalance of power as a way in which both these novels engage with hybridity.
In assessing the engagement of novels with the concept of hybridity,
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He questions her ‘do you hope that you can expiate the crimes of the past by suffering in the present?’ Thus demonstrating that this situation has forced David to ponder over the impact and importance that history has. Later on when Lucy asks as to why the rapists expressed so much hatred David explains that ‘it was history speaking through them […]a history of wrong…it came down from ancestors’
Coetzee explains in his essay “The Harms of Pornography” that ‘Colonialism fractured the social and customary basis of legality, yet allowed some of the worst features of patriarachalism to survive, including the treatment of unattached (unowned) women as fair fame, huntable creature’ and this is illustrated in the control that Petrus has over Lucy.
The rape narrative is not only an account of sexual violation but also highlights a history that has been disturbed by racial injustice as well as ownership of land and possessions. David is blind to the history of his own actions; when he raped Melanie he does not acknowledge the ‘long history of exploitation of which this is a part’ of as Farodia Rassool highlights in the meeting. Melanie’s rape is an example of David’s misuse of academic authority, but Rassool suggests that it maybe something else ‘as teachers we occupy positions of power. Perhaps a ban on mixing power relations with sexual relations’ thus we see that even with sexual relations, this hybridity of race is one that causes tension as well as threatens one’s
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