Abstract
This study focuses on the relation between the picareque genre and the way in which guilt is processed in literature. André Brink’s Inteendeel (On the contrary) was used in this examination and also, for a wider perspective than merely the South African situation, Arthur Japin’s De zwarte met het witte hart (The two hearts of Aquasi Boachi). The possibilities offerd by the picaresque in order to investigate the manifestation of guilt in literary texts were explored with the theories of, inter alia, Wicks, Ricoeur and Todorov. Tracing the origins of the picaresque reveals that this type of text exhibits specific characteristics, e.g. an unethical attitude that is usually imposed on the individual by a society in crisis – “guilt” and a confessional tone are therefore intrinsically part of the picaresque. Using Wicks’s modal-generic approach, the two novels are examined with the purpose of determining their degree of “picaresqueness” to test the validity of the hypothesis, i.e. that the more a text displays picaresque characteristics, the more the issue of guilt would be a central theme to that text. In the two novels relevant to this study, colonial guilt is the main form of guilt examined.
Prof. W. Burger