Abstract
Loss and grief are central to the oeuvre of Lettie Viljoen/Ingrid Winterbach. Die boek van toeval en toeverlaat (2006), Winterbach’s latest novel, may be seen as a synthesis of the various experiences of loss that are mentioned in her previous prose texts: material loss; the temporary and permanent parting of loved ones; the death of significant others; more vaguely defined forms of loss, such as melancholy, yearning, psychological uneasiness and malaise; as well as a growing realisation of transience and mortality.
In this study the various embodiments of loss and grief in the oeuvre of Lettie Viljoen/Ingrid Winterbach are investigated, in order to comment on the role of loss in Afrikaans literature, as well as on loss as a general human experience. Attention is not only given to the role of experiences of loss and reactions to grief in the narrative, but also to the way in which loss is portrayed in the structure, language use and style of the various prose texts. One of the main goals of the study is to question the concepts loss, grief and the processing of grief in the context of the Viljoen/Winterbach oeuvre.
Despite its popularity in current “loss literature”, this study does not assess loss and grief from a psychotherapeutic perspective. An important reason for this is that psychotherapeutic loss assessments have a limited relevancy value in literature; they often reduce the data of a novel to psychological casework and, consequently, do not do justice to the complexity of the phenomena they are trying to explain. The psychoanalytical views of Freud, Lacan, Abraham and Torok regarding loss and grief, as well as the poststructuralist beliefs of Derrida regarding loss and grieving are rather used as points of departure, seeing that these authors mostly developed their thoughts on the basis of literary narratives. The complexity of the concepts loss and grief is acknowledged and explained by their views, while language plays a decisive role in their views on grief.
The concept processing of grief is specifically discussed and it is indicated that a traditional, psychotherapeutic view of processing as “healing” is increasingly questioned in the Viljoen/Winterbach oeuvre. Further, the over-optimistic view of researchers, such as Abraham and Torok, that the conversion of loss into language is already an indication that the loss experience is accommodated by the psyche and processed to a significant extent is refuted on the basis of Lacanian psychoanalysis.
At first glance, it seems as though most of the characters in the Viljoen/Winterbach oeuvre hold an opinion on grief similar to Freud’s initial belief regarding loss. Consequently, “normal” grief is seen as an active process, during which the libido is gradually detached from the lost love object and, in time, invested in another love object, with the view that there would eventually be a conclusive and spontaneous end to the grief (and thus also to the loss).
If processing of loss means a complete severance of the libido from the lost love object and a spontaneous end to grief, the oeuvre of Lettie Viljoen/Ingrid Winterbach clearly illustrates unresolved grief across novel-borders. Few characters successfully find comfort in replacements or substitutes for their lost love objects. The grief of these characters rather displays characteristics similar to Freud’s later (revised) view on “melancholic” grief – a view according to which grief does not end conclusively and spontaneously, but rather constitutes a prolonged, even endless, process.
According to Derrida such an “unresolved” and prolonged grief is, however, the more appropriate and ethical form of grief or mourning after a loss. Despite their desire to overcome their loss and grief and to let the lost other go, most characters in the Viljoen/Winterbach oeuvre realise that they also have a certain ethic responsibility towards the lost other. They eventually affirm the Derridian idea that the possibility of the impossible is the basis of the rhetoric of grief as a whole and that success implies failure and failure implies success. Should you, in one way or another, accomplish a successful internalisation of the other (but it is impossible), you fail, in fact, because the other is then no longer the other. And, vice versa, should you fail (and you are doomed to fail), you succeed, in fact, because that way you retain respect for the other as other.
Viewed in this light, all the novellas and novels of Lettie Viljoen/Ingrid Winterbach essentially deal with the question of how mourning could and should take place through words.
Prof. W.D. Burger