Autocratic Fatherhood, Violent Sexuality, and Critique in Mark Behr's The Smell of Apples. Issue 1 (2nd January 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Nabutanyi, Edgar
• Is Part Of: Current writing. Volume 34:Issue 1(2022)
• Page Start: 55
• Page End: 61
• Publication Date: 2022-01-02
• Subjects: Behr -- The Smell of Apples -- allegory -- Afrikaner patriarchy -- sexual violence -- child abuse; Southern African literature (English) -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; 820.996805
• DOI: 10.1080/1013929X.2022.2035073
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1013-929X

Abstract

Abstract : The recurrence of the theme of sexual violence in recent South African fiction has elevated sexual violence to a symbol of apartheid's legacy of patriarchy. Although texts that feature sexual violence are often analysed as allegories of the legacy of apartheid's patriarchal control and racial domination, I argue that texts like Mark Behr's The Smell of Apples de-allegorise and/or de-politicise sexual violence. Rather than read The Smell of Apples as an exculpatory narrative of white South Africa's complicity in apartheid's atrocities, I argue that Behr's depiction of sexual violence in a space where the child is supposed to be safe and by a perpetrator who is known to the victim and from whom the victim expects protection complicates the South African rape narrative. Thus, I contend that Behr crafts an ingenious and nuanced register for his witness-protagonist to subvert the muzzling power of the rapist-father to disclose the horror of sexual abuse for both victim and witness.