A comparative analysis of selected works of Bessie Head and Ellen Kuzwayo with the aim of ascertaining if there is a Black South African feminist perspective.

Abstract

My concern in this thesis is to assess if one can justifiably say that there is a unique black South African feminist perspective. I have chosen to focus on the feminist perspectives of two renowned black female African writers: Bessie Head (1937-1988) and Ellen Kuzwayo (1914-). I have several reasons for selecting these two writers for my investigation. Head and Kuzwayo, though obviously not exact contemporaries chronologically speaking, were contemporaries in the sense that they lived through, and wrote during, the time of apartheid rule in South Africa. Both can be considered as revolutionaries in their own right. Both used the traditional story telling literary device and the autobiographical genre differently but strikingly. They could both be called social feminists because they were both concerned with social justice, equality, racism, personal identity and upliftment of the community. I argue that the works of these writers have shown defmable feminist perspectives that suggest that, indeed, there is a South African Black Women's feminist perspective.