The missing language of freedom: code-switching in Yaël Farber’s Mies Julie (2012)

Abstract

In 2013, Yaël Farber’s adapted August Strindberg’s naturalistic drama Miss Julie into a contemporary play, set in South Africa’s Cape Karoo semi-desert. Farber maintains in her version the various concerns the original play addresses, including class and gender, however by transporting the play to post-Apartheid South Africa, questions pertaining race and identity are reflected upon in a socio-political context. Farber negotiates these issues primarily through the use of language, utilizing code-switching throughout her contemporary parable. Farber uses code-switching as a means to reflect the despair of a nation, the search for a unified identity and the desire for intimacy of the characters. Achille Mbembe argues that South Africa has a crisis in language, however this paper argues that this alleged crisis, the continuous use of multiple languages is precisely the language of post-Apartheid South Africa. A language, which reflects the liminal state of the nation, the cultural variety of the country as well as the continuous search for a unified identity.