Die arm Afrikaner in die Knysnabos: Witwees in Dalene Matthee se Moerbeibos (1987)

The poor Afrikaner in the Knysna Whiteness Dalene (1987) Dalene Matthee’s four forest novels, translated into English as Circles in a Forest (1984) , Fiela’s Child (1985) , The Mulberry Forest (1987) and Dreamforest (2003) , are characterised by what Wylie (2018:96) calls an “uneasy but deeply respectful symbiosis” between the forest community and the Knysna forest. This multifaceted connection between humans and the Knysna forest is also present in Matthee’s second last forest novel, The Mulberry Forest . In The Mulberry Forest , protagonist Silas Miggel lives with his daughter, Miriam, in the Knysna forest. The story is set between 1881 and 1882 and tells of Silas’ plight in caring for Italian immigrants who were brought to South Africa under the pretence of farming silk in a mulberry forest. Silas cares for the immigrants, who are forced by the British government to live in tents in the forest, in exchange for his right to live on crown land. As the novel unfolds, it becomes clear that the British government aims to utilise the immigrants as cheap labour for cutting and milling wood. The novel ends in the closure of the mill, the devastation of the forest and Silas’ incarceration for unlawfully squatting on crown land. Whilst the analysis in this article is situated within the postcolonial ecocritical framework, in which the human-nonhuman-relationship and the effects of colonisation thereon are analysed, the emphasis in Matthee’s forest novels on the human-nonhuman-relationship is also underlined by the focus on specifically a poor white Afrikaner community’s connection with the African landscape. As a result, the forest novels are characterised by the absence of the first nations residing in the Knysna forest and instead promote, to a certain degree, the poor white Afrikaner community’s claim to the African landscape. Miggel, and the Italian silk farmers’ relationship with the Knysna is depicted. Thereafter the article investigates the influence that British colonialism has on this human-nonhuman-relationship. To conclude, this article compares the themes depicted in The Mulberry Forest and the first wave of farm novels in Afrikaans. Through this comparison of themes, a conclusion can be formulated as to whether, or not, The Mulberry Forest could be considered as upholding Afrikaner nationalist narratives. Despite overlapping themes and the similarities between the depiction of the African landscape in The Mulberry Forest and the farm novels of the 1930s, this article also investigates the depiction of Silas as a tragic hero whose plight as a representative of the Afrikaner community is brought on by his own self-deception. This article finds that the focus on Silas’ self-deception, as well as the portrayal of the Italian immigrants as a community situated between the postcolonial Self and Other, problematises the homogenous and monolithic racial classifications found in Afrikaner nationalist narratives. Therefore, The Mulberry Forest could also be read as a novel investigating and challenging the upheld belief of a connection between white Afrikaners and the African landscape found in Afrikaner nationalist narratives.