Open Access'Ek is besig om iemand heeltemal anders te word ...': die ontginning van liminaliteit in <i>Vaselinetjie</i> deur Anoeschka von Meck
Author(s) -
Dorothea Van Zyl
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
literator
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2219-8237
pISSN - 0258-2279
DOI - 10.4102/lit.v27i1.178
Subject(s) - liminality , solidarity , space (punctuation) , viewpoints , art , aesthetics , sociology , linguistics , philosophy , visual arts , political science , law , politics
'I am becoming someone completely different …': the utilisation of liminality in Vaselinetjie (Little Vaseline) by Anoeschka von Meck The concepts of liminality, transition and borders are utilised extensively in “Vaselinetjie” by Anoeschka von Meck (2004). This is especially the case regarding her use of characterisation, focalisation, time and space (including place and landscape) in the construction of identity. As a liminal character, Vaseline finds herself in different kinds of liminal spaces on a regular basis, like the children’s home, which is foregrounded in the novel, as well as in consecutive preliminal, liminal and postliminal phases. The children’s home is an essentially liminal space, but from the perspective of Vaseline it is firstly gradually transformed into a place to which meaning is attached, and secondly to a landscape of belonging, as she expresses her solidarity with the scorned group of children in the home. On the one hand the children’s home is characterised by a certain liminal essence, but on the other hand it can be regarded as “a realm of pure possibility” (Turner, 1967:97)