Invoking indigeneity: Olive Schreiner and the poetics of plants

Abstract

Olive Schreiner’s social and political attitudes have received considerable attention, but less attention has been paid to the formal strategies of her writing. Her representation of indigenous plant-life adds to our understanding of the political significance of her writing. This essay responds to some of the comments made in this issue to my edition of From Man to Man (2015). Arguing that Schreiner’s interest in the locational identity of her main character, Rebekah, and of the novel itself, can be understood through the concept of proprioceptivity, the essay shows Schreiner’s increasing interest in recognizing and shaping an indigenous environment as the locus for her vision of social change. The change Schreiner has From Man to Man envisage is most likely to be realized on African ground. If, in her earlier novel, The Story of an African Farm, the stones speak to Waldo, in this novel, it is the plants that speak.