Bessie Head: Madwoman Reconfiguring the Globe

Bessie Head: Madwoman Reconfiguring the Globe

  Bessie Head"s texts provide abundant examples of schizophrenic isolation and vividness. Head"s own life experiences and how she translates them into fiction are particularly relevant to an analysis of her work. Especially Head"s third novel for the graphic depiction of Elizabeth"s mental breakdown. Her work is didactic and that Elizabeth is employed as Head"s mouthpiece to issue an attack on the complex roots of society"s ills. Her books especially offer sharp insights into the contingencies underlying efforts to seal group membership or exclusion on grounds of blood, nature, or ancestry. Indeed, the very act of writing for Head was a political statement as well as a personal anchoring. Head obviously wanted to turn away from the more typically bourgeois concentration on the individual, despite the allegorical potential, and move toward collective storytelling forms such as short fiction and oral interviews as well as partly fictionalized historical narratives of Botswana. The obvious indicators of race and gender concerns abundant in Head"s texts add yet another dimension to an analysis her work. Thus like Jameson used to discover the utopian elements of Head"s work, Head"s unique vision of herself, of Africa, and of the entire universe can be utilized as a device to test the boundaries of Jameson"s own strategies of seeking utopian elements in the postmodern world.