Narrative is inherently constructed. An author’s writing is not simply the “true” representation of the reality of a character or situation; the language the author chooses to use—the grammatical, rhetorical, and, therefore, narrative structure—directly constructs a particular view of that reality, upon which the reader then makes his or her own judgements. Therefore, the voice with which the author narrates has a direct impact on the interpretation of reality in the work. I would like to propose that the writing of first person narrative is the best way to preserve the sanctity of the narrator’s existence; first person narration allows a window into the mind—a candidness and transparency necessary to engage fully with the narrative. By extension, first person narrative is the writing that can most do justice to the situation of South Africa, as it allows every unique voice to be expressed, avoiding generalization and the delegitimization and instead pursuing truth in its purest form.
The sociologist Laurel Richardson observed, “Narrative is the best way to understand the human experience because it is the way humans understand their own lives” (Richardson, 133). Although this assertion comes from her paper on the use of narrative in sociological writing, its implications hold true for first person literature. The use of the first person allows the individual to broadcast a specific voice and be read holistically, the purest approach to narrative. A noteworthy case of empowerment of voice by first person writing is that of Azure from K. Sello Duiker’s novel Thirteen Cents. Duiker, through bestowing upon Azure the role of first person narrator, effectively empowers an incredibly complex voice that otherwise would have been lost to the superfluous framework of third person rhetoric. In order to grasp the reality of Azure’s situation in the South African landscape, it is necessary that the voice of a child navigating the adult world—rather than that of an educated author—be the words on the page from the very start. Azure states, “I live alone. The streets of Sea Point are my home. But I’m almost a man, I’m nearly thirteen years old” (Duiker 1). He does not describe himself as an orphan or as homeless—socially-assigned terms for his situation—but rather states the reality of his situation without hesitation or self-pity. He also does not describe himself as a child (as I have above) but rather matter-of-factly as “almost a man,” for in his reality he becomes a man at thirteen years of age. His self-characterization circumvents an outside categorization of his identity and simply asserts itself as the truth of the novel. No one can tell Azure he is incorrect in what he states himself to be, as his is the sole voice of the novel. His voice continues to grow in its complexity, as it is both childlike in its ignorance and harrowing in its knowingness; on the topic of banking, he states: “Joyce understands banks and how they work. Me, I have forgotten even how to hold a pen, so how could I go to the bank myself? Grownups ask many questions there. [. . .] If you ask me they are a bit like gangsters, they want to know everything so that you cannot run away from them” (Duiker 12-13). His blatant lack of understanding of how a bank works yet candid and relevant reflection on the system is unique to his perspective of navigating the Cape Town underground at his age.
In addition to their use in literature, first person narratives form the basis for the entire Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Public hearings featured individuals recounting their unique experiences under apartheid, giving the individual a voice in the midst of generalizations and assumptions by the government and the media that damaged those facing discrimination. In the words of reporter and writer Antjie Krog, “If [the Commission] sees truth as the widest possible compilation of people’s perceptions, stories, myths, and experiences, it will have chosen to restore memory and foster a new humanity, and perhaps that is justice in its deepest sense” (Krog 21-22). In other words, the greatest truth is that of many. When Krog and her reporting team are successful in getting “the voice of an ordinary cleaning woman [as] the headline on the one o’clock news,” they are ecstatic, for a voice that never would have been heard or considered then becomes one that rings around the country (Krog 45). The importance of that moment is not to be ignored. Truth-seeking as the amalgamation of diverse individual experiences beautifully rejects the categorization of peoples and experiences that had been central to the apartheid regime. The central notion of apartheid itself is that all black and colored people are the same in their fundamental inferiority to white people—they are all savages who act in this one way; by hearing and attributing value to each unique story, the greater narrative of the oppressed becomes stronger and harder to deny.
When a writer circumvents the voice of the first person narrator and inserts his or her own wording, the resulting work can sometimes take legitimacy from the narrative by exoticizing or sensationalizing it. One only needs to look to the synopsis on the back cover of the Ohio University Press edition of Thirteen Cents to find this ineptitude: “Living in this shadow [of Cape Town] is Azure, a twelve-year old orphan who makes his living on the streets, a black child sought out by white men, beholden to gang leaders, but determined to create some measure of independence in a dangerous world” (Duiker, back cover). The author of this summary takes facts from the novel—Azure’s status as an orphan, his ties to gangs, and his efforts to reject dependence on adults—yet misrepresents the character of Azure in a rather patronizing and simplified way. To start, Azure actively engages in sex work with men in the parks of Sea Point as a main source of income; to describe him as a “black child sought out by white men” is to delegitimize his agency as an independent economic actor using his body for survival. When in conversation with the man he met on the Table Mountain, Azure states, “I work with them [moffies]”—not “I work for them”—as working for “moffies” is not central to his reality and identity (Duiker 135). He does what he has to do to get by and does not sensationalize the practice like the writer of the back cover. For Azure, sex work, alcohol and drug use, and other behaviors in the “shadow” of Cape Town are normalized aspects of life, not the exotic world of “pimps” and “pedophiles” that the back cover also references (Duiker, back cover). In addition, the author’s characterization of Azure as “determined to create some measure of independence in a dangerous world” implies that he is dependent on adults in the first place, yet he has definitely learned that he cannot count on the adults around him to be trustworthy or even kind, so he has carved out a space in the Cape Town for just himself. Although he engages with adults, he is completely financially self-sufficient and makes his own decisions. He even decides at one point to just leave and spend four days alone on Table Mountain.
Although first person narrative allows the reader to receive the most candid and complete understanding of the narrator, it cannot account for the perspectives of the other actors in a story or situation, as the narrator’s perceptions of and assumptions about others can be quite limited. Other modes of narration, then, can be helpful to understand the psyches of different groups in one work. Zakes Mda’s Ways of Dying engages a community narrative—a “we” voice that claims that “no individual owns any story. The community is the owner of the story, and it can tell it the way it deems it fit” (Mda 12). This assertion stands in conflict with the argument that the individual has an inalienable right to own his or her own story and instead maintains that in the context of an individual as a part of a community, narrative belongs to everyone. At funerals, “they [the “we” narrative] eat standing and gossiping about how great and impressive the funeral was, and what inspiring speeches were made, and who has been secretly sleeping with whose wife” (Mda 161). The community takes matters of its people into its own hands and shares openly in the “way it deems it fit”; in this way, the community likely bypasses complete truthfulness for a wider exposure of information. The community thus helps to paint a larger narrative, but is it one the reader can count on?
If the problematic back cover of Thirteen Cents did get something right, it is the statement that “Azure’s voice will stay with readers long after they have finished this short novel” (Duiker, back cover). Thanks to the representation of the unique and harrowing voice of a “child” narrator, readers will leave Duiker’s novel with a new perspective with which to view the rest of South Africa’s diverse stories. First person narration, although it cannot account for all of these perspectives, simply does not attempt speak for the whole, and that is where it draws its strength. Its inclusivity and legitimizing of diverse personal narratives dismantles the categorization central to the hierarchy of apartheid itself. And that is just what South Africa needs.