Die skryf van ʼn lewe: Die funksionaliteit van ruimte in Stephanus Muller se Nagmusiek (2014)

Abstract

This study investigated the functionality of space in Stephanus Muller’s Nagmusiek (2014). The influential works of Gaston Bachelard, Henri Lefebvre and Michel Foucault with regard to the house as a place of shelter and protection, social space as a social product and the principle of heterotopia were used as theoretical approaches to the analysis of the text. In this study the focus of analysis and discussion was on the relationship of Werner Ansbach, the fictional biographer, with the various spaces he enters. Ansbach’s relationship with his private space as well as his experience of public and social spaces in the Stellenbosch area and during his fieldwork, undertaken outside the geographical borders of the town, was investigated. This study discusses the influence that space has on the character as well as the character’s role in and contribution to the functionality of the space. The overlapping of and connection between various spaces through concrete as well as on a symbolic means were subjected to scrutiny. The connection of space highlights the relationship between private and public, between inside and outside, and the overlapping and merging of the concrete author with his fictitious biographer and with the South African composer Arnold van Wyk, the biographical subject of Nagmusiek.