The unspoken voices of apartheid : confessions of the interregnum

This thesis examines the relationship between silence and confession in Athol Fugard’s Tsotsi, Sindiwe Magona’s Mother to Mother, and J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace in order to show that the act of confession is often problematic, specifically when some characters choose to remain silent while other characters encourage their speech. The withholding of speech, then, becomes an act of empowerment and a rhetorical endeavor, where silence is more than the absence of speech; it is a way to communicate. Whether silence is to bring about a specific purpose, or is enforced because a character does not understand his or her situation and therefore cannot offer a sincere confession, the character has the power to choose whether or not to confess his or her story. Furthermore, this thesis explores the shift of control in three political climates: During apartheid, at the end of apartheid, and in post-apartheid South Africa in order to reflect the transferal of power from white hands to black hands. As suggested in the novels, the ability to speak correlates with the amount of power a subject has