Question:
Unconfessed by Yvette Christiansë can be understood as a Black counternarrative – these are creatively critical and critically creative interventions that “disrupt the fictions of master narratives” (Jehan Robers 2019). Sila van de Kaap, according to Yvette Christiansë, “remain...
Unconfessed by Yvette Christiansë can be understood as a Black counternarrative – these are
creatively critical and critically creative interventions that “disrupt the fictions of master
narratives” (Jehan Robers 2019). Sila van de Kaap, according to Yvette Christiansë, “remains
largely unknowable, the bearer of unbearable knowledge, the keeper of secrets” within the Cape
Archive (14). Through her creative, theoretical and methodological writing, Yvette Christiansë
demonstrates her commitment to imbuing the archive with a deep sense of humanity and
thought. Unconfessed forces us to scrutinise the accepted “evidence” or received “archives”. In
her 2009 article, “Heartsore”: The Melancholy Archive of Cape Colony Slavery, Yvette
Christiansë claims:
“In the archive, she survives only in the fragmented records and palpable silences of criminal
proceedings, recognized under various related names, including, most frequently, Sila van de
Kaap. To the extent that she remains visible to us now, it is as a shadow figure and a
repudiation of colonialism's will-to-power in knowledge. Even so, it appears that Sila van de
Kaap's story is one not only of thwarted hope, bitter disappointment, and stubborn presence but
also of a desire for speech resulting from the inability to be heard fully from within slavery's
discourse.”
Yvette Christiansë’s Unconfessed addresses oppression, racism, hypocrisy and sexual abuse.
The novel gives a voice to Sila (a slave and prisoner in the Cape Colony), and thus a voice to
(especially female) slaves in South Africa during the eighteenth century. It draws the reader’s
attention to a part of South African history that has been neglected in literature and society
without “reproducing an intrusive gaze on their suffering”. This is achieved through the use of
various narrative techniques and focus on the plight of female slaves.
Firstly, Christiansë utilises third person narration in the first and last chapter. Third-person
narration can allow for omniscience, the reader is thus aware of many characters as well as
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