الفهرس 
When Rain Clouds GatherOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Summary
The present thesis attempts to probe into the wisdom of
madness, or rather the reasons which lead to neurosis as revealed
in the fiction of Bessie Head, the South African writer. Many
Africans knew that they could change their reality and resist the
white master who controlled their lives. Many others however
fell victims to mental and psychological disorders which are
logical consequences to the horrors of colonial racist regimes.
Neurosis can be accompanied with hallucinations when the
patient imagines either good or bad things in his mind. Head‟s
novels are the most remarkable articulation of such hallucinations
and neurotic manifestations. These novels are A Question of
Power (1973), When Rain Clouds Gather (1969) and The
Cardinals (1993). A Question of Power is an autobiography of
Head‟s own life under mental and psychological disorders. Both
When Rain Clouds Gather and The Cardinals also feature
neurotic characters who barely tolerate Apartheid and exile.
In WRCG, Head shows how Makhaya, the hero of the
novel, suffers psychologically due to white colonialism. White
colonialism causes Makhaya, Paulina and other characters in the
novel to suffer from an identity crisis. Head indicates the relation
between these psychological disorders and the racism of the
white colonialists.
QP, the second novel this thesis analyses, is a
representation of neurosis. Head is particularly a neurotic patient,
and she represents her mental illness through Elizabeth, the
protagonist of the novel. The white colonial evil powers are
symbolized in Dan, Medusa and Sello, three imaginary characters
that appear in Elizabeth‟s hallucinations. They humiliate
Elizabeth and oppress her.
The Cardinals is the third novel that describes the
traumatic effect of racial discrimination on South Africans.
Mouse, the silenced protagonist of the novel deals with white
oppression by resorting to silence. Mouse suffers from an
identity crisis. Mouse is an expressive name for her because she
is a submissive and surrendering character.
Fanonian criticism is selected in this thesis as the most
appropriate frame of reference for studying Head. As a black
psychiatrist, Frantz Fanon is able to understand and to deal with
black African psychology. In Black Skin, White Masks and The
Wretched of the Earth Fanon finds practical solutions for the
black crises. In Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon urges blacks to
throw off their white masks and embrace their blackness (Vottler
70-71).Fanon argues that “The colonised could not „cope‟ with
what was happening because colonialism eroded his very being,
his very subjectivity” (Loomba 142-43). The white colonizer
wants to destroy the African identity and to enslave the Africans.
This lead to mental and psychological disorders from which the
colonized had to suffer.
Bessie Head probes into the logic of “the madness” suffered
by her many characters. She portrays such “madness” in the larger
context of colonial and racial insanity. Compared to the atrocities of
white colonialism and its harsh rules of Apartheid, “the madness”
of black people has its own wisdom. Readers of Head‟s fiction, like
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those of the books of Frantz Fanon can gain a unique understanding
of the link between mental disorders on the one hand and the
oppressive systems of colonialism and racism