Hegemonic Masculinity in K. Sello Duiker's The Quiet Violence of Dreams

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intecritdivestud.3.2.0021
• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Date: 01 December 2020
• Pages: 21-32
• Author: Jessica Sapsford
• Subject Matter: Hegemonic masculinities,masculinity theory,literature

International Journal of CRITICAL DIVERSITY STUDIES 3.2 December 2020

Hegemonic Masculinity in K. Sello

Duiker’s

The Quiet Violence of Dreams

Jessica Sapsford

Independent Scholar, Cape Town, South Africa

Jessica Sapsford holds a BA Hons in European Literature from the University of the

Witwatersrand, and currently works as a business writer in the mergers and acquisi-

tions industry. Jessica’s research interests include masculinity theory and economics.

ABSTRACT

Globally, long-held perceptions about gender are coming under scrutiny.

Marginalized groups the world over are using social media to create platforms for

themselves, thereby allowing activism and social engagement to ourish in ways

that were not possible before. Forming part of this global social dynamism regard-

ing gender are the efforts that South African academic institutions and society at

large are making towards an active engagement with the process of rethinking pa-

triarchal, colonial, and heteronormative structures. Our academic discourses should

reect our lived experiences, and research which does not seek to engage with the

society that it focuses on is at risk of becoming irrelevant. Our country’s own liter-

ary canon has the potential to incite meaningful interrogations of the world we live

in. Literature can offer a somewhat more compact framework for analysing complex

issues that affect our realities. One such issue is the prevalence of violence in South

Africa against women, femininities in general, as well as non-conventionally mas-

culine bodies.

KEYWORDS

Hegemonic masculinities, masculinity theory, literature

Introduction

This chapter considers the ways in which the more conventional forms of masculinity

present in K. Sello Duiker’s major novel, The Quiet Violence of Dreams, are valued more

highly than femininities, and troubles the resultant abuse experienced by women and

non-conventionally masculine bodies in the text. Duiker’s novel presents us with a finite