Philida is sometimes a difficult novel
to reconcile. The novel is a recreated (or imagined) slave narrative
of a woman who really lived. The difficulty arises in the fact that
it is a white man, a descendant of her master, writing the novel.
Andre Brink decided to write Philida after discovering that one of
his ancestors owned a slave named Philida in an effort to understand
what her life had been. It is an admirable way in which to wrestle
with a guilt that is not your own, and the novel ultimately succeeds
in its pride of Philida.
The novel begins with Philida's
petition to the courts. Francois, the son of her master, has promised
to make her a free woman after she bares his children. With the proof
of their union in her arms, Philida insists that his promise be
fulfilled. I doubt that it reveals any secrets of the novel (or of
history) to tell you that this does not happen. She is first denied
her promised freedom by Francois and his father then by the courts in
which she is wholly disbelieved when someone with a white face
testifies against her. The novel then follows the consequences of
these actions as Philida has incurred the wrath of Cornelius Brink,
master of the house.
Philida is a novel that is permeated
with secrets, and Brink's own questions about the past lie heavy upon
it. But is it too presumptuous for a white South African man living
in the 21st century to write in the voice of, or attempt
to tell the story of, a slave woman from the 19th? This is
a question that comes up each time a writer co-opts a voice that is
not their own, especially in the form of the descendants of the
oppressors representing the voices of those they had oppressed. My
own answer to this question begs the goal of the story. While reading
Philida, it felt as though Brink were trying to understand a personal
history mired in darkness. The stories that are not told are the ones
we may most need to know. Brink told the story of Philda's life
because he felt he needed to understand it. One cannot make sense of
the tragedy that was slavery, but to give the characters life, to
make them whole instead of keeping them secret, is a story worth
telling.
Freedom abounds in the end of the
novel. Away from the Brink family, Philida finds a sense of identity
and with it peace. The idea that true freedom begins in our minds may
at first sound unsavory in a slave narrative, but it comes about in
such about in such an organic way that I find the possibility of it
real for Philida, which is what the author must have hoped for her.
Andre Brink does not know what happened to the real, the historical,
Philida, but in his novel he did not give her character her freedom –
he allowed her to find it for herself.
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