Conflict And Crisis: An Analysis Of None To Accompany Me From The Perspective Of Spatial Criticism

With deep concerns in oppression and injustice of apartheid society,Nadine Gordimer enjoys international reputation as “conscience of South Africa”.None to Accompany Me is considered to be the first novel of transition by Gordimer which exposes social complexity and inner diverse from apartheid to democracy politics.Based on Lefebvre’s tri-division of social space and Foucault’s power space,this thesis aims to explore the turbulent social situation and the mental anxiety of human being in None to Accompany Me.Physical space provides natural landscapes for story happening,social space contains various complicated social relations and the final psychological space reflects individual development.This thesis carries out mainly on three aspects: the transition of physical space,the conflict of social space and the identity dilemma of psychological space.Firstly,the transition of physical space shows the invasion of blacks to whites,which indicates the social changes during the post-apartheid period in South Africa.Secondly,the collapse of white-centrism further intensifies social relations between the two racial groups,they strive for constructing their power space to dominate South African politics.Finally,in psychological space,each racial group suffers from identity dilemma.Only national identification can help to reconstruct individual social identity.Through the exploration of spaces in None to Accompany Me from the perspective of spatial criticism,this thesis concludes that the post-apartheid society still occurs as unstable political situation,and human need to seek for national redemption escaping from various spatial crises.It is under the racial identification that power struggle and social relation can be resolved effectively.Meanwhile,according to previous domestic and foreign researches on Gordimer’s works from the perspectives of colonialism and political issues,this thesis wishes to provide a new perspective for the future study.