Framework of Existance

Have you ever contemplated how life would be if you where born of a different nationality, being associated with a different race, even having a different skin color? How would life be then? Nationality, race, and skin color are essential principals in which we identify ourselves. It gives us a purpose in life. These principals are the core building blocks which frames the vital information of our origin and place of being. It dictates who we are, where and to whom we belong, and on many cases our purpose in life. A quote off from our Professor Rob Burton’s, Artist of the Floating World, in which he quotes George Lakoff, “frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world. As a result, they shape the goals we seek, the plans we make, the way we act.”

Of course, a frame like a box, is always geometrically supportive. But what if you were born with no frames? What then? Who are you going to associate with? This is exactly what Elizabeth, the main character in Bessie Head’s A Question of Power , faces on a daily basis. Written as an intricate novel and passively as an autobiography, Elizabeth (a character which closely, if not, resembles Bessie Head) during her childhood was never told that she was adopted, until she was sent to a mission school where she finds out that her real mother was actually of white origin and is living in a nearby mental institute. After mission school, Elizabeth leaves South Africa to work as a teacher in Botswana, leaving behind her cheating husband and taking along her son. At this point, Elizabeth starts her slow digression into mental insanity, where she experiences a subjective view of reality.

In relation to the beginning of the story, Bessie’s Head’s actual life events did not differ much from the story. From an online source, Dan Reboussin, from the University of Florida gives a quick brief summary of Bessie’s life. “Bessie Head was born in a mental hospital in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa to Bessie Emery, a wealthy white woman who had been in a relationship with a black stable-hand who worked for her family. Bessie was adopted by a "Colored" (mixed-race) family. She was educated at a mission school, and received a teaching certificate in 1955. She taught for a few years, but did not like the job, and subsequently chose to work as a journalist. She wrote for Drum magazine. In 1960, she married a journalist named Harold Head. The marriage ended in divorce in 1964, and she took her son, Howard to Serowe, Botswana.” What this summery doesn’t go into detail is the health and drinking problem that Bessie faced along with her insanity in which she overcame near the end of life. Like the story, Bessie stands alone in a world where all other people have a sense of origin and belonging. Caught in a world with no frame, she stumbles through life not knowing where to go or her purpose in life.

Despite the fact that Bessie had no sense of security and also dealing with insanity, she was able to write great novels. From her novels such as A Woman Alone, Maru, and her most controversial novel, A Question of Power, Bessie depicts her loneliness in which she battles to find her own sense of belongingness, and build a framework for herself. From Bessie’s novel, A Woman Alone, she states, “I have not a single known relative on earth, no long and ancient family tree to refer to, no links with heredity or a sense of having inherited a temperament, a certain emotional instability or the shape of a fingernail from a grandmother or great grandmother. I have always been just me, with no frame of reference to anything beyond myself.” From her novels she conveys her battle to frame her own existence. However, in her final few years of her great struggle, she did in fact hint she found some source of belongingness. In Professor Burton’s, Artist of the Floating World, he points out, “On the other hand…the protagonist is able…to make “a gesture of belonging towards the land and its people.” Indicating that in the few years that Bessie lived in Botswana, she grew to accept herself as universally belonging to the land in which she finally becomes citizen with. Citizenship is what legally binds a person to a country. With this, I believe, brought Bessie some sense of framework. For at that point, she finally has a place she can say she belongs to.

It is heart breaking to know how such a person can ever face a monumental task in life. Being born in a situation where one is denied and deprived of their personal background, and not situated with any culture nor contained in any framework, is hard to believe that one can survive. And for Bessie to not only overcome that, but also faced with insanity and her alcohol problem, there is no one in the world that can’t be astonished at the accomplishments she has made in her life. She is definitely a pioneer for all artist of the floating world. Although, in the end her health problems did get the best of her, she was, and I hope, finally able to provide her own framework to her existence. That in itself, I believe, is an accomplishment far more rewarding than her novels.