خلاصة:
The present article opens, by way of introduction, with presenting the Frankfurt School of critical theory, of which Erich Fromm was an active member until his break from it the late 1930s. Fromm has been relegated to oblivion both in the West and in Iranian academic circles, where his views are seldom taught at universities and applied to works of literature. Fromm’s strong belief in the existence of a human essence proves to be unpopular nowadays among post-structuralist thinkers, and the eclectic nature of his work is similarly problematic in today’s specialized world. To fill this void, this article first elucidates key Frommian concepts such as the social unconscious, the social character and sheds light on non-productive character structures such as the hoarding orientation, the exploitative orientation, the marketing orientation, the necrophilous-destructive orientation as well as the productive character orientation. It then applies these concepts to Anne Landsman’s debut, postmodern South African novel The Devil’s Chimney (1997) which remains relatively untouched by scholarship. This article focuses furthermore on the Jacobs family and Miss Beatrice who embody the marketing orientation. September, by contrast, is posited as the epitome of the productive orientation who deeply loves people as well as animals and, as an artist, engages in creative activity.
ملخص الجهاز:
Since Fromm believes that understanding the dominant personalities of a society can reveal the overall structure of the community, this research attempts to open a window into the overall structure of South African society under colonialism by analyzing the characters of Mr. Henry, September, and the Jacobs family.
This has been achieved to some extent with the publication of prominent works about Fromm, including the illustrated biography of Erich Fromm: His Life and Ideas 2 (Funk), a collection of articles edited under the name Erich Fromm and Critical Criminology: Beyond the Punitive Society 3 (Anderson and Kinney), Erich Fromm, Shaper of the Human Condition 4 (Thomson), Erich Fromm, Clinical Psychoanalyst: Personal Accounts and Papers on Therapeutic Technique 5 (Funk), and Erich Fromm’s Revolutionary Hope: Prophetic Messianism 6 (Brown).
Erich Fromm’s theory of social character, his views on destructiveness and narcissism, the isolation and loneliness of twentieth-century humans in Western societies, and the madness that stems from this isolation can all be easily generalized to the era of colonialism in South Africa.
The present article attempts to open a window into the overall structure of the colonial society of South Africa at that time by analyzing the characters of Mr. Henry, September, and the Jacobs family, because Fromm believes that “the dominant character of a people is a resultant of how people relate to each other within that ___________________________________________________________ 1 Western Cape 2 Swartberg Mountains society, which in turn is influenced by the socio-economic and political structures of that society.
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