Bakhtin se Karnavaleske, materialisme en die identiteitskepping van die Ander: ʼn Ondersoek van Jeanne Goosen se “Lenie” [Bakhtin's Carnivalesque, materialism and the identity formation of the other: A study of Jeanne Goosen's "Lenie"]

Images of the carnivalesque can be seen throughout Jeanne Goosen’s texts and her short story “Lenie” in her short story collection ʼn Gelyke kans, is no exception. In “Lenie” the combination of the Other with elements of Mikhail Bakhtin’s carnivalesque is ever present. This research is focused on analysing the relationship between the carnivalesque elements and the creation of the identity of the Other within the carnivalesque. In “Lenie” two worlds are contrasted – the official world (the church and the school) and the unofficial world of the carnival. In Bakhtin’s carnivalesque theory these two worlds are united, and therefore equal. This process of equality does not appear in “Lenie”. The Other will be analysed as a material as well as a symbolic construct in the dualistic world of the carnivalesque. Firstly, Said’s Orientalism and the Other will be discussed, and thereafter the elements of Bakhtin’s Carnival theory. “Lenie” will then be analysed according to Bakhtin and Said’s theories, with regard to the process of creating the Other within the carnival. The following elements will be analysed: the girl and the chicken’s part as phenomenon of the Other, the animal and the human in the process of becoming one, the part that space plays in the creation of the Other and the carnival’s part in this process, the retarded woman as Other and her part in the carnival, and finally the girl in a process of becoming.