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Schopenhauerian Pessimism in Olive Schreiner's A Story of an African Farm and From Man to Man Penelope A. LeFew Rock Valley College And it was all play, and no one could tell what it had lived and worked for. A striving, and a striving, and an ending in nothing. —African Farm INALETTER dated 2 March 1885, Olive Schreiner wrote to her friend Havelock Ellis, thanking him for a copy of Helen Zimmern's biography of Arthur Schopenhauer: "If I had ever read [Schopenhauer], or even knew before I came to England that such a man existed, one would say I had copied whole ideas in the African Farm and From Man to Man from him. There is one passage of his on the search for philosophic truth that reads like a paraphrase of my allegory in the African Farm."1 Schreiner mentions Arthur Schopenhauer two more times in extant letters, both again addressed to Ellis. In one she expresses a desire to read some Schopenhauer while she recovers from a recurring illness: "I wish so much I could have Schopenhauer."2 The other simply alludes to Schopenhauer in passing, a reference to Schopenhauer's sexual nature hinted at in Zimmern's biography: "Schopenhauer, Goethe, Shakespeare, no really great steady thinker has ever been celibate."3 Contrary to the claims of Ruth First and Ann Scott in their 1980 biography of Schreiner, there is no convincing evidence in letters or other writing that Schreiner actually read Schopenhauer's essays or his major work, The World as Will and Representation.4 Schreiner's knowledge of Schopenhauer most likely came from two secondary 303 ELT 37:3 1994 sources: Zimmern's greatly simplified, incomplete study of Schopenhauer 's life and philosophy,6 and the observations of Schreiner's husband and literary tutor, S. C. Cronwright, who specifically mentions in his biography of Schreiner discussions with his wife about various philosophers, including Schopenhauer. Despite a probable lack of access to primary material, Schreiner was indeed correct in her awareness of a kinship with Schopenhauer. The Story of an African Farm reads like a narrative offspring of The World as Will and Representation. Despite the fact that Schopenhauer's philosophy excludes any possibility of female greatness and artistry (something Zimmern downplays in her work), Schreiner's joy in discovering that one of the great minds of the nineteenth century verified her own experiences and insights is understandable: "There is something so beautiful in coming on one's very own most inmost thoughts in another."6 Discovering Schopenhauer fortified Schreiner against critics who had attacked African Farm for its darkness, knowing now that she had used the only color appropriate, "gray pigments," for the world both she and Schopenhauer envisioned.7 In both African Farm and her last novel, From Man to Man, Schreiner embraces a Schopenhauerian vision of existence while expanding this vision to include a strong feminist perspective, something Schopenhauer's misogyny would not allow. This perspective reveals the fate of the intelligent woman trapped within restrictive societal roles and illuminates Schreiner's hope for an increased awareness, in the form of compassion, for all who suffer within this context. Such compassion, however, must begin with suffering and ultimate resignation, according to Schopenhauer. The education of Waldo (in part a representation of Schreiner herself remembering her childhood on the South African Plains) in African Farm takes the form of a process of disillusionment. "We shall do best," says Schopenhauer, "to think of life as a desengaño, as a process of disillusionment; since this is, clearly enough, what everything that happens to us is calculated to produce."8 African Farm is as detailed in the treatment of this process as Schreiner is in the examination of its effects on Waldo. In both objectives she holds fast to Schopenhauer's "philosophic truth" of the meaning of life, summarized by Schreiner as "a striving, and a striving, and an ending in nothing."9 As with any Bildungsroman, the beginning is innocence—and ignorance , an inseparable pair. "In our early youth," Schopenhauer stated, 304 LEFEW : SCHREINER "we sit before life that lies ahead of us like children sitting before the curtain in a theatre, in happy...

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