Abstract
In the preface to the second edition of her first and most widely known novel The Story of an African Farm (1883), Olive Schreiner comments on her method of writing as follows:
Human life may be painted according to two methods. There is the stage method. According to that, each character is duly marshalled at first, and ticketed; we know with an immutable certainty that at the right crises each one will appear and act his part, and, when the curtain falls, all will stand before it bowing. There is a sense of satisfaction in this, and of completeness. But there is another method — the method of life we all lead. Here nothing can be prophesied. There is a strange coming and going of feet. Men appear, act and react upon each other, and pass away. When the crisis comes the man who would fit it does not return. When the curtain falls no one is ready. (41)
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Works cited
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Eggermont, S. (2012). ‘The method of life we all lead’: Olive Schreiner’s Short Fiction as Challenge to the Stage Method. In: Gavin, A.E., de la L. Oulton, C.W. (eds) Writing Women of the Fin de Siècle. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230354265_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230354265_4
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