The domestic space is the focus in Agaat, with characters engaging in a variety of homemaking activities, the most prominent of which is embroidery. More than simply a leisure activity, decorative needlework is a rich archival source in the text. The importance of embroidery is accentuated in the novel by an extract from the foreword of the embroidery book Borduur só (1966), which appears as one of three pivotal epigraphs. Its dissident potential is further suggested by the mystique that surrounds Agaat’s sewing projects, rendering their depictions menacing and rebellious.
A popular form of recreation among women, needlework in its many forms is closely associated with stereotypes of femininity in western culture. Like other household pursuits, it has long been used to socialize women into traditional ‘feminine’ conduct and to accustom them to their care-giving role in the nuclear family. Indeed, Milla’s beloved embroidery book locates needlework in an “(e)specially feminine” (2006: epigraph) realm. The matriarch includes needlecraft in the repertoire of skills she teaches Agaat because she believes that they stem from the “age-old arts & rich traditions from the domain of woman” (2006: 169) and will instruct Agaat in proper feminine behaviour. Once Agaat learns the skill, she hopes it will serve as “proof that I (Milla) haven’t wasted my time with you (Agaat)” (2006: 169). The many benefits of embroidery Milla lists for Agaat include that it calms one after a hard day’s work, keeps one humble and out of idleness, focuses one’s attention on something useful, distracts from negative thoughts and feelings, helps calm the people around you, and creates a homely atmosphere (2006: 170-171). Needlework is thus a powerful opiate to soothe turbulent emotions and suppress rebelliousness. Activities such sewing, knitting, and embroidery require attention to detail and constant repetition, which is typical of routine
domestic tasks. Such habitual activities are useful to keep women submissive and content, combat the boredom to which they are prone within the confines of the home space, and to ensure that they remain industrious in their quest to create the perfect home atmosphere.
The practice of embroidery, as with other novice art forms with mass appeal, includes notions of cultural superiority and associated processes such as nationalism and colonisation. An awareness and appreciation of art is the mark of a culturally conscious nation. An awareness of art among ordinary people (through the practice of arts and crafts) is thus a benchmark of the population’s average cultural development. Indeed, the extract from Verwoerd’s foreword to Milla’s treasured embroidery book asserts that all forms of decorative needlework “belong to the finer things in life” (2006: 169), and are invaluable to “distinguish the culturally aware nation from the uncivilised” (2006: epigraph). The opposition between ‘civilised’ and
‘uncivilised’ groups have always been a strong foundation for the development of national consciousness and colonial expansion. By contributing to “the refinement and beautification of the domestic atmosphere” (2006: epigraph) through hobbies such as embroidery, women serve as the keepers of their culture and have a valuable contribution to make towards its advancement. As regards the formation and protection of the Afrikaner nation, women were required to fulfill a domestic role in order to uphold the nuclear family as the cornerstone of the nation. This is confirmed by Milla’s belief that embroidery “creates an atmosphere of true values in a house” (2006: 169).
The craft project’s ability to act as a social and historical record is another important concern in Agaat, as every work of art is defined by, and in turn disseminates, a set of ideological values. To inspire Agaat, Milla shows her examples of South Africa’s “National art” (2006:
170), particularly embroidered representations of the country’s “History” (2006: 170), where this invokes a historical master narrative, in this instance the biased and deficient story of South Africa’s past as told from the perspective of the coloniser. The works include a
“representation of (…) the ships of Van Riebeeck & the distribution of the first farms on the Liesbeeck & the fat-tailed sheep that the Free Burghers exchanged with the Hottentots for beads & cloths & the Voortrekkers & the Boer War & the History of Gold & Diamonds”
(2006: 170). Acquiring skill in embroidery (which Milla upholds as a worthy goal) for Agaat equates to an acceptance of the vast ideological machinery that includes the effects of colonisation on members sharing her racial and cultural heritage.
Contrary to its associations with ‘proper’ female etiquette, embroidery also serves as a powerful, though unusual and undervalued, form of narrative through which women can communicate their most personal views, or a personal archive, as it were. However trivial they appear to be, women’s activities provide valuable opportunities to construct their personal narratives as well as demonstrate their position within a broader socio-political location. This includes their commentary on discourses such as colonialism, imperialism, nationalism, and feminism (Burton 2003: 4). The home sphere, occupied mainly by women, has the potential to act as “an enduring site of historical evidence and historiographical opportunity in and for the present” (Burton 2003: 5) from which they can relate their experiences. Scholarly attention to memory in the past two decades has given women’s historical experience “a foothold in history, insofar as their testimonies – archived through oral narratives, autobiographies, and ethnographies – have been recognized as a supplement to the official record (Burton 2003: 21). The completed needlework project – if read as a text – can function as a tangible record of its creator’s thoughts and emotions. Since such objects are usually on display and have none of the furtive qualities associated with private documents such as diaries, they are often overlooked as a potential site for subversive expression.
Of all the forms women’s testimonies may take, reading their pastimes as narratives is especially difficult, making it a neglected research area. This is mostly due to “a disciplinary lack of respect for some sources; or more accurately, a refusal to consider certain materials as sources at all” (Murphy 2003: 641). Commenting on mainstream research into women’s narratives, Pierre Bourdieu explains that there has been a systematic “banishing from scientific study certain objects held to be meaningless, and excluding from it, under the guide of objectivity, the experience of those who work in it and those who are its object” (Bourdieu in Murphy 2003: 641). Activities like embroidery, which mostly follow a pattern and may be considered derivative and empty of personal expression, fall into this category of overlooked information sources.
Over the past decades, research has increasingly been occupied with seeking out, and interpreting, “the available non-verbal texts with which people create a life record” (Murphy 2003: 614) when they are unable, or unwilling, to produce written narratives. By considering the forms of showing and telling available to women, it has emerged that needlework can function powerfully as an instrument for their self-expression. Reading the narrative qualities in the form and content of needlework has led many biographers to view stitchwork as an
imaginative and innovative tool of expression for women. Contemporary enquiries into the uses of sewing accept that it is a form of self-writing as valuable for the construction of women’s autobiographies as traditional textual material obtained from more ‘legitimate’
sources like diaries and journals. A variety such as freehand embroidery, which does not follow a pattern and is unique in design to its creator, is an especially powerful form of expression. Not surprisingly, Agaat favours this form of embroidery for its expressive potential. In doing so, she confirms Verwoerd’s claim that the needlework project “speaks of the personality of its creator” (2006: 169).
Creating any work of art grants an individual the opportunity to express and decode the inner mechanisms of their psyche. Stitch craft is one such method and may function obliquely as a means of writing the female self. Every variety of self-writing, James Olney asserts, offers a
“characteristic way of perceiving, of organising, and understanding, an individual way of feeling and expressing” (1972: 37). When recognised as a legitimate archival source in the novel, Agaat’s embroideries prompt both Milla and the reader to sense, almost by intuition, the hidden and subversive qualities of her private story.