Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 23:26:22 -0600 (CST)
From: christopher alan perrius <caperriu-AT-midway.uchicago.edu>
Subject: olive schreiner


	schreiner has a character known only as "The Jew" in her
posthumously published novel, From Man to Man, or Perhaps Only....
The novel was reprinted by Virago Press in 1983.  This character
reproduces many stereotypes of the Jew as ursurer, colonizer, degenerate,
etc.  He "purchases" a young woman (the protagonist Rebekah's sister
Bertie) in South Africa and takes her back to London with him, where he
keeps her as a prisoner/mistress.  This is her last stop on the slide to
street prostitution that began with her seduction by a tutor on the farm
in South Africa.  The novel parallels the lives of these two sisters, both
forced into prostitution: one through seduction, and the other through
marriage, which Schreiner equates with prostitution in this novel and
elsewhere (except for marriages with equal financial independence). Bertie
becomes the epitome of "the parasite" when she is kept by "The Jew."  I am
writing on this character right now myself.  He provides insights into
Schreiner's view of colonial desire, i think, and may diverge somewhat 
>from the image of the Jew prevailing in London at the time, i'm not
really sure yet.  I assume that you've
got "A Letter on the Jew" from Cronwright's book.  Hopefully your library
has From Man to Man.
Chris Perrius



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