A Narrative Discourse Analysis of Herman Charles Bosmans' Short Story 'Mafeking Road' (1932)

In his current popularity, Herman Charles Bosman has come to be viewed as something of an eternal artist figure, conveying marvellous home-truths for all men (Gray 1977:79). But the truth about the later Bosman is that he became a writer who had a scrupulous, instant understanding with each passing day and each yard of newspaper that underwent his professional scrutiny. Stephen Gray suggests that he [Bosman] meant himself to be taken as [ ] a commentator, a newspaper columnist, whose medium happened to be fiction thus drawing attention to the underlying truths of South Africa (ibid.). By debunking the myth of Boer bravery during the second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) in his short story Mafeking Road, Bosman touches upon a subtle theme extant amongst the Boer community, namely extreme Afrikaner patriotism (Wenzel 1999:109-110).