Deconstructing and Re-mapping the Phallic in 'Toasted Penis and Cheese'

In the context of sexuality and power in African literature, a kind of writing the body, that is, to bring the body into play as a narrative paradigm as a site of pain, anxiety, conflict, subversion, recreation, and emancipation is what I find most suitable for describing my close reading of African women’s writing in Southern Africa. Corporeality is a central agent in the constitution of female identities and subjectivities in the works of writers such as Yvonne Vera, Bessie Head, Zoe Wicomb, and Dianne Case, just to name a few from the southern African region. The following article deals with Dianne Case’s Toasted Penis and Cheese, a novel which focuses on the crux of gender stereotyping, closely connected with sexual (in)activity. The body is central in the protagonist’s story. Jennifer explores this along the line of what I call “the distressing body,” “the body as discovery,” and “the recreated body”. Her distress is not only uttered to explain her torments but, above all, to underpin stereotype behaviour and alleged character traits. Likewise Trinh T. Minh‐ha’s hypothesis: “to use stereotypes in order to attack stereotypes is [...] an effective strategy” (qtd. in Gqola 2001, 48), Jennifer’s focus takes on a rebellious function which never leaves out humour, wit, and irony.