ABSTRACT
The extreme position of exclusion in the case of Bessie Head's A Question of Power illuminates the ways in which unspeakability works. A situation of total exclusion or exile is the point of departure of Bessie Head's writing in A Question of Power. Part of the internal subjective drama that Head exposes in A Question of Power is the struggle experienced by a mixed-race female outcast as she builds up a sense of her self-worth and a form of belonging to a social community. In A Question of Power, Elizabeth Lowe, the protagonist, interacts in a similar manner with 'real people', and with her internal ghosts or 'soul personalities', such as Dan and Sello or Medusa. The narrator in A Question of Power never gives up her attempt to understand, to think and explain. It is important to emphasize that, in A Question of Power, Elizabeth's notion of belonging develops in a rural space, through community work.
