Should I stay or should I go : Zimbabwes white writing, 1980 to 2011

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis finds its epistemological basis in two related motives: the re-conceptualisation of whitewriting in Zimbabwe as a sub-category of Zimbabwean literature, and the recognition of whitenarratives as necessarily dialogic. The first motive follows the realization that writing byZimbabwean whites is systematically marginalized from 'mainstream Zimbabwean literatureowing to its perceived irrelevance to the postcolonial Zimbabwean nation. Through an application ofEven-Zohar's polysystem theory, this thesis argues for a recognition of white writing as a literarysub-system existing in relation to other literary and non-literary systems in Zimbabwe's polysystemof culture. As its second motive, the thesis also calls for a critical approach to white Zimbabweannarratives built on the understanding that the study of literature can no longer be left to monologicapproaches alone. Rather, white narratives should be considered as multiple and hence amenable toa multiplicity of approaches that recognize dialogue as an essential aspect of all narratives. Thethesis attempts, by closely reading nine white-authored narratives in Zimbabwe, to demonstrate thatwhite Zimbabwean literature is characterized by multiplicity, simultaneity and instability; these aretropes developed from Bakhtin's understanding of utterances as characterized by a minimum of twovoices. To consider white writing in Zimbabwe as a multiplicity is to call forth its numerousdimensions and breadth of perceptions. Simultaneity posits the need to understandopposites/conflicts as capable of existing side by side without necessarily dissolving into unity.Instability captures the several movements and destabilizations that affect writers, characters and theliterary system. These three tropes enable a re-reading of white Zimbabwean narratives as complexand multi-nuanced. Such characteristics of the literary system are seen to reflect on the experiencesof 'whiteness in postcolonial Zimbabwe. The white narratives selected for examination in thisthesis therefore exhibit crises of belonging that reflect the dialogic nature of existence. In sum, thisthesis is meant as a dialogue, culminating in the proposition that calls for a decentred andredemptive literary experience.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University