Discourses of poverty in literature : assessing representations of indigence in post-colonial texts from Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis undertakes a comparative reading of post-colonial literature written in English inBotswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to bring into focus the similarities and differencesbetween fictional representations of poverty in these three countries. The thesis explores theunique way in which literature may contribute to the better understanding of poverty, a fieldthat has hitherto been largely dominated by scholarship that relies on quantitative analysis asopposed to qualitative approaches. The thesis seeks to use examples from selected texts toillustrate that (as many social scientists have argued before) literature provides insights intothe 'lived realities' of the poor and that with its vividly imagined specificities it illuminatesthe broad generalisations about poverty established in other (data-gathering) disciplines.Selected texts from the three countries destabilise the usual categories of gender, race andclass which are often utilised in quantitative studies of poverty and by so doing show thatexperiences of poverty cut across and intersect all of these spheres and the experiences differfrom one person to another regardless of which category they may fall within. The three mainchapters focus primarily on local indigence as depicted by texts from the three countries. Theselection of texts in the chapters follows a thematic approach and texts are discussed bymeans of selective focus on the ways in which they address the theme of poverty. Using threemain theorists – Maria Pia Lara, Njabulo Ndebele and Amartya Sen – the thesis focusescentrally on how writers use varying literary devices and techniques to provide movingdepictions of poverty that show rather than tell the reader of the unique experiences thatdifferent characters and different communities have of deprivation and shortage of basicneeds.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University