Evocations of poverty in selected novels of Meja Mwangi and Roddy Doyle : a study of literary representation

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The study explores fictional representations of poverty in selected novels of Meja Mwangi and Roddy Doyle, respectively Kenyan and Irish – examining techniques of literary representation and how the two authors make imaginative use of various stylistic techniques and verbal skills in a selection of their texts to achieve compelling representations of poverty. The study recognizes that poverty is one of the most recurrent subjects of discussion in the world, that it is a complex and multifaceted concept and condition and that it affects societal, political and economic dimensions of life. The study considers the (broad) United Nations definition of poverty as: '… a human condition characterised by the sustained or chronic deprivation of the resources, capabilities, choices, security and power necessary for the enjoyment of an adequate standard of living and other civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights (United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, 2002).Rather than suggest that fiction replaces other approaches in the study of poverty, the study calls for a complementary 'conversation between fiction and the social sciences in depictions of the condition of poverty. However, the study notes the advantage that fiction has in its nuanced exploration of the subject of poverty. In fact, fiction reflects social reality in interestingly subversive but also empowering ways – showing a unique way of dealing with difficult situations. Fiction is equipped with the subtle instruments and complex power of literary devices to articulate multiple layers of possible meanings and human experiences and conditions vividly and movingly – in ways that are accessible to a variety of readers. While giving a voice to the voiceless – the poor – narrative fiction opens inner feelings and thoughts of the depicted poor and enables the reader to probe deeply into the inner feelings of characters depicted; allowing the reader to develop a deeper understanding of the condition of poverty, but also allowing the reader to bring his or her interpretation to bear on what is represented.The five main chapters of the thesis are thematically arranged, but the analysis draws on a variety of theoretical paradigms including but not limited to those of Maria Pia Lara and Mikhail Bakhtin. Significant to the study is Maria Pia Lara's ideas of literature as a 'frame for struggles of recognition and transformation (Lara, 1998: 7) and of the 'illocutionary force (1998: 5) of literature – its ability to articulate aspects of a human condition (such as poverty) vividly and compellingly. Bakhtin's suggestion that 'language is not self-evident and not in itself incontestable (Bakhtin, 2004: 332) is important – capturing the idea of a distinctive flexibility of discourse in the novel and rejecting simplistic ideas that there is a single truth concerning a particular situation such as poverty.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University