A critical analysis of the portrayal of women in selected Shona novels
Muhoyi, Census
This thesis is an exposition of the portrayal of women in selected pre- and post- colonial
Shona fictional works. The exegesis of the selected Shona novels is guided by Afrocentered
perspectives which are Africana Womanism and Afrocentricity. The thesis
contributes to the growing body of knowledge on women’s studies and discourses on
gender. Remarkably, it marshals the contention that the various novels under
examination project contrasting and contesting images of women. The first category of
narratives espouses fictive renditions of women as the very source of all problems that
bedevil society, especially man and other unsuspecting women. These narratives
pander to the whims of the colonial state wherein the woman figure is cast in very
pejorative and condescending terms, a position that is consistent with Victorian values
in which the woman was just a nonentity. Interestingly, daring and courageous women
who challenge the colonial state’s subjugation of their integrity are mercilessly thrashed
with the writer’s moral whip. This engenders narrow moralization that blames the
woman character for all evil rather than the system that fashions and conditions
behavior. This category therefore advances and champions the endemic victim-blame
syndrome that largely epitomizes Shona written literature in both the colonial and post
colonial dispensations. The second category of novels examined in this study attempt to
provide a contextualized portrayal of women characters. In other words, the narratives
firmly locate the individual woman in a context that is dominated and controlled by
social, economic and historical forces. For that reason, they demonstrate that the Shona
woman’s performance space has been poisoned by a combination of toxic factors that
engender de-womanisation, de-personalization and de-feminization. Such narratives
transcend the endemic victim-blame syndrome as they expose the social and economic factors that inform and fashion behavior. Remarkably, these narratives provide a vision
and version of reality that is ennobling and empowering. Given the centrality of women
in development, literature is expected to play an important role in terms of raising
consciousness. Literature is studied in schools, colleges and universities and therefore
cannot escape scrutiny when it comes to the depiction of women.
Bibliography: leaves 197-214
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