The portrayal of female characters in selected Zulu texts.
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Date
2002
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Abstract
The condition of women in African societies has always been object of intense
discussion The present research takes its move from an analysis of four main
literary works in Zulu, and a number of supporting texts, to monitor, as it were,
the development of attitudes towards women during the second half of the 20th
century. Literature is considered, in fact, a mirror of society.
Traditional Southern African society is strongly patriarchal and conservative. A
woman's role is generally viewed as the life-giver and the nurturer of the new
generation of her husband's offspring. She is in charge of the gardens, where
she grows the family food, while her husband is busy with his wars, cattle raiding
ventures and politics.
Patriarchy may reach severe forms of women oppression through the systems
of ilobolo (bride-wealth) and of polygamy, but is also expressed by the
exclusion of women from the economic, artistic and legal fields. Forms of
freedom - of movement, or sexual or economic - allotted to men are never
considered for women.
Each of the four chosen texts emphasises one or more aspect of women
oppression by the male dominated society, as reflected in popular life at the
time of writing.
So Uvalo Lwezinhlonzi, written in 1956, is a manifesto for freedom in the
choice of a life partner, which is generally obstructed by the father's greed for
ilobolo cattle and his ambition to be recognized among the notables of the
district. Inkinsela YaseMgungundlovu (1961) fights for women's equal rights
in the financial field. NguMbuthuma-ke Lowo (1982) is a desperate cry in the
face of abuses in polygamous families. And Ikhiwane Elihle (1985) fights
aspects of the new morality that accepts sexual freedom for women, since men
also claim such freedom.
The thesis is topical, and, to render it even more so, it often avails itself of
ideas of feminist writers and critics, although such theories have not touched
the nerve of the Zulu public as yet.
Description
Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2002.
Keywords
University of Durban-Westville--Dissertations., Zulu literature., South African Literature (Women), Theses--Isizulu.