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Elliot Ziwira @ The Book Store
ONE of the greatest writers to ever have emerged from the African literary landscape is Charles Mungoshi. His mastery of language; unique blend of understatement and metaphor hoists the reader on an evocative whirlwind voyage of suspense and intrigue. As a wordsmith and craftsman, he is not limited to a particular genre as he is at home with poetry, the novel and the short story.
Using sustained extended metaphors and images drawn from nature, Charles Mungoshi does not only explore the sordid and mundane existence of Man, as he struggles to locate himself in the national biography, but he also captures the class struggles that culminate in the paralysis, malaise and stasis of the family unit, community and nation. The writer’s use of seemingly simple plots which are sustained by complex sentences and a combination of symbolic elements and metaphors create platforms for analysis from both connotative and denotative ends.
As a product of the second generation of Zimbabwean writers, who grew up in a turbulent and changing, fraught with violence, brutality and all forms of oppression, be they physical, psychological or otherwise, feels that change for the betterment of an African’s point of view is only a mirage far down the horizon.
In “Coming of the Dry Season” (1972) and “Waiting for the Rain” (1975) and “Walking Still” (1997), Mungoshi uses his mastery of understatement, metaphor and irony to portray the burdensome nature of the family and society on the individual which reflects on the national psyche.
He effectively uses the metaphors of drought, waiting, rain, darkness and fauna to express his disgust at the stasis surrounding the family unit, which is rather a bane on individual aspirations. Though the family plays a significant role in moulding the individual through its adherence to cultural and societal prescriptions, it should shelter him, pamper his dreams and accord him a chance to be himself.
In “Coming of the Dry Season”, the writer juxtaposes the old world symbolised by the setting sun, with the new order epitomised by the rolling world, to put into perspective the problematic nature of identity, roots and home. To the old order belongs the likes of Chemai in “The Mountain”, the Old Man in “The Setting Sun and the Rolling World”, Moab’s mother in “S.O.S from the Past”.
The old order is fraught with inadequacies which fail to accept the claustrophobic nature of a static culture. Culture sometimes is oppressive to the individual as it is restrictive and prescribes the land and home as the only way to fruitful existence. The land is where the roots are and everything that one does should be seen to have spiritual connectedness.
However, although the land has a spiritual flair about it, it is no longer productive “as it has been overworked and gives nothing more, and the family is almost broken up”.
The new whirlwind, embodied by Nharo, Nhamo, Moab and Mari, is conscious of the dynamics of culture. Because of their education, acquired through Western schooling, they are aware that people anchored by superstition, suspicion and witchcraft are sometimes blinkered by their beliefs to such an extent that they fail to realise the rot in their midst, which is tantamount to destruction.
To Nharo, Nhamo, Mari and Moab in “Coming of the Dry Season”, just like it is to Lucifer in “Waiting for the Rain”, home is claustrophobic and oppressive as it is associated with death and dissonance.
The over-demanding nature of home which is evident in “S.O.S from the Past” is destructive to the family unit, the community and the nation. Because of their education, they hope that their lives would improve as they would be able to stride nearer the hustle free lives of the European oppressors, thus alienating themselves from their communities.
However, as fate would have it, they are frustrated, disillusioned and betrayed by their own education, as they are not accepted into the western circles because of racial prejudice. Having failed to gain access into the dreamland, like Lucifer, and having alienated themselves from their societies, they roam in no man’s land.
This rootlessness and struggle for identity and dream of an ideal home devoid of oppression in all its forms, permeate Mungoshi’s works. This is especially so because the artiste, like most writers in “the lost generation” of Zimbabwean literature as categorized by Wild (1993), uses the autobiographical mode to capture his own biography.
In “Waiting for the Rain” Mungoshi uses metaphors of waiting and the rain to drive home his despair about identity, roots and home in an oppressive environment. According to him home, is where one retires to die, and not where beauty and pastoral innocence and serenity are embraced. His idea of home is averse to that of Zimunya.
The Mandengu family represents the paralysis and malaise of the family, community and nation as it is metonymic. Mungoshi also uses the drum motif as a symbol of identity as contrasted to the depthless transistor radio discourse which is symbolic of cultural imperialism, neo-colonialism and a propaganda tool, as the Old Man is privy to.
The Old Man stresses the need to play one’s own drum and not to ape the identity and way of life of others, by “playing someone else’s drum.”
The use of the dream discourse may suggest the authentication of one’s roots, and identity at both the family and national levels. The dream discourse is portrayed through the Old Man, Lucifer and Garabha; not only invoke ancestral spirits but to define the roots of the Mandengu family tree.
Lucifer’s alienation from home and rootlessness is portrayed through the brutal and detached manner he describes people and places. Psychic alienation finds him unable to locate his personal biography and identity in the sites of the family, community and nation.
As a result, he uses poetry to decommunalise experience and draw attention to himself. This privatisation is expressed in his poem “Home”. This is suggestive of rootlessness as identity is individualised.
However, the poem can also be read at two levels – to interpret Lucifer’s identity as a poet and the relationship he has with his society. As a writer-narrator in the novel, he captures the cultural paralysis in the Mandengu family, community and nation.
Such is the role of the artiste espoused by Chinweizu et al (1985), and embraced by Soyinka (1965). On the other hand, however, the poem is used as a mirror through which Lucifer’s personal dilemma as a pessimist is reflected.
As an artiste, he liberates himself from the claustrophobia of home, its paralysis and anachronistic discourse. Like Marechera in “The House of Hunger” (1978), he distances himself from all that makes up home.
By critically examining its oppressive nature and cutting any sentimental attachments of traditions which have outlived their usefulness, Lucifer alienates himself which creates a problematic identity.
Lucifer’s rejection of home and its environs, rootlessness and ideological conflict is probably captured in the following: “I am Lucifer Mandengu. I was born against my will. I should have been born elsewhere – of some other parents … it is the failure’s junk heap. Those who go to the town only come home to die. Home is where you come back to die having lived all your life elsewhere.”
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