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Elliot Ziwira
Dr Johnson cited in Pollard (1970:2) defined satire as “a poem in which wickedness is censured”. Satire, however, is not only confined to verse as it also extends to prose and drama. It is a kind of policeman able to rule and restore by restraining the righteous and condemning the wicked as maintained by Swift (1704, 1728), that; “satire is a sort of glass, wherein the beholders generally discover everybody’s face but their own”.
As a guardian of ideals, mores and values, the satirist functions as a preacher who is always at” truth’s defence”. By drawing inspiration from tones of the satirist spectrum; wit, ridicule, sarcasm, cynicism, irony, the sardonic and inventive, the satirist is able to poke at the follies and vices inherent in man.
Through ridiculing such follies and vices which derive excitement from trauma and suffering, he is able to generate humour as humanity is given a chance to laugh at itself.
Because problems besetting society always avail themselves in different fashion depending on time and place, the satirist should be able to shift his portrayal of them so as to remain relevant to his people.
Knowing that humanity is always burdened by suffering and preoccupied by the unknown, his major weapon is humour so that he lightens the situation, and at the same time drive home his thematic concerns.
The cartoonist, with his economy of words, power of caricature and depth of foresight, is one satirist who is so much interesting.
He captures current societal woes, expectations and glee; social, political or economical in a unique way.
Because he is conscious of his fellows’ folly and understands the limitations of words to the layman and the busy man, he uses caricature as his missile; and with it he usually hits his target.
The satirist is always on the lookout for deviant behaviour-religion and politics usually offer him fertile hunting grounds. Through the exposure of folly and the castigation of vice, the satirist effectively plays his role as is expected by his society.
Since the dual function of literature is didacticism and entertainment, the artist also plays a dual role in society; as a teacher and an entertainer.
The didactic function is manifested in content and the entertainment one in form and style. Because of the multiplicity of cultures and ideologies, artists play different roles in their respective societies.
The artist, like the satirist functions as a teacher and a preacher. However, not all artists can use the satire trope. As a gifted individual endowed with wisdom and vision, an artist can guide his people by indicating to them what may be regarded as an ideal way of doing things.
In this instance the writer functions as a teacher. The cultural norms and values of a community or nation are contained in literary works, and not in history books, as maintained by Chenjerai Hove in “Palaver Finish” (2002).
Chinua Achebe, commenting on the role of the writer as a teacher in “African Writers Talking” (1972) noted that: “. . . What I think a novelist can teach is something very fundamental, namely to indicate to his readers; to put it crudely that we in Africa did not hear of culture for the first time from Europeans”.
Thus, an artist functions as the custodian of the cultural norms and values of his community. However, the masochistically skeptic writer Stanley Nyamufukudza flatly refutes the notion of the writer as a teacher to his community when he says: “Books are not as influential as people want to think . . .
“I think it is presumptuous for an author to say he is a teacher, but in Africa, writers are seen as people who have something significant to say.” (cited in Maveneke, 1983:5).
What Nyamufukudza seem not to realise is that teaching takes different forms and is not only a mere rumble of discourse guided by personal and individual intonations.
A writer does not only awaken his people on the need to preserve their cultural identity, norms and values, but he should also act as the voice of the feeble and the voiceless.
As someone with “something significant to say”, a writer should not just tell his/her community what to do and what to avoid; he/she should speak for them.
Chenjerai Hove cited in Veit-Wild (1993:3, 4) complements this rationale of the artist as the voice of the voiceless when he quips: “African writers have to perform the task of helping to awaken the consciences of the world to the plight of the powerless in a world where the muscle of arms rather than morality seem to determine the fate of life”.
Chinweizu et al (1985) also concur that “the artist in the traditional milieu spoke for and on behalf of his community”.
The artist also functions as the recorder of events as they take place.
Critic and writer, Wole Soyinka (1973:89) observed that “the artist always functioned as the voice of vision in his own time”.
This means that the writer should record current and topical issues, which affect his community, because it is such issues that the reader can easily identify with.
The journalistic aspect of the role of the artist is also echoed by Chinweizu et al (1985:248) when they say: “Our job as writers is to be articulate and to present to our audience the stresses and joys of our societies as they take place.”
Commenting on Mungoshi, Kanengoni and Chipamaunga have this to say respectively: “I sometimes identified myself with the maze of Mungoshi’s stories.
“The frustration was so real”, (Veit-Wild, 1992:73) and: “The author immediately won my admiration for capturing and fluently expressing the spirit of the time.”
Like a surgeon, the artist should be able to cure his/her society of the ills that may affect it rather than just expose them.
The artist also functions as a prophet to his society by proffering solutions through optimistic future visions of what society would be like if all problems are dealt with timely.
Good literature however, should not always be didactic as people need to relax and shift away from the daily hustles they experience every day, (Muchemwa, 2002).
Humour, therefore, is an important ingredient which the satirist and the artist exploit in their condemnation of vice.
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