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Eliiot Ziwira@ The Book Store

The open-endedness of literary criticism is sometimes burdened by the tendency to judge books by their covers and titles. Some titles shout where they should only whisper, scream where groaning would suffice and roar where tweeting would be more appropriate.However, the use of titles drawn from metaphors depicting the overall neurosis of the family unit and the community, death, malaise, poverty, claustrophobia and violence at the centre of Zimbabwean literature enhances the critical analysis of thematic issues raised. Writers like Charles Mungoshi, Memory Chirere, Shimmer Chinodya, Dambudzo Marechera, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Chenjerai Hove and Brian Chikwava use metaphorical titles to drive home the thematic concerns that shape their experiences.

Drought and hunger, which have been used effectively by Mungoshi and Marechera, are metaphors of a spiritual, cultural, intellectual and creative crisis as maintained by Muchemwa (2001). This rationale has also been embraced by Zhuwarara (1987) in his exploration of the spiritual malaise at the heart of the Mandengu family in “Waiting of the Rain” (1975), and the universal neurosis at familial, communal and national platforms in “Walking Still” (1997).

Psychological drought, moral drought, economic drought, ideological drought and intellectual drought are aspects that weigh heavily on the national psyche and cannot, therefore, escape the competent artiste’s radar. Chinodya’s titles, like “Harvest of Thorns” (1989), “Queues” (2003), “Chairman of Fools” (2005) and “Strife” (2006) capture the dearth of hope, the demise of aspirations and the irony of expectation in a society that scalds itself and blames it all on an invisible or rather imaginary foe.

Insanity becomes as neurotic as it is universal and obvious; racing against hope, individuals queue to harvest the thorns of their travails at the behest of chairmen of idiocy and in the end only strife prevails. Madness becomes a vent and a foreclosure, out of suffering and inevitably into profound suffering, as fools are vainly led out of tomfoolery by fools.

Drought and hunger are closely related to the metaphor of madness and the symbol of death explored in “Bones” (1988), “Chairman of Fools” (2005), Alexander Kanengoni’s “Echoing Silences” (1997), Marechera’s “House of Hunger” (1978) and Chirere’s “Somewhere in this Country” (2006). Thus, drought and hunger, metaphors whose essence is captured by Zimunya in “Those Years of Drought and Hunger” (1982), pervade Zimbabwean literature which makes the examination of the use of titles not only interesting but inevitable.

The books aforementioned conform to Franz Fanon’s postulation of “literature of combat”, albeit in different dimensions.

The use of literature as a form of liberation permeates Zimbabwean literature as posited by Fanon (1967): A literature of combat in the sense that it calls on the whole people to fight for their existence as a nation . . . a literature of combat because it moulds the national consciousness, giving it contours and flinging open before it, new horizons . . . a literature of combat because it assumes responsibility and because it is the will to liberty expressed in terms of time and space, (Cited in Ngara, 1996).

“Harvest of Thorns”, which was the turning point in Chinodya’s use of metaphor and symbolism in purveying the wretchedness of the African people and their quest to liberate themselves, like “Bones” and “Waiting for the Rain”, conforms to Fanon’s philosophy of literature of combat in the same dimension in that they seek the metonymic triumph of the collective voice in the fight for total liberation against external forces.

However, the kind of combat in Marechera’s “House of Hunger” is unique in that it is combat from within; of a family or nation fighting against itself; a nation torn apart by violence and alienates itself; finds enemies within itself and destroys itself. Everything is put in destructive mode as the walls of the house constantly shift out of position and the roof tilts inwards. This is the kind of combat that Chinodya engages in, in his later works “Queues”, “Tavonga” (2005), “Chairman of Fools” and “Strife”. Chirere joins the combat through his collection of short stories “Somewhere in this Country” (2006).

What this somehow suggests is that combat from within usually solicit for inner strength, determination and resilience, so that a lasting solution may be found for the consolidation of the family unit, community and nation.

If a member of a family errs, he/she does not only err against fellow members but he also errs against himself/herself; thus self-introspection does not only help the community at large in solving pressing issues but makes it possible for the individual to mitigate the effect of his/her foibles. The individual should be able to face the consequences of his/her actions if society is to prosper, because if he or she is left to his/her whims everyone else suffers and society becomes the ultimate loser.

Metaphoric titling, therefore, may be significant in its capturing of both the individual biography and the national one.

Because of his mastery of understatement and irony, the rhetoric of Mungoshi’s fiction stands head and shoulders above many writers in both Zimbabwean and African traditions. In most of his works, especially “Walking Still” (1997), “Coming of the Dry Season” (1972) and “Waiting for the Rain” (1975), one has to be careful in the separation of the locutionary meaning from the illocutionary one, for nothing is explicit in Mungoshi’s works.

The metaphors of waiting and walking are explored interestingly as the individual is under the false impression of going somewhere, yet he or she is paralysed through lack of physical, psychological and social movement. Waiting creates malaise as everything is in abeyance. Waiting for something to happen, waiting for bond notes, waiting for the milkman and the delivery van, waiting for the trees of Eden to come to fruition. Waiting! Waiting! Waiting!

Waiting does not only imply stasis in the individual’s expectations and the nation’s existence, but it also suggests anxiety and despondency; that kind of feeling explored in “Waiting for Godot” and the “Enigma of Arrival”. Waiting permeates the metaphorical representation of the individual and his location in the national psyche.

Rain, another metaphor commonly used in Zimbabwean literature as well as African literature in general, is symbolic of life giving energies that are a ghastly travesty in oppressive settings. Colonial and post-colonial oppression, political and cultural freedom and intellectual regeneration can all be explored through the metaphor of rain. Rain is therefore significant of abundance, and the dawn of a new era as old wounds are cleansed.

In “Waiting for the Rain” and “Walking Still”, Mungoshi’s characters, themes and plot gain meaning when read against the metaphors waiting, walking, and rain. The chronological plot trailed and the realistic details proffered find their metonymic dimension transformed by the metaphorical titles used.

The frustrating aspect of waiting usually leads to civil strife and drought in all its different forms, hence the need for life saving rains, which somehow fail to materialise as there seems to be no rain-bearing clouds on the horizon.

The general air of expectation is explored through names in Mungoshi’s “Waiting for the Rain”, especially through Tongoona’s wait and see attitude, as his name suggests. As both and individual and father, he has been incapacitated by the belief that some external force will bring change in the fortunes of his family. It is this passivity that tragically alienates Lucifer, who feels that a community or nation that is incapable of change through agency is one that has irredeemably destroyed itself.

Lucifer’s rejection of home and its environs, ideological conflict and rootlessness capture the general neurosis, paralysis, stasis and claustrophobia prevalent in the novel as is metaphorically apt in the title.

Marechera’s denial of the coherence of the family structure, its link with the community and nation at large, as well as his subsequent alienation from the concept of home in “House of Hunger” (1978) can be examined through the metaphorical titling of the book.

The metaphor of the house is symbolic of the decadence of the family unit, leading to the overall neurosis of the community and nation.

Images of disease, deprivation, dirt and poverty are used to reveal the abnormalities not only evident in the literal house but the metaphorical one as well, which can be read from any standpoint in an oppressive setting.

On the other hand, Hove’s “Bones” “has the cryptic, laconic and ambivalent character of an oracle; brief and clear at one level while endlessly teasing and puzzling on another” (Muchemwa, 2001:41). Such is the problematic nature of metaphorical titling which impedes literary criticism as the role of the critic is “to elucidate works of art so that readers can understand and enjoy them” (Ngara, 1990:3).

If well articulated titles can carry the pain of suffering in a world where the gargantuan fish of prey suffocates the gagged small fish out of existence, yet purporting to catapult the quarry’s lot to Kingdom come.