No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2003.

It can be argued that critical scholarship has not satisfactorily commented on the portrayal of women in South African theatre by male playwrights. This dissertation will examine the presentation of the female voice in the selected plays of two playwrights, namely Athol Fugard and Zakes Mda, coming from different socio-historical and cultural backgrounds. This comparative study will re-interrogate the selected representative texts from a feminist perspective, and will compare Fugard's subversive distrust of the female voice juxtaposed against Mda's refreshing celebration of the female presence in the selected plays. Fugard and Mda's female characters are generally seen by their readers, audiences and critics such as Andrew Hom, Marcia Blumberg and Dennis Walder as fundamentally vital, irrepressible and certainly more admirable than their male counterparts, as it is ultimately their quest for symbiosis and affirmation of the self which precludes any passive spectatorship on the part of the audience. However, paradoxically and ironically, it is Fugard, writing from a relatively privileged white male position, who consistently places his female characters in positions where their distinct inner strength is continually undermined. Despite their cognitive ability to engage with their situation, they are seldom permitted to triumph over the bleakness of their lives, but in fact are rendered emotionally impotent in the face of insurmountable existential isolation. Always situated within an interdependent relationship absent of hope and love, Fugard's women characters are never allowed to forget the role they are expected to assume in a patriarchal society rife with political and racial overtones. This very impasse in which they are placed by Fugard generally resonates strongly with the audience, who can identify or empathise with the women, but who are not afforded an imaginative escape by Fugard. Mda's female characters are created and portrayed within a similar political and universal system which perpetuates their exclusion from power and keeps them in servitude. However, unlike the ultimately silenced women in Fugard' splays, Mda, writing partly from a historically marginalised position himself, empowers his female characters with the freedom to confront and articulate their emotions and perceptions. His female characters are inscribed in a multiplicity of social positions, within which they most often find a solution to their problems and demand an outcome which is not only determined by outsiders, but by their own inner strength. Although they are less fettered by class and ideological constraints, they are however more naively drawn than Fugard's female characters. Whilst Fugard' s female characters in the selected plays are, without exception, left on the periphery of the play as the ultimate victims of their inescapable circumstances, the female characters created by Mda more often than not dominate the stage by virtue of their indomitable resilience, rather than resignation. This dissertation will also examine Fugard and Mda's presentation of their female characters as wholly a male's construct, set in a political context which subtextually interrogates race and gender. The implied assumption concerning the authority of the male writer over women's narratives will also therefore be questioned. Reference to Fugard and Mda's own personal histories as well as their other non-fictional writing will be seen as relevant in this regard. In conclusion, this dissertation will focus on the artificially imposed passivity of Fugard' s confined and limited female characters, and will compare this to Mda's empowerment of his female characters through critical awareness. The provocative issues of voice and violence as agency in both Fugard and Mda's discourse will be viewed, in particular, from within an apartheid system of governance. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2002.

Thesis (M.A. (English Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2014 / This study discusses African identity as portrayed in Zakes Mda’s The Madonna of Excelsior (2002) and Bessie Head’s Maru (1971). It explores identity and its subcomponents within the South African context as asserted in these novels. Mda employs a retrospective communal voice that blends historical accounts with fiction in order to subvert and satirise apartheid nationalism. Head, on the other hand, constructs a positive image of feminine identity in the world characterised by tribalism, patriarchal system and stereotypical subjugation of women. She dismantles established racial and ethnic prejudice against minority groups and the underprivileged. The study applies a trilogy of theoretical framework to analyse and interpret selected data: Discourse Analysis, Text Analysis and Afrocentricity. It further examines a fluidity of identities in both social and political spheres and demonstrates how suppression of these identities affects individuals and nation states. It reveals that, as a microcosm of Africa, South Africa reflects atrocious injustices of the past, carried out in the form of colonisation and apartheid, bringing about a different kind of identity of the African people. These two novels take us back to the past so that we can understand the present and subsequently build Africa’s identity of the future. KEY CONCEPTS Afrocentricity; Identity; Discrimination; Miscegenation; Otherness; Hybridity; Animalistic Dehumanisation.

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (MA (English Literature))--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / In this thesis I examine the presentations of masculinity in several novels published in the post-apartheid period in South Africa, that is, the period after 1994. The novels under discussion are all male-authored texts and include novels by J M Coetzee (1999), André Brink (2000), Phaswane Mpe (2001), K Sello Duiker (2001), Zakes Mda (2002) and Damon Galgut (2003). In the introduction theoretical issues regarding masculinity are discussed on the basis of Morrell (2001) and a broad framework for the thesis is outlined. Subsequently the presentation of masculinity is analysed in each of the respective novels under discussion. Issues such as a definition of masculinity (or rather, masculinities), the interaction between men as friends, as colleagues; as well as issues such as heterosexuality and homosexuality are discussed. What perspectives does the author provide on masculinity? How do the male characters experience the new South Africa? What is the nature of their interaction with the female characters in the novels? Another aspect dealt with is the repression of homosexual desire for another man and the way in which it is suppressed beneath a macho façade. In the conclusion the different perspectives are compared and similarities and differences are briefly pointed out. In the end, an important question that comes to mind is: Do these men present a different type of masculinity emerging in the period after liberation, or do they merely (as depicted by their authors) perpetuate the patriarchal masculinities associated with the period before 1994?

Text in English, Tswana and siSwati / This dissertation examines the multiplicity of social positions within which African women in the postcolonial era find themselves. It focuses on how the dramatic dialogue depicts the positions of women in Zakes Mda’sThe Nun’s Romantic Story, And the Girls in their Sunday Dresses and You Fool, How can the Sky Fall. The study is intended to explore the dramatic dialogue in these plays and to show whether there is any evidence of change in women’s positions. It seeks to demonstrate the extent to which the positions of women have changed and also how the dramatic dialogue in the selected plays of Zakes Mda indicates the change in women’s positions. / Thutopatlisiso eno e tlhatlhoba maemo a loago a mantsintsi a basadi ba maAforika ba ba tshelang mo motlheng wa morago ga puso ya bokoloniale ba iphitlhelang ba le mo go ona. E tota ka moo puisano ya terama e bontshang maemo a basadi ka gona mo The Nun’s Romantic Story, And the Girls in their Sunday Dresses le You Fool, How can the Sky Fall tsa ga Zakes Mda. Maikaelelo a thutopatlisiso ke go sekaseka puisano ya terama mo metshamekong eno go bontsha gore a go na le bosupi bope jwa diphetogo mo maemong a basadi. E batla go bontsha ka moo maemo a basadi a fetogileng ka gona le ka moo puisano ya terama mo metshamekong e e tlhophilweng ya ga Zakes Mda e bontshang diphetogo mo maemong a basadi ka gona. / Ledisetheshini ihlolisisa tikhundlanyenti tetenhlalo bomake base-Afrika labatitfola bakuto ngemuva kwesikhatsi sembuso webukolonali (umbusobucalu). Igcile ekutsini inkhulumomphendvulwane emidlalweni yaZakes Mda itikhombisa kanjani letikhundla tabomake; i-The Nun’s Romantic Story [Indzaba yelutsandvo yemasisitela], ne-Girls in their Sunday Dresses [Emantfombatana etingutjeni tawo teLisontfo] ne-You Fool [Wena Silima], How can the Sky Fall [Singawa kanjani Sibhakabhaka]. Lolucwaningo lwentelwe kuhlolisisa inkhulumomphendvulwane kulemidlalo kanye nekukhombisa kutsi ingabe bukhona yini bufakazi bengucuko etikhundleni tabomake. Ifuna kukhombisa kutsi tikhundla tabomake tigucuke kangakanani kanye nekutsi inkhulumomphendvulwane emidlalweni lekhetsiwe yaZakes Mda ikukhombisa kanjani kugucuka kwetikhundla tabomake. / English Studies / M.A.(Theory of Literature)