The paradox of power in Yvonne Vera’s novels

Abstract

The traumatic atmosphere characterized by power manipulations and its destructive aftermath that runs through the selected five novels; Nehanda, Without a Name, Under the Tongue, Butterfly Burning, and The Stone Virgins, has prompted this study to address the narrative complexities of trauma, desperation, bitterness, and painful circumstances through which power discourse unfolds to expose the predicament of both men and women in colonial Zimbabwe. Vera‘s deployment of such strategies depicts oppressed people who will do anything to reverse their circumstances in order to realize their freedom and independence. The study investigates the extent of the impact of power as exerted through the subversive narratives employed by Vera‘s characters in their attempts to reverse their oppressive situations. It seeks to find out the possibilities of an integrative effect of power appropriation on the character‘s actions. The study is premised on the assumption that power is appropriated and exercised in order to liberate and achieve goals. The study is guided by various strands of the feminism perspectives whose key tenet states that ̳all people, women, and men are politically, socially and economically equal‘ and they should be validated as individuals and not groups (Bressler, 2007:182). This tenet is crucial in the understanding of the discourse that motivates the deployment of the subversive narratives as strategies of resisting oppression and of self-empowerment. The study also relies on Michel Foucault‘s perspectives on power to understand its role, use, and impact. It employs a qualitative research methodology that enables the identification of the character‘s subversive actions, motivations, and impact. It establishes that the discourse of power in Vera‘s novels centers primarily on the problematic issues of oppression, domination, and subordination by both colonial and patriarchy to represent the historical suffering of the people of Zimbabwe. This stance provides the reader with important background information and context for an appropriate understanding of the texts. The deployment of the colonial narratives, especially on the men, serves to explain the predicament of the women as they suffer both the colonial projected oppression as well as that of patriarchy. The chapters include an introduction that provides an anchor to the study, chapter two: the female body as the site of power manipulations, which explores the politics of sex and race against the backdrop of colonial evils and patriarchal domination. Chapter three: the subversive narratives as strategies of resistance that interrogates the deviant social acts as exuded by Vera‘s female characters in their quest for freedom. Chapter four: colonial subjugated male which focuses on Vera‘s male characters whose frustration is the cause of the double suffering of female characters, while the fifth chapter discusses the nature of power as a paradox. Chapter six provides the conclusion, findings and recommendations. The study concludes that an appropriation of power and its manipulation through deviant social acts as strategies for self-empowerment is counterproductive and, therefore, should not suffice as a transformative possibility for the re-enactment of a lived life. It validates the study‘s question as to whether there is an integrative effect of power appropriation on the character‘s actions. This research contributes to the author‘s concern with the subversive narratives as strategies of resistance and the subsequent empowerment by establishing that they only give short- lived self-gratification as a prelude to self-destruction which is a contradiction to conventional expectation, what this study refers to as The paradox of power. The research has also pointed to a new trajectory in the understanding of power narratives. It concludes that Vera traces the genesis of power manipulations to the characters‘ dehumanizing circumstances and their quest for freedom and relevance.