OBSCENITY AS A REFLECTION OF REALISM IN DAMBUDZA MARECHERA’ HOUSE OF HUNGER AND BLACK SUNLIGHT

Abstract

Readers of African fiction today have found out that novelists have reacted sensitively and significantly to the current situation of the African nation. This realism in their works is concerned with the behavior of man, the individual being treated as an autonomous entity as he interacts with or grapples social structures, conventions and institutions. The novelists achieve this realistic presentation of events in their novels through employing various techniques in their works. This essay attempts to explore obscenity as a technique employed by Dambudzo Marechera in his novels, House of Hunger and Black Sunlight. The essay will establish that obscenity as employed by the writer is not there to amuse or excite the reader but serves as a reflection of realistic situations in his society. Obscene language and imagery serve as a strategy to arouse contempt, feeling of disillusionment and dissatisfaction, thereby creating a dystopia of the idealist utopia society the Zimbabweans anticipate. To establish this fact, this essay will trace the origin and phases of African fiction; pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial as well as realism and its variants.