The Epistemic Codification of Satiric Indictment and the Decrying Gender Grotesque in Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s 491 Days and the Zimbabwean Maverick Movie Neria
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25159/2663-6565/17179Keywords:
codification, South Africa, Zimbabwe, epistemology, satire, grotesque, gender, Winnie Madikizela-MandelaAbstract
Language, law, and literatures have at times discernibly and theatrically attempted the development of satire in academic discourses. They have raised a poignant question on the articulation of gender in society. Critical discourses have valorised the epistemic exegesis on how language is transfigured and re-interpreted to spur the dramaturgy and trajectory of gender through autobiography, biography, fiction, and movies. This article crystallises the societal perception of how satire has been used to ridicule and make distinctions by invoking scorn and pity on both men and women in society. The article probes the sensitivity of contemporary male obsessions with phallic power under an apartheid government. It dovetails through the existing epistemic configurations exhibited to recuperate women in revoking the phallocentric codifications in Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s epoch-making autobiography, 491 Days (1969). With the symbolic, ironic, iconic, and satiric prison number of “1322/69,” Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s anti-apartheid autobiography re-invokes the male imperative devices built up for years against vulnerable Black females and weak Black males in the apartheid South African regime. Similarly, the same epistemic vein and codification are obsessively projected by possessed and aggressive phallic patriarchs in the Zimbabwean film Neria (1992). The article relies on the theory of Nawal El Saadawi, which proposes confrontation on the questions of female polarisation, women’s objectification, and the quest for resistance against legally recognised social exegesis. This includes the application of coercive force and the rejection of satiric linguistic indictments against women and the weak as exemplified in the autobiographic and filmic works from South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Metrics
References
Abrams, M. H. 1981. A Glossary of Literary Terms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, eds. 1989. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203402627. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203402627
Bandelj, Nina, and Elizabeth Sowers. 2013. Economy and State. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Bhana, Deevia, Mary Crewe, and Peter Angleton. 2019. “Sex, Sexuality, and Education in South Africa.” Sex Education 19 (4): 361–370. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2019.1620008. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2019.1620008
Daniel, Iyabode O. 2014. “Nawal El Saadawi and the Woman Question.” Journal of English Language and Literature 2 (1): 121–125. https://doi.org/10.17722/jell.v2i1.27. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17722/jell.v2i1.27
Deleuze, Gilles. 1995. Negotiations, 1972–1990. New York: Columbia University Press.
Eimands, Ursula. 1984. “Towards Liberation: Black Women Writing.” African Research and Documentation 36: 18–24. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305862X00007123. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305862X00007123
Fanon, Franz. 1952. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Charles Lam Markmann. New York: Grove Press.
Fanon, Franz. 1967. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press.
Hornby, Albert Sydney. 2000. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. London: Oxford University Press.
Inojie, Charles, dir. My Baby. 2007. Nigerian Movie. Lagos: Price Penny Productions.
Jansen, Jonathan D. 2018. “Decolonising the Curriculum and the Monday Morning Problem.” Foreword to The Status of Transformation in Higher Education Institutions in Post-Apartheid South Africa, edited by Chaunda L. Scott and Eunice N. Ivala, 1–5. London: Routledge.
Johnston, Denis. (1959) 2011. In Search of Swift. Dublin: Hodges Figgis and Co.
Kristeva, Julia. 2013. “The Semiotic Activity 1997.” In Global Literary Theory: An Anthology, edited by Richard J. Lane, 69–70. London: Routledge.
Madikizela-Mandela, Winnie 2013. 491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69. Athens: Ohio University Press.
Mawuru, Godwin, dir. 1992. Neria. Media for Development Trust International, DVD, 103 mins.
McCausland, Monica 2021. “An Analysis of the Imprisonment and Treatment of Winnie Mandela.” South African History Online, February 4, 2021. https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/analysis-imprisonment-and-detainment-treatment-winnie-madikizela-mandela-monica-mccausland.
Montgomery, Sarah. 1984. “Women’s Women’s Films.” Feminist Review 18 (1): 38–48. https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.1984.46. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.1984.46
Nursey-Bray, Paul. 1980. “Race and Nation: Ideology in the Thought of Frantz Fanon.” Journal of Modern African Studies 18 (1): 135–142. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X00009484. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X00009484
Ogonna, Okafor Stella 2015. “The Role of Satire in African Literature: A Critical Review of ‘Ugomma’, an Igbo Drama by Godson Echebina.” In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Language, Education, Humanities and Innovation 2015, edited by Lokman Abd Wahid. ICSAI. https://icsai.org/procarch/2iclehi/2iclehi-74.pdf.
Pasipanodya, Isabel 2020. “Examining the Evolving Representation of Female Characters in Zimbabwean Films: A Case of Neria (1993) and Sinners (2013).” MSS diss., University of KwaZulu Natal. https://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/handle/10413/19756.
Rice, Philip, and Patricia Waugh, eds. 2001. Modern Literary Theory: A Reader. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Saadawi, Nawal El. 1983. Woman at Point Zero. London: Zed Books.
Said, Edward W. 1994. Culture and Imperialism. New York. Vintage Books.
Sakarombe, Phebbie. 2018. “Gendering Cruelty: An Investigation of the Depiction of the Cruel Male in Godwin Mawuru’s Neria (1993).” Global Media Journal African Edition 11 (1): 21–34.
West-Pavlov, Russel. 2013. Temporalities. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203106877. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203106877
White, Hayden. 1978. Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.