Carnivalising Postcolonial Zimbabwe: The Vulgar and Grotesque Logic of Postcolonial Protest in NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names (2013)

Abstract

This article set out to explore NoViolet Bulawayo’s We need new names from the perspective of carnivalised writing. The objectives of the article were to unpack how the vulgar and the grotesque were used to create carnival moments in the narrative and to examine how marginal subjects gain voice and some degree of power to live an alternative life, even if this is momentary. It sought to examine how Bulawayo derives her aesthetics from the vulgar and the grotesque to create a carnivalesque logic that informs postcolonial protest in the novel. The analysis made use of the theoretical concepts of carnival propounded by Mikhail Bakhtin. This article argues that the text is constituted by a regime of the vulgar, which the child characters deploy for transgressing hegemonic practices and authoritative discourses. Social norms are suspended and the children have a subversive agency, courtesy of parody and satire. The article reveals that apart from speaking back to power, the children harness the image of kaka (human excrement) as a discursive resource to satirise the failures of the Zimbabwean postcolony and to degrade all forms of authority. It is concluded that while the scatological in the novel suggests social indictment, the images of kaka and dirt fail to transcend protest to see the realisation of a desired postcolonial condition.

Opsomming

Die oogmerk van hierdie artikel was om NoViolet Bulawayo se We need new names te bestudeer uit die  perspektief van gekarnivaliseerde skryfwerk. Die artikel het ten doel gehad om te ontleed hoe die vulgêre en die groteske aangewend is om oomblikke van uitspattigheid in die verhaal te skep en om te ondersoek hoe rand-figure ʼn stem kry, asook ʼn mate van mag om ʼn alternatiewe lewe te leef – selfs al is dit net kortstondig. Die artikel bestudeer ook hoe Bulawayo die estetika van die vulgêre en groteske gebruik om ʼn karnivaleske logika te bewerkstellig wat post-koloniale protes in die roman aanwakker. Die ontleding gebruik die teoretiese kon-septe van uitspattigheid wat deur Mikhail Bakhtin geskep is. Die artikel voer aan dat die teks saamgestel is deur ʼn regime van die vulgêre, wat die kinderkarakters aan-wend om hegemoniese praktyke en outoritêre diskoerse te oorskry. Sosiale norme word opgeskort en die kinders kry ondermynende mag deur parodie en satire. Die artikel onthul dat, afgesien daarvan dat die kinders terugpraat waar mag ter sprake is, hulle die beeld van kaka (menslike ontlasting) inspan as ʼn diskoershulpbrom om die mislukkings van die Zimbabwiese postkolonie te satiriseer en om alle vorme van outoriteit te degradeer. Die gevolgtrekking is dat hoewel die skatologiese in die roman sosiale aanklag suggereer, die beelde van kaka en vuilgoed nie daarin slaag om protes te oortref ten einde ʼn gewenste postkoloniale toestand te bewerkstellig nie.