WAR AND GENDERED ROLE SHIFTS IN SELECTED UGANDAN NOVELS

Abstract

War, a motif in prose fiction, that depicts the varied angles of societal chaos, is explored in Ugandan novels for different purposes. Existing literary studies on war in Uganda have largely focused on the representations of disparities in gendered relationship and depiction of women’s susceptibility to brutalities, with little attention paid to depictions of shifts in female characters’ adoption of polarised gendered roles. Therefore, this study was designed to examine the representation of war and gendered role shifts in selected Ugandan novels, with a view to determining the assigned roles, deconstruction of gendered roles, and the literary strategies employed. Michelle Foucault’s Model of Feminist Poststructuralism and Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics Theory served as the framework. The interpretive design was used. Two Ugandan novelists (Gerotti Kymuhendo and Moses Isegawa) were purposively selected because of their detailed portrayal of war and its effects. Four novels (two from each author) were purposively selected owing to their thematic relevance. The novels were Gerotti Kymuhendo’s Secret No More (SNM) and waiting; and Moses Isegawa’s Abyssinian Chronicles (AC) and SnakePit (SP). The texts were subjected to literary analysis. The traditional gendered roles assigned to women are nurturance and caregiving, which entrench their objectification, relegation and domestication. The deconstructive effects of war mastermind reconstructing the battered images of women through the adoption of fluid, transmuting, replicating and evolving gendered roles. War causes victimisation of and violence against women (SNM, AC, SP and Waiting), rape, inter-tribal and political clashes, parental rejection, imbalanced marital consent and family rivalry (SNM and AC); and displacement, humiliation and disillusionment (Waiting and SP). These characterise the re-representations of gendered relationships and roles and result in proliferation of unpredictability in the expressions of assigned roles. War generates the dismantling of stereotypes (SNM, AC, SP and Waiting) through the juxtaposed figuration of weak passive men versus strong assertive women. Female characters build resistance to subordinating vices of encountered brutalities (SNM, AC, SP and Waiting). Psychological shifts activated by continued traumatisation incite violence in the victimised, which delineate their sense of power and dominance. Subjectivity to sexual exploitation, displacement and dispossession are responsible for the acceptance of the role of perpetrators by victims (SNM and SP). Marital denigration reinforces self-reclamation (AC and Waiting) and assertion of autonomy through recourse to sexual abuse of victimisers (AC). The expressed similarities in victimised characters’ adoption of vengeful retribution to oppression during war (SNM, AC, SP and Waiting) attest to the similitude of power operation as capable of deconstructing polarities in the depiction of gendered role. Exhibition of conservative ideology about traditionally assigned roles breeds perpetual subjectivity of war victims (AC, SP and Waiting). The narrative strategies employed in representing war and its implications for gendered role shifts are multiple narrative voices (SNM, AC, SP and Waiting), journey motif (Waiting and SNM), foreshadowing and flashback (SP and AC), vivid description and dysphemism (SNM, AC, SP and Waiting). Ugandan novels foreground the effect of war on the reconstruction of gendered role assignment through the reactions of victimised female characters by means of graphic narrative strategies.