The role of character names in the actualisation of themes in African prose fiction. the case of Andreya Masiye's before dawn, Binwell Sinyangwe’s a cowrie of hope, and noviolet Bulawayo’s we need new names.
Date
2019
Authors
Mubbunu, Mulute
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Publisher
The University of Zambia
Abstract
Names and naming are
an important aspect of literature as well as society. They act as tags and or referents to specific entities, both animate and inanimate. H uman beings as the centre of communication are not spared from the value of having names by which they are referred to. Personal names both in real life and literary works play an important role in shaping both the personality as well as their relationships with those around them. Names, therefore can be said to be a central aspect of human personality as well as relat ionships in every society. This study, therefore, focuses its discussion on the linkage between the personal names of the
characters in the specified texts and the themes of the same novels. This is with a view to linking the findings with the status quo i n real societies of Zambia and Zimbabwe. This has been done through the employment of the two main onomastic theories the Sense and the No Sense theory which try to explicate whether a name has meaning in itself or whether the name acquires its meaning la ter after it has been bestowed on someone. These have been aided by the moral
philosophical approach to literary criticism whose main argument is that because lit erature has a didactic function , readers must always look out for these moral lessons within a work of literature. Further, the study has revealed that the authors make conscious choices when naming their characters especially with the view to use the charactonyms as aids in putting across the desired message. it has also been established that the No-sense theory as applied in the texts studied, can be used in such a way as to show that characters do become what the name giver intends for their lives. Ultimately, this link between the character names and the textual themes is important in the understanding of any given text as it also highlights what the authors intend to convey as the moral teaching through their writing.
Description
Thesis of Master of Arts in Literature