On The Deconstruction Of Cultural Hegemony In Zakes Mda’s Novels

Zakes Mda is an important figure in contemporary South African literary field.As a Native South African writer,Mda‘s works are more concerned with national history and social reality in the context of globalization and colonization,and express the author‘s strong sense of responsibility for society under a delicate narrative framework.The time line of the three chosen works,Ways of Dying,She Plays with the Darkness and The Heart of Redness,spans over 150 years,which begins with the history of the early British colonization and ends with the reality after South Africa‘s first democratic election.Although South Africa had achieved political independence during this period,the West has not given up the competition for its cultural hegemony,which has been exposed and criticized in Mda‘s novels.Cultural hegemony,also known as cultural leadership,is the core idea of Antonio Gramsci,the representative figure of Western Marxism.He holds that there are two main dimensions composing one country‘s superstructure,namely political society and civil society.The political society is the political activity area of the state and the government,consisting of violent organs such as courts,prisons and the military.Civil society is a field of cultural,ethical and ideological activities of a country,consisting of churches,schools and non-governmental organizations.In a country where a mature civil society is formed,it is impossible to obtain firm leadership by ruling the political society compulsorily.Instead,it is necessary to obtain the consent of the civil society to obtain cultural leadership.Based on Gramsci‘s theory,as well as related theories of cultural colonization,this paper analyzes Mda‘s three novels to find out the confrontational cultural forces prevalent in South Africa and how they reacts against the other side by means of close reading.The first chapter mainly introduces the objects of this study,including the author Zakes Mda and his three works chosen to study in this thesis.After gathering,combing and summarizing studies at home and abroad on Mda‘s novels,research methods and theoretical framework of this thesis will be illustrated.Chapter two to Chapter four is the main part of the thesis,analyzing the deconstruction of Western cultural hegemony in Mda‘s novels from three aspects of civil society.Chapter two,from the perspective of religion,reveals cultural colonization on South Africa through Christianity and also sheds light to its crucial flaws in its attempt to dominate the nation.Meanwhile,Mda gives a voice to the silenced colonized by analyzing South African traditional religion,concluding that it is a religion with both vulnerability and perseverance.Mda completes a rebellion of the colonial text by presenting a hybrid religious environment.Taking a view of educational environment,Chapter three focuses on language environment and educational institutions.It analyzes the deconstruction of imperial language through native culture,which forces English to be an inarticulate language in South Africa.Meanwhile,Mda points out that,with the absence of local schools,some young people have lost their cultural identities of their own nation.However,Mda‘s critique has not been trapped in petty nationalism as his critique of Western education lies not only in avoiding its possible intention of creating cultural denigration on national culture,but also in a requirement to use its superiority and advancement.By this way,Mda has blurred the binary opposition of the ―indigenous‖ and the ―West‖,thus broken the authority of Western education.Starting from non-governmental organizations,Chapter four reveals the failure of those organizations controlled by the West and manages to find out the outlet of South Africa by highlighting newly-established national autonomous organizations,coupled with the rise of minorities represented by non-locals who have formed cultural identity towards Xhosa culture and South African women.These autonomous organizations symbolize the hope of South Africa.Mda gives a voice to minorities and highlights their struggle against the Western discourse,which offers a possible outlet for South Africa.Chapter five is the conclusion part,illustrating that Zakes Mda does not intend to inspire readers‘ desire of violent resistance by narrating the collision between indigenous culture and Western culture.Instead,Mda tries to arouse readers‘ reflection on the subjectivity of the colonized,as well as their critical thoughts of the oppressors and their oppressive conducts.Using various text strategies,Mda has completed both the criticism of cultural hegemony and discussion of the reconstruction of the colonized subjectivity,which are vital propositions that South Africa must explore as a third world country.In addition,the discussion of these propositions is of great theoretical and practical significance to the literary study of the third world literature.