Disciplined Body And Liberated Body Of The Blacks In South Africa

With the colonization of South Africa,the life of the indigenous black people was from bad to worse.The legalization of apartheid made the situation worse.Unwilling to be enslaved and oppressed,the black people never gave up their resistance,which eventually prompted the beginning of the anti-apartheid movement.As a supporter of the movement,Zakes Mda,distinguished playwright,novelist and poet of South Africa,participated in the struggle without hesitation.Through creating a series of popular works and constantly criticized racial discrimination,he exposed the dark side of South African society,and to cry out for the plight and physical restraints of the underclass.Widely noted for his unique political vision,Mda is often hailed as a prophet of South African society.Meanwhile,his plays are full of ambiguous metaphors,and actively praise the efforts of the black women,the colored people,the gays and other marginalized groups to resist adversity.In 1978,Mda won Amstel Playwright of the Year for We Shall Sing for the Fatherland.In 1979,he received the award again for The Hill.In 1984,his play The Road won the Christina Crawford Award from the American Dramatic Association.As a black man who born in South Africa but lived in Lesotho for many years,Mda expressed deep concern for the unfortunate fate of his black compatriots.His has depicted the reality of the black people’s lives with full humanity and sympathy.His efforts in dispelling the hegemony of western cultural discourse can be verified by his realistic creation theme,absurd and metaphorical satire,exquisite performance techniques,and the integration of traditional African culture such as myth,epic,music,dance and local religion.It is rare that he has put forward the resistance strategy of armed revolt through the mouth of the characters,so as to awaken the people to emancipate their minds and promote social reform.There is no doubt that Mda’s plays has reflected the stark realities of South African society.He not only depicted the real picture of the black people suffering from bullying in colonial society and post-colonial society,but also realized the liberation of the characters’bodies by various means.In view of this,this thesis,based on the body theory,made an in-depth analysis of the process of physical discipline of the bottom black people from the colonial period to the post-colonial period in Mda’s two representative works,as well as the concrete presentation of oppression of the bodies.Meanwhile,the thesis focused on exploring the different resistance strategies of the black people.The study showed that by showing the oppressed and deprived bodies of the masses,the playwright not only disclosed the unscrupulous gaze and symbolization of the blacks’ bodies by the whites,but also revealed the ambition of the black elite leaders in the new South Africa to realize their autocratic rule.On this basis,the playwright attempted to integrate his own understanding of power and body into the creation of the plays,leading the underclass black people to reflect on the current social reality and bravely challenge the majesty of the dictatorial rulers,so as to realize the liberation of their body.