Ways of Dying : The depiction of Life and Death in Zakes Mda's novel

• Main Author: Rudolf, Gabriel
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för språk och litteratur, SOL 2011
• Subjects: Life; Death; Zakes Mda; Ways of Dying; Politics; South Africa; Transition; Literature; Litteraturvetenskap
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-10277

Abstract This bachelor’s essay focuses on the depictions of life and death in the novel Ways of Dying by Zakes Mda. It claims that the novel is mainly focusing on a concept of life although it is set in a time in South Africa which is filled with death. The theory being used in the essay is mainly the postcolonial theory by Elleke Boehmer regarding terror since her definitions of terror corresponds very well to what is written in the novel. To add to this postcolonial theorist the essay has a feature of the structuralist binaries to enhance the focus upon the dichotomies of Life and Death. The essay discusses the situation of violence in transitional South Africa as described by the novel and focuses mainly on violence and politics to investigate the depictions of death. The representations of life in the novel are mainly shown through the magical realism, the story telling and the funerals which are visited by the main character Toloki. The essay explains that the novel is mainly focused on the binary opposite of life because of among other things the ending and the depictions of the funerals.