A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE REPRESENTATION OF ERRANT CHILDREN IN

SELECTED SHORT STORIES BY CHARLES MUNGOSHI FROM COMING OF THE

DRY SEASON, SOME KINDS OF WOUNDS AND WALKING STILL.

BY

KUDZAYI MUGARISANWA

R145825R

A DISSERTATION SUBIMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT OF THE

BACHELOR OF ARTS

HONOURS IN ENGLISH

UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWE

MAY 2017

SUPERVISOR: MR .M.CHIRERE

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DEDICATION

This dissertation is dedicated to my parents who have been my stepping stones from day one. To my

mother Mrs Mugarisanwa who has gone through fire and ice to get me where I am today and for being

my hope when all seemed lost. To my little sister whose care and selflessness has made me a better person.

To my best friend Solomon for being my pillar of strength and for listening while l rumbled about the

obstacles l faced during the writing of this dissertation.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My deepest gratitude goes to my supervisor and lecturer Mr. Memory Chirere for his guidance and help

on the researching and writing of this dissertation. I would also like to thank all my lecturers for their

knowledge and ideas during my academic years at the University of Zimbabwe, without them the research

and writing of this dissertation would have been impossible. My gratitude goes to my friend Christine

Rangwani who stood by me through thick and thin. Many thanks go to all my brothers and sisters from

Honours in English 2017 for their encouragement and comfort.

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ABSTRACT

The research looks at the representation of errant children in Charles Mungoshi’s short stories from his

collections Coming of the Dry Season (1972), Some Kinds of Wounds (1980) and Walking Still (1997).The

thrust of the research is to analyse the causes of the errant behaviour in children and young adults. The

research will also bring out the symbolical meaning of the actions of these errant children in the short

stories, looking at the deeper meaning that Mungoshi might have wanted to bring out. To clearly bring

the above, the research will look at the different behaviours and actions of errant children at home living

with their parents and guardians, at school and in the city. The research will bring out if it is the fault of

the children, or those that surround them that they have become errant. The study is to show how Charles

Mungoshi uses the child characters to bring out important issues in the society, as well as attack somehow

the folly in it.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents Page

Dedication....................................................................................................................................i

Acknowledgements.....................................................................................................................ii

Abstract.......................................................................................................................................iii

Table of contents.........................................................................................................................iv

Chapter One: Introduction

1.0 Research question...................................................................................................................1

1.1 Background of study...............................................................................................................1

1.2 Aim..........................................................................................................................................3

1.3 Statement of problem..............................................................................................................3

1.4 Justification.............................................................................................................................4

1.5 Objectives................................................................................................................................5

1.6 Methodology .......................................................................................................................5

1.7 Theoretical Framework...........................................................................................................5

1.8 Organisation of study..............................................................................................................6

1.9 Definition of terms...................................................................................................................8

1.10 Literature Review..................................................................................................................8

1.11 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................14

Chapter Two: A Critical Analysis of the Representation of Errant Children at Home

2.0 Introduction...........................................................................................................................15

2.1Bckground and writing career of Charles Mungoshi..............................................................15

2.2 ‘Shadows on the wall’...........................................................................................................18

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2.3 Critical Analysis of the representation of an errant child in ‘Shadows on the walls’................19

2.4 ‘Did You Have to Go that Far’...................................................................................................24

2.5 A critical analysis of the representation of errant children in ‘Did You Have to go that Far’...24

2.6 ‘The Crow’.................................................................................................................................30

2.7A critical analysis of the representation of errant children in “The Crow’................................31

2.8Conclusion..................................................................................................................................34

Chapter Three: A Critical analysis of the representation of errant children at school

3.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................35

3.1 ‘The Hero’...................................................................................................................................36

3.2An analysis of the representation of errant children in ‘The Hero’..............................................36

3.3 ‘The Homecoming’........................................................................................................................39

3.4 A critical analysis of the representation of errant children by Charles Mungoshi in ‘The
Homecoming’......................................................................................................................................40

3.5 ‘White Stones Red Earth’...............................................................................................................44

3.6 A critical analysis of the representation of errant children in ‘White Stones and Red Earth’........45

3.7 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................47

Chapter Four: A critical analysis of Mungoshi’s representation of errant children (young adults)
in the city

4.0 Introduction.....................................................................................................................................48

4.1 ‘The Brother’...................................................................................................................................48

4.2 A critical analysis of errant children and young adults in ‘The Brother’........................................49

4.3 ‘Coming of the Dry Season’............................................................................................................52

4.4A critical analysis of the representation of young adults in ‘Coming of the dry season’..............53

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4.5 Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................55

Chapter Five

5.0 Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................57

Bibliography........................................................................................................................................58

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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.0 RESEARCH TOPIC: A critical analysis of the representation of errant children in selected short

stories by Charles Mungoshi from Coming of The Dry Season , Some Kinds of Wounds and Walking Still

1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY

A number of Zimbabwean authors have been indirectly pushed to address the issue of children or youths

who are acting against societal norms, or what is perceived as the normal way of acting for the

Zimbabwean child. This case is not only in Zimbabwe but in most parts of Africa, as shown through

Njabulo Ndebele’s Fools and Other Stories and by Mozambican author Luis Bernado Honwana in his

short story collection We Killed Mangy Dog , in which the title story involves an event where one

witnesses the brutal nature of young boys who instead of playing childish games, engage in a task of

killing a mangy dog brutally and mercilessly. Charles Mungoshi in his three short story collections

Walking Still, Coming of the Dry Season and Some Kinds of Wounds manages to explore the unexpected

behaviour of the Zimbabwean youths and children in both the colonial and post colonial period.

To some extent one can argue that it is colonisation that led to the emerging of errant children, these

children who are parting ways with the Zimbabwean or African culture at large. A comparison between

the behaviour of children and youth of the pre-colonial period serves to bring out how colonialism eroded

the culture , leading to the emergence of errant children.

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The colonial wave corroded the African culture and the way of acting of African people, leaving them

“naked” without a culture to guide them such that , they had to hold on to a culture that was not theirs. A

culture they did not understand with their children adapting to it, mainly because they did not have a

single basis of their true culture to refer to, as their parents were already lost from it also.

The African child or in this case the Zimbabwean child was affected not on one, but numerous levels by

the colonial rule. This led them to discard their own cultural ways adopting some which are foreign and

despicable within the Zimbabwean context .They were affected indirectly through their parents, directly

through the colonial educational system and also directly by the aftermath of the colonial wave. Charles

Mungoshi in his short stories is able to portray the child figure as exposed to the corroded traditional

African units which can no longer offer guidance to the children. As noted by Ndoro and Pwiti in their

journal article,

“It has of course been frequently noted that African cultural values suffered and continue to

suffer as the colonising powers forced Africans to abandon their religious beliefs and

governmental systems and a host of other traditional ways of doing things. Ndoro and Pwiti

(1999:144)

Authors have been forced to explore this issue in their literature works, mainly because many children in

Zimbabwe have been affected and have become errant .This has subsequently caused problems within

their societies leading to the creation of juvenile centres, were these children can be rehabilitated.

The Zimbabwean children are expected traditionally to be respectful to their elders, not to engage in

sexual activities, not to indulge in drugs and alcohol and they are expected to listen to their elders. The

aforesaid elders are the ones who are supposed to guide them until they are fully grown adults, as shown

by proverbs like ,“kuziwa mbuya huudzwa” (for one to know of his relatives and origins one has to be

taught and told by his

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Elders). The Zimbabwean children are expected to be harmonious not to engage in brutal and violent

activities. More so, they are nurtured in a way that they will be able to grow up and in turn look after their

parents and elders as shown by the proverb, “Chirere chigokurerawo”.

1.2 AIM

On reading short stories concerning children from Charles Mungoshi’s short story collections which

include Some Kinds of wounds, Walking Still and Coming of The Dry Season ,one is forced to note that

in most of them the children are depicted in a negative image, letting one ask themselves why? Thus, this

dissertation is to analyse the representation of the errant Zimbabwean children in a few selected short

stories by Charles Mungoshi from Walking Still, Coming of The Dry Season and Some Kinds of Wounds.

The thesis seeks to trace the causes of the actions of these errant children. The dissertation will also seek

to look at the symbolic meaning of the actions of these children if there is any.

1.3STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The issue of errant children has been raised in not one ,but many literary works by different authors, be it

novels, novellas, short stories and poems. Troubled childhood has become a trope in Zimbabwean

literature such that, it is rare to read a work of literature about children with a happy life and according to

society normal children .This assertion can be justified by poems like ‘O’Harare’ by M Zimunya in

which, even young girls in the city have become corrupted, to the extent of indulging in sexual activities

with older men .The young girls are sneaking out of their homes during the night .Also in We Need New

Names by No Violet Bulawayo one sees young children like Darling and her friends, go on to steal and

be involved in adult rated stuff. Are these literary works a reflection of the Zimbabwean children in

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which, children are no longer behaving according to the set cultural rules? What maybe driving many

Zimbabwean writers to write about children in such a light?

1.4 JUSTIFICATION OF STUDY

I decided to work on this topic because troubled childhood and errant children have become the basis of

many Zimbabwean literary works such as We Need New Names by No violet Bulawayo, House of Hunger

by Dambudzo Marechera and An Elegy For Easterly by Pettina Gappah .Thus, I seek to analyse why the

children are acting in such a way, as it has become the norm for the authors to portray the children and

youths in such a negative light. I also seek to bring out how colonisation manages to affect the African

child in such a way that he/she has become errant. Several people who have tried to look at the case of

the errant (Diaspora) children have merely looked at the psychological nature of the issue, neglecting the

symbolic meaning of the action of the children or even the causes. Furthermore, in this case the reasons

and the meaning of the actions might not lie within the texts, but within Mungoshi’s ideologies, pushing

one to look deeply into his life and background.

I also decided to use the short stories because they are used as a tactic by many authors to employ the

technique of subtlety, due to the need to hide deeper burning issues which could not be said otherwise.

Thus, the short story version carries with it issues of depth, which is what I would like to tackle in this

case of errant children. Charles Mungoshi’s short stories are also entwined, such that they are easy to

comprehend from Coming of the Dry Season to Walking Still . I also chose to work with short stories by

Charles Mungoshi because he is one of the authors who were born and raised in Zimbabwe, let alone grew

up amongst the commoners thus, he has the capability of bringing out real Zimbabwean issues .He brings

out concerns that involve Zimbabwean children and their experiences as brought out through his short

stories. Also Charles Mungoshi is one of the few authors of Zimbabwe who have solo authored short story

collections which bring out the portrayal of errant children and these short stories explore

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“mankind and the destruction of childhood innocence, the loss of the capacity to love and to relate to

others and the slow and painful death of one’s soul.”

1.5OBJECTIVES

1. To establish the ideological implications of such representations of children by Charles Mungoshi in

his short stories.

2. To also establish a convincing conclusion as to why Charles Mungoshi chose to depict the children in

such a light.

3. To bring out clearly the symbolic meaning behind the actions of the children in the short stories.

1.6METHODOLOGY

The research will be done based on the analysis of texts. An objective and critical analysis of the texts

will assist on answering the questions brought out from the topic which is under study. The texts under

analysis will be selected short stories from Walking Still, Coming of The Dry Season and Some Kinds of

Wounds by Charles Mungoshi. Secondary texts like books, dissertations and websites will also be of use

in the course of the research.

1.7THEORATICAL FRAMEWORK

The issue of abnormal and unacceptable behaviour cannot be discussed in an ideological void, thus this

research is going to make use of the Afrocentric thought which is relevant to every practical field of the

African experience, history, politics, sociology, economy, religion and health and all these put together

with many other radiant features of the African society and our culture (Chidora 2015; 39-40)

The term Afrocentricity being the term coined by Molefi Asante in 1987, the theory is a social

reconstruction theory aimed at giving a critical analysis of the African literature from an African cultural

and historical perspective. Errant children are children acting unethical as per the African perspective.

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Thus, to look at their case through the lens of another culture or non- African theory would be the doing

of injustice. Henceforth, to make use of the afrocentricity theory seems plausible, given ‘afrocentricity is

a paradigm based on the idea that African people should re-assert a sense of agency in order to achieve

sanity’ (Asante M, 2009). Afrocentricity states that, “when we are doing textual criticism, the cultural

location of the writer must be scrutinized together with what drives him to write and for whom he is

writing”. To be afrocentric is to put the interests of Africans at the centre of our approach to solving our

problem. Doing what is abnormal is deemed to be going against the ethics of a society, which are the

beliefs of what is wrong and right, what it is to be good or bad. Ideas and beliefs about moral behaviour

are expressed, analysed and interpreted by the moral thinkers of the society (Kwame Nkrumah,2011).Not

only does afrocentricity bring out what is wrong or right within the African context’ it does so from an

African point of view, leaving no space for a Eurocentric bias. As stated by Dr Molefi Asante in one of

his articles,

“The afrocentric paradigm is a revolutionary shift in thinking, proposed as a constructural adjustment

to black disorientation, decenteredness and the lack of agency,” Asante (2009:1)

This statement serves to bring out how afrocentricism is a relevant theory for the analysis of the issue of

errant children. These children are a branch of the black disorientation, as they are acting against what is

considered as the norm by the Zimbabwean and African at large.

1.8ORGANISATION OF STUDY

CHAPTER ONE

This chapter introduce the research topic, aims, objectives, statement of problem, background of the study

and literature review.

CHAPTER TWO

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This chapter analyses the portrayal of errant children in the home from a few selected short stories by

Charles Mungoshi , ‘Did You Have To Go That Far’ and ‘The Crow’ from Walking still, and ‘Shadows

on the Walls’ from Coming of the dry season. It will analyse and look at why these children are being

erratic at home; looking at possible conditions and forces that might push them to misbehave within their

homes, as well as looking at the original causes of these forces. The chapter will also look at the symbolic

meaning of their behaviours bringing out whether they are sending out a message ,or merely acting out.

There will also be the need to bring out what the society perceives as the normal way of behaving.

CHAPTER THREE

The third chapter of this dissertation is going to look at a few selected short stories from Charles

Mungoshi’s collections, ‘The Homecoming’ from Walking Still, ‘The Hero’ from Coming of the Dry

Season and ‘White Stones and red earth’ from Some Kinds of Wounds, critically analysing the

representation of errant children at school. The chapter will bring out whether the children are being

erratic as per the school’s authority or their society’s perception. The analysis will go further to the

symbolic meaning of such behaviours.

CHAPTER FOUR

This chapter will analyse the representation of errant children away from domestic setting and the school.

The short stories to be analysed will be ‘Coming of the Dry Season’ from Coming of the Dry Season and

‘The Brother’ from Some Kinds of Wounds. Errant children whose representation is to be analysed in this

chapter include those who are almost adults. The symbolic meaning of their actions is a vital part of this

analysis as well as what may be the push and pull factors.

CHAPTER FIVE

Chapter five is the concluding chapter which will bring out the summary of the arguments, questions and

answers found within the course of the dissertation, it will also aim to surmise the main reason behind the

14
actions, thoughts and feelings deduced from the errant children, deciding whether their actions are a cry

for help and change or it is just some kind of childhood which has come to be.

1.9DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS

ERRANT refers to straying from the normal and accepted standards or course, proper paths and

boundaries or behaving wrongly.

REPRESENTATION refers to the description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way.

CHILDREN is a plural to the word child which refers to a young person especially between infancy and

youth.

1.10LITERATURE REVIEW

The portrayal of children in an negative light, or rather in an unromanticised manner which will be going

against the norm of representation of children in an romanticised manner, in which they are happy

innocent and behaving according to societal expectations became a trope in Zimbabwean literature and a

subject under study, since literature of the colonial era up to this day and age. Pre-post colonial

Zimbabwean short stories have over the years shown that childhood is more complex than its traditional

romanticism (Mangena, 2011:205).

This representation of children in this manner in literature might have come to light as a technique of

child narrators in adult fiction. The child characters were used to represent far more serious societal issues

protected by the perception of childhood innocence as noted by Claire King, (2014)

“Adult fiction with child narrators and figures are often used to explore much broader and more

sensitive issues”.

Hanna Loo (2011:61) in her article supports this statement saying that,

15
 “Child characters are often used symbolically to represent the weak and vulnerable members of

society who are exploited as political fodder by the powerful.”

The scope for the study of childhood in literature is wide indeed. Today researchers are asking more

questions, discussing problems that had never been looked into before and their works uncovered a

remarkable variety in the portrayal of childhood, as well as children in literature, (Georgieva, M, 2009:2)

.The major aim of this thesis is to improve people’s understanding on the case of what the society has

termed “damaged” or errant children, to improve their understanding on why they act that way.

Not one but many scholars around the world have looked at the issue of childhood and errant children in

different societies with however, many of them using the term ‘juvenile delinquency’ .The main focus of

this tract is to scrutinize the representation of the errant children in Zimbabwe from an African point of

view. However, one cannot diverge from drawing examples from European literature and western ideals

as they made a great impact on the disorientation of the African ways of conduct through colonisation.

Scholars who have contributed much on the issue of childhood and children including errant children

include Georgieva(2009) in Childhood in English Literature, Bayliss, S (1999) in Art/Architecture:

Innocent or not so, the shifting visions of childhood ,Ugwuoke ,C.U ,Duruji Onyekachi(2015) in Family

Instabillity and juvenile delinquency in Nigeria:A study of Owerri Municipality, Kearney , J in

Interrogating conceptions of childhood in contemporary African fiction. All these scholars have different

ideas about childhood and children but all their studies have drawn similar conclusions that notions which

used to exist about children and childhood have changed due to the changes in the society.

It is reasonable to think that the children of the society are not born naturally on the wrong side of ethics,

as they are presented in some literature, but rather conditions surrounding them as they grow affect them,

turning them into totally different beings. As noted by Jean Jacques Rousseau, children were naturally

innocent and are corrupted by society.

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Ghananian author Amma Darkos in an interview with Mary Ellen Higgins on August 2003 postulates

that if a country is going through a crisis and people are writing around that time, they will be drawn to

writing stories that would deal with those crises. This statement helps to bring out how these stories are a

result of crises in the society and also that the errant children are a product of that crises in the society.

Furthermore, bringing out how the children are not born erratic but rather become that way as a result of

the conditions that surround them.

According to Robert Muponde (2005:204), Charles Mungoshi avoids the all too romantic portrayal of

childhood in most children books, in which children return to the fold of the home after having been

chastised by figures of good authority. This shows how the concept of childhood has changed not only in

the minds of the writers, but also in the minds of the children themselves as they go against that which

they know is expected of them. Evidently all that the authors write is not imaginary after all literature is

not written from a vacuum. Zimunya( 1982) buttresses what Muponde says as he brings out how Charles

Mungoshi in his short story collections namely Some Kind of Wounds (1980) and Coming of the Dry

Season (1972) brings out children and childhood caught up in an “archetypical drought, and the

destruction of the African culture under colonial rule and the consequent loss of identity”. It is not only

Charles Mungoshi who has decided to part ways with the romanticised portrayal of children, but also

writers like Memory Chirere in his literary works Keresensia and An Old Man in which he portrays

children at the stage of becoming, .However, these children are not the kind of children that one could

identify with, they are the kind children who have moved away from the traditional ideals of child purity

and innocence. However, some scholars seem to be of the view that depiction of children in all their purity

and innocence has always been a bias, because it has always been non-existent, this being supported by

Ward (1995:146) who says that ,

“The image of the child as the incompetent other, vulnerable, innocent and needful

of protection is a sentimental mythology.”

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Thus, authors who write about errant children do not agree with Chitando (2008) who overally deems

innocence as an inevitable part of childhood.

One can be of the stance that the children and youths do not become erratic because of crises, but rather

as a result of being suffocated by the society. Muponde in Literary Criticism: Some kinds of Childhood:

Images of history and resistance in Zimbabwean literature in English transits this point of view saying

that ,

“Adults themselves frustrate children’s institutive by denying them the opportunity to change

circumstances”

Thus ,they go erratic as a way of wanting to be heard.He goes on to say that,

“The children pose an irrepressible desire to map their own destinies in the uncertain vacuum

created by an essentially eroded traditional African family, which can no longer fend for

itself or give guidance to its children.”

With the above explanandum, it becomes obvious that it is not always the fault of the children that they

become errant, but rather that the elders and the society also have a hand in what they become.

Oakley (1994:20) even claims that,

“The danger is that adults may continue to be protectors of children, the representers of their

interests, rather than the facilitators or active seekers of children’s own perspectives and

views,”

This shows how the grown-ups can keep putting the children in a corner not for their interests of the

children but rather their own thus, suffocating them as result pushing them to become rebellious. This

point of view can be supported by the character of Nyasha, who is babamukuru’s daughter in Tsitsi

Dangarembwa’s Nervous Conditions .The young girl is suffocated by her father who does not allow her

18
to do anything that he does not deem fit for her. He literally forces her to do what he wants . Thus, in the

end Nyasha becomes rebellious turning into what the Zimbabwean society can term errant. However,

scholars like Zimunya and Zhuwarara in their discourses about childhood and children in Zimbabwean

literature, fail to identify the possibility that Mungoshi represents his child characters as children who are

resisting.

The writing of literature which represents errant children is essentially important, given that it facilitates

the enlightenment of the people on the true conception of their ideal children.

“Through examining the way childhood is depicted through different forms of writing, we

can see an interesting paradox between the ways children are expected to experience their

childhood and what they actually do.” Hanna Loo (2011:62).

Referring back to Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Okonkwo’s first born son suddenly becomes the

black sheep of the family when he refuses to conform to his father’s demands and needs, choosing his

own path and in the process going against what the society expected of him as a child. He goes on to

experience his childhood the way he feels right and not the way the society expects him to experience it.

To reinforce this showing the vitalness of literature involving children in general Pasi (2012:182) says,

“Children’s’ literature represents an important resource to understand the needs, wishes and

aspirations of the young people, this means that to study how children are depicted provide

a gateway to this understanding.”Pasi (2012:182)

Affiliated to errant children in the African context as shown through literature which depicts misbehaving

children (in this case depending errant in whose eyes), is the notion that a child who goes against that

which is expected of him or her is bewitched or possessed by the devil or evil spirit. This is conveyed in

Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus in which the protagonist’s father Eugene somehow fails to

comprehend why his children Kambili and Jaja are disobeying him, he rather rushes to the conclusion that

19
the devil is taking over their lives and as a exalted Christian he takes it into his hands to exorcise them.

The society seems to fail to look at the misbehaviour from an angle at which the child is responding to

his or her surroundings

It is however important to point out that not all Zimbabwean literature represent children with troubled

childhoods, this evidently then brings out the question of errant in whose eyes? .Some authors through

novels, short stories and novellas are able to bring out conforming children with happy childhoods and

normal lives in Tsitsi Dangarembwa’s Nervous Conditions one can see the character of Chido the son of

babamukuru who is brought as a vibrant ,happy and greatly appreciated boy by his parents. To them he

does everything as they expect and want and in turn he becomes the epitome of perfection.

It is thus the aim of this dissertation to analyse and scrutinize the representation, portrayal of errant

children in short stories written by Charles Mungoshi from his collections Some Kinds of Wounds,

Walking Still and Coming of the Dry Season.

1.11CONCLUSION

In conclusion this chapter brings out what the dissertation is about, the driving force behind it and also

the course it is going to take. The definition of terms will help in the analyses of the short stories in the

following chapters as well as the theoretical framework which is guideline to the way that I am to analyse

and see things. The justification seeks to support my decision to work on the topic I chose.

20
 CHAPTER 2

A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE REPRESANTATION OF ERRANT CHILDREN AT

HOME

2.0 INTRODUCTION

This chapter will look at Charles Mungoshi’s background and writing career given that it helps on

understanding the reason behind his writing about errant children. The chapter will analyse the

representation of errant children at home from selected short stories written by Mungoshi. It will also

21
bring out the causes and symbolic meanings of these actions .Brief summarises of each of the short stories

are also vital. The conclusion marks the end of the chapter, summarising points and issues discussed as

well as questions brought up. The chapter will be an analysis of ‘Did You Have to Go That Far’ from

Walking Still, ‘The Crow’ and ‘Shadows on the Wall’ from Coming of the Dry Season.

2.1BACKGROUND AND WRITING CAREER OF CHARLES MUNGOSHI

Charles Mungoshi is one of the most well known authors of Zimbabwe, with literary works ranging from

anthologies, novels, text books to novellas. His works mainly deal with the issue of the impact of

colonisation, during and after Zimbabwe was colonised. Charles Mazuva Mungoshi was born in 1947 in

the tribal trust lands of Manyene in Chivhu, were he grew up herding cattle as the oldest child and boy in

the family. Zhuwarara (2001:27),

“His early childhood followed the traditional pattern of herding cattle by day and listening

to stories told by his old grandmother at night”

The above statement from Zhuwarara is in agreement with what other scholars say that the old woman;

Mandisa who is presented in a few of Charles Mungoshi’s short stories might have been influenced by

the character of his grandmother. Charles Mungoshi attended All Saints Primary School, Daramombe

Mission School and later St.Augustines Mission School which was the first school in Rhodesia to offer

secondary education for black children. His attendance at Rhodesian government oriented schools might

have contributed greatly to his depiction of such schools in his works.

In an interview with Mai Pelmberg, Mungoshi stated that it was the loneliness during the cow herding

and the way he grew up that led to the choice of his career as a writer.

22
 “...most of my life was really lived inside my head and talking to trees, birds and animals.

So l want to think the loneliness, being on my own, turned me to some sort of insider and

the reading helped along, it was not long before l thought l can also write a story...”Nordic

Africa Institute (2003)

Mungoshi says it was not a career that he chose; it was the career that chose him. Other scholars like G.

Brown and T.O McLoughin state that Mungoshi also learnt the art of storytelling and music from his

mother and grandmother who was a great storyteller. One of his first works was a story called ‘Cain’s

medal’ and it was published whilst he was still in high school in 1966.His much known and famous novel,

Waiting For the Rain was written and published during the time he worked at Text book sales as a clerk.

His literary works are written in both Shona and English and these include, Waiting For the Rain (1975),

The Setting Sun and The Rolling World (1987), Ndiko Kupindana Kwamazuva(How time passes) (1975),

The Milkman Doesn’t Only Deliver Milk(1998) and Branching Streams Flow in The Dark.

According to Mapako and Marewa (2013:1562),

“Mungoshi’s literary works both Shona and English have characters that seem to live in perpetual

fear of death and destruction. The titles themselves imply an archetypal drought and a sense of

impoverishment, particularly when one looks at the word or phrases like ‘dry season’, ‘wounds’,

‘Waiting for the rain’ and ‘walking still’.”

Before one gets deep into the story one is able to derive a sense of sadness and a lack of joy or happy

endings within the stories or novels as they seem to be bleak. Mapako and Marewa in their journal article

bundles up Charles Mungoshi’s works with that of Dambudzo Marechera as they say,

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 “Just like Marechera (1978), House of Hunger, titles like Coming of the Dry Season and Waiting

for The Rain point at the sub human conditions under which blacks were forced to live during the

colonial era. Mapako and Marewa (2013:1562)

Mungoshi Charles was the first in Zimbabwe to pioneer the short story starting with his publication of

Coming of the Dry Season in 1972.The short story trend in Africa at large and Zimbabwe in particular

focuses on capturing the effects of colonisation as well as the day to day lives of the Africans amidst the

political and economic disruptions. Mungoshi is not the only author who has tried to capture this but other

authors as well like Yvonne Vera, Dambudzo Marechera, Farai Mungoshi and also Mozambican author

B.Honwana who adapted the short story technique as well.

Charles Mungoshi’s The Setting Sun and the Rolling World set in pre-independence Zimbabwe also

bring out short stories pertaining errant children, children who are behaving away from the expectations

of the society. It brings out strained relations between children and their parents. Thus, one is able to see

that the issue of troubled childhoods and errant children is a trope amongst Charles Mungoshi’s literary

works.

The three short story collections Coming of the Dry Season (1972), Some Kinds of Wounds (1980) and

Walking Still (1997) are all interconnected somehow. Coming of the Dry Season is a collection which

divulges into the lives of the people of Zimbabwe and how the colonial forces had disrupted them. The

continuity of Mungoshi’s collections is thus brought out by how the characters and character backgrounds

of Mungoshi’s other anthologies originate from Coming of the Dry Season. The theme of family

disintegration and the corrosion of the family unit which is brought out in ‘Mount Moriah’ from Some

Kinds of Wounds seem to be a continuation of the theme and story line presented in ‘Shadows on The

Wall’, in which the relationship between the son and the father is strained and one can say not according

to African idea father and son relationship. Despite the fact that Walking Still was published way after the

colonial period, it still has a connection with the other two anthologies given that the same themes of

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family disintegration ,errant children and effects of colonialism are in all the three collections. As noted

by Antwan, J, (1999),

“Mungoshi’s short stories are like a novel as they take a reader on a journey

through various characters both named and unnamed.”Antwan, J (1999)

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF REPRESENTATION OF ERRANT CHILDREN AT HOME IN;

2.2 ‘SHADOWS ON THE WALLS’

‘Shadows on the wall’ is a short story from Coming of the Dry Season (1972) .It is told from the point of

view of a young boy whose parents have separated and whose father keeps taking one wife after the other.

The boy is house bound because he is critically ill and he lives under the care of his step mother who is

his father’s fifth wife. The young boy has transgressed into some sort of silence were he neither answers

his father, nor speaks to anyone despite his father’s attempt to communicate with him. The boy has gotten

into the habit of playing with his father’s shadow, enjoying disfiguring it while they sit in the kitchen mud

hut. The short story is brought out through the stream of consciousness’ technique, in

which the reader is only made aware of the thoughts and feelings of the narrator. The reader is made aware

of the reason why the boy’s parents are separated as he recalls on the violent nature of his father and

patriarchal nature. The boy also brings out how his father had once refused to carry him from the fields

because he did not see it as his duty ,but his wife’s despite the fact that his wife carried food and firewood

on both her head and in hands. His loathing of his father is shown from that memory.

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2.3 CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE REPRESANTATION OF AN ERRANT CHILD IN

‘SHADOWS ON THE WALL’

In ‘Shadows on The Wall’ Mungoshi brings out the young nameless boy as a child who is going against

what is perceived as normal and right for a child. He behaves out of the context of childhood by the

society.Antwan; J (1999) says,

“Shadows on the wall introduce the reader to a young boy, unnamed who endures the literally

silencing pain of combined neglect of love and abuse.”

Unlike the normal child who is excited, enthusiastic and inquisitive about his surroundings, this boy

seems to be ‘burned out’ and robbed off of his basic, ideal child characters. This is why Zhuwarara

(2001:29) goes on to say that he is in, “a womblike if not funeral silence.”To one the child in the boy is

dead as he drifts in both loneliness and sickness.

In this short story Charles Mungoshi represents the boy as errant through a couple of things which will be

brought out during the course of the discourse. According to Zimbabwean ethics and unwritten rules the

boy is erratic and worse more unapologetic for it. At being told by his father to call his step mother,

‘Mother’ the boy refuses, he defies his father’s authority and refuses to recognise his position as the head

and ruler of the household which has been set by the patriarchal system, ‘Baba ndivo musoro

wemusha’(the man is the head of the house)Braman .V (2000) says ,

“ the child in ‘Shadows on the wall’ lives in a world punctuated by absence ,shadows

,silence ,urged by his father to forget his mother and call the new wife by that dear name.”

One is not to forget that this young boy has not seen one but countless wives of his father who have come

after his mother to him. The women are a replacement of his mother and a total threat to his memory of

his mother, despite the fact that to his father they are constant companions. Mungoshi brings out the boy

is as if he does not even make an effort to know about his father’s latest companion ,it is as if he has no

26
respect for her or let alone recognise her despite his father’s chagrin .This is clearly shown when he calls

the woman as merely ‘this woman’,

“He had taught me silence in that long journey between mother’s time and this

woman’s.”Mungoshi (1972; 6)

To the boy it is as if there is no need to attach any permanent title to them as they all come and go after

serving their time just like his mother, the woman after her and those after her also until the current one

as shown when he says, “between mother’s time and this woman’s”.Mungoshi (1972;6) The boy’s denial

of his father’s command symbolizes the death of the patriarchy in the Zimbabwean society. It is as if the

fifth wife has emasculated the father such that the boy also loses respect for him. This is a similar scenario

to that in ‘House of Hunger’ (1978) by Dambudzo Marechera in which the narrator sees different men

occupying the bed with his mother when his father is away who is also like a rare visitor. He has no

attachment to them neither does he need to have respect and recognition for them because they are merely

passing by.

Madondo .G, (2016 ;16) , “Mungoshi depicts an unstable African family that is gradually

falling apart from the point of view of a child who watches helplessly as the bond of

affection between mother and father turns into violence.”

This young boy watches everything that he believes in crumble down, his family, his parents and his

mother, it is as if the landscape changes in front of eyes and he is left with no base to hold on to. Instead

of having a bond with his father like a son is supposed to as noted in the shona culture, ‘mwana mukomana

mwana wababa’ the boy rather decides to shut out his father .He loses his sense of belonging and that

connection that a father and a son should have, despite his father’s various attempts at connecting with

him and he blames his father. Mungoshi (1972; 6),

“He was too late, he had taught me silence”

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The boy even admits to how his father has tried to make a conversation not once but many times with

him not responding and not making an effort to know what he wanted. In this short story Mungoshi

shows that to the young boy not listening to his father and denying him conversation is like an act of

revenge. Normally a child is never to ignore an elder let alone a parent as it shows signs of disrespect.

The narrator does it and has no remorse for doing it. It is like he succeeds him on being the authority of

the house. The father succumbs to this and in turn he struggles to be heard in his own house.

The silence which the young boy have gotten into is like a sense of punishment to his father for

replacing his mother and for not showing him filial love and care in the past as brought through the

boy’s flashback of the past,

“Mother was still with us then, and father carried me because she had asked him to. I had a

sore foot and couldn’t walk and mother couldn’t carry me because she was carrying a basket

of mealies for our supper on her head and pieces of firewood in her arms. At first father

grumbled. He didn’t like to carry me and he didn’t like receiving order from mother: she was

there to listen to him always, he said. He carried me all the same although he didn’t like to,

and worse, I didn't like him to carry me.” Mungoshi, (1972:2)

What makes the child errant is the fact that he enjoys punishing his father through silence. In his mind

he has won and will keep doing so by not talking, this could be why Muponde, R (2005) chooses to

disagree with Zhuwarara (2001; 29) when he says that the boy had gone into a “womblike if not funeral

silence,” making it look like the child is the one who is suffering more and who is sad when rather the

child is the one who is punishing the father and worst of all enjoying it.

‘He tried to talk to me five times but l don’t know what he wanted.”Mungoshi

(1980:3)

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The boy’s description of his father shows his disrespect for him. A description which a child should never

give of his a father, thus instead of seeing him as masculine, strong and reliable the boy sees him as weak

and vulnerable. Due to this he loses respect for him.

‘Father worn a battered hat that stank of dirt, sweat and soil. That was when l

noticed his stubble looked vulnerable as the unprotected feathers on the dove’s

nestling ,” Mungoshi(1980:4)

When the boy says, “His shadow moves behind wriggling shadows like the presence of a tired old woman

in a room full of young people.”It is as if he is suggesting that his father is an impediment in the progress

of the younger generation, that he no longer belongs such that to do away with him is to do away with the

old embracing the new. Overly the errant actions of the boy are a symbolism of the old being removed by

the young and the new, the fighting away of the younger generation of the old rules and authority as noted

by Chitando (2008; 7),

“Children are fully fledged beings with rights, aspirations and hopes they are capable of

articulating their needs and painting a vision of the society they wish to live in .Children

are subjects with the capacity to shape their environment.”

Although the boy does not maim his father directly he does it to his shadow. What the boy cannot do in

reality he compensates for through imagination and in his imagination he disfigures his father’s shadow

as if he is murdering him. In as much as the father will think that his child is just sitting there sick and in

silence the boy’s mind is at work ,busy slaying his own father. Despite the fact that he does not do it

directly this still symbolizes some form of unacceptable behaviour for a child towards his father.The much

respected man of the house. The boy takes tremendous pleasure in disfiguring his father’s shadow. By

disfiguring his father’s shadow the boy brings out the destruction of the patriarchal system as well as the

death of the African culture in the form of the respect of elders by children and the death of the classical

culture at the hands of the new generation. This brings out that it is no longer suitable and sufficient within

29
this new era. In the boy’s eyes the father has lost his masculinity, given that he is no longer afraid of him

to him he is just, “a tired old woman” and he goes on to view him as a caricature which is an imitation of

a person in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated in order to create a comic or grotesque

effect.. Javangwe (2000:69),

“The child starts by deconstructing the concept of fatherhood.”

Mungoshi thus portrays the child as a being who is vying for freedom and independence despite being

confined to the hut due to his sickness. He has lost the respect of his father becoming an anomaly in the

Zimbabwean society and instead of trying to fit in, he abject himself and keeps to his mind. The boy does

not see the importance of his father anymore rather to him he is just another being who have subjected

him to pain and misery and who has to do away with, as noted by Oldman (1994:154), the boy finds great

and brutal pleasure in disfiguring the image of his father. This kind of estranged relationship between

father and son can be brought out in one of the short stories ‘Mount Moriah’ from Charles Mungoshi’s

Some Kinds of Wounds in which the father and son can barely make a conversation and stay in the same

room for the shortest of time, the son is crippled and bound to bed.

Thus this young boy can be called errant given that he denies his father’s authority as well as finds pleasure

in disfiguring his shadow a resemblance of him and he punishes him by refusing to give him the pleasure

of a conversation. The boy goes against all traditional ethics of how a child is to respond to his parents.

Let alone denies his father the kind of relationship a father must have with a son, he does not give him a

chance to redeem himself .it is as if the boy have become his own man.

2.4 DID YOU HAVE TO GO THAT FAR

This short story is from Charles Mungoshi’s collection Walking Still (1997) and it is a narration of a series

of events in the life of the narrator Damba and his friend Pamba, grade six students at a local school in

30
their neighbourhood Zengeza.Damba narrates all that he and his friend Pamba did and wet through, all

the adventures and misbehaving they did. Narrating about their personal and family lives, how things

were at home and how things were between their parents. Damba brings out how they stole, bullied other

children, spend time at the rubbish heaps and pranked their mothers as well as their neighbours. He

pointedly brings out how things started to change with the coming of Dura and his mother Mrs Gwaze,

how his friendship with Pamba started to crumble whilst things at Pamba’s home gotten worse and worse

as his father’s violence increases. The narration ends with the death of Pamba who is found dead in the

local dam and Damba is angry and confused, not sure who to blame either Mr Dengu who had constantly

abused Pamba or Dura and his mother who he believes had put poison on the chicken that Pamba had

stolen. The story is a heart wrenching story of two boys who seemingly have the world at their feet and

who feel powerful but at the end things do not turn out as they would have pictured for themselves rather

one dies and the other is left miserable angry and confused.

2.5A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE RESPRESANTATION OF ERRANT CHILDREN IN ‘DID

YOU HAVE TO GO THAT FAR’

The opening of the short story through the detailed narration by Damba introduces us to two grade six

boys, Damba and Pamba friends who claim to be the terror to other children in their street. At that point

the reader is forced to notice that these two children are extensively not the ideal type of children, they

are like children who have gone rouge and worst of all they find comfort and are proud of what they do

to other children of their age. ‘Pamba and l were the terror of Bise crescent.”Mungoshi, (1997:45).

Unlike the boys their age who spend their time having fun and playing innocently, they are busy hatching

plans that give them more power on the streets and make them more feared. Amongst other things they

make fellow children pay a protection fee to them and they make them march in lines singing praise songs

about them, Mungoshi (1997:45),

‘Pamba is king of the hill

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 Who says no he will kill

Damba is cock of the roast

No? Kick up the dust before you roast’

Damba and Pamba are power hungry for their age; it is as if they are young adults who are suppressed in

the bodies of young boys. The things they take pleasure in are not things one would view as ideal for

them. The two boys according to the Zimbabwean culture are still in childhood despite the fact that in

other societies they would be ranged as adults as noted by Bourdililon, (1993) that,

“Different ethnic groups define childhood differently .Although cultures are always

changing, some groups continue to approach childhood and adulthood on the basis of

undergoing specific rites of passage.”Bourdililon (1993)

However to understand the unacceptable behaviour of the two boys, Damba and Pamba, one have to look

at their personal and home backgrounds. The two boys’ families are far from perfection and happiness as

they are engulfed in wallowing poverty, violence and absentee family members. Like the character of

Julius from ‘The Hero’ who is constantly in search of love and attention and the feeling of importance the

two boys compensate for what lacks at home in the streets, they express what they see, feel and cannot

express at home to other children in the streets. This is the same case as of the boys in Njabulo Ndebele’s

The Test in which we see young boys terrorising other boys of their age, making them fear to be in the

streets especially if they are not on the same side. At home Pamba and his mother are beaten almost on

daily basis and at the Mudzango’s the unit is ruled by an iron fist and patriarchal hand, what the father

says goes and no one complains.

“ The cumulative effect of such a life of debauchery for the Dengu’s and Mudzango’s is

that their wives are deprived of attention and love and so are the children ,the latter unleash

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 terror on weaker children on the streets probably to compensate for the psychological

torture suffered at home.”Mapako and Mareva (2013:1563)

As a result the boys are just completing the cycle of the oppressed as the oppressed gets to relief his pain

by oppressing those below them. Just like how their mothers at points unleash their anger and fear on

them, they in turn unleash on the weaker children on the streets. Mungoshi is trying to bring out that the

erratic behaviour of some children is never entirely their fault, but that it has to be traced back home, after

all, “Charity begins at home” and if it is missing there, then where is it to be gotten? Instead of offering

protection and safety to the family members, the home and family institution are a torture hole which

pushes the individual family members to be consistently searching for an escape route. Mapako and

Mareva, (2013) seem to be of the same view saying that,

“The viciousness with which Damba and Pamba terrorize the children of their

neighbourhood is a version of the power that they unconsciously copy from their

parents.”Mapako and Mareva (2013:1563)

The oppressive behaviour of the boys can also be traced back to their need to somehow feel and exercise

the authority they see their fathers at home exercising. To see the same reaction they have at home in the

other children. The boys are continuously in need to either experience or make others experience the same

feelings they do at home such that they are caught in an inescapable web. Wimsatt (1974) brings out that

Sartre postulates that man is involved in a collective tragedy and torture becomes the daily reality. This

being the reason why they get frustrated when their new prey Dura does not give in to their acts of terror

even after doing exactly what they ask him to do.

“The truth was instead of us getting to them. Dura and his mother were getting to us .We forgot

everything else in our obsession to break Dura and his mother.”Mungoshi (1997:48)

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To Damba and Pamba ,Dura is a threat to the much worked for facade that the two have put on, the faces

of power and fearlessness and by him not bowing to their whims and bullying they feel threatened.

Damba and Pamba’s rowdy and unacceptable behaviours can also be seen also throughout the narration

in which Damba narrates how they would steal and pull pranks on their neighbours, breaking windows

and defecating in the house that their neighbours used to live. Mungoshi almost present these two children

as to two beings who are psychologically disturbed because they do the extremes of things which children

could never be expected to do. Mungoshi, (1997:45),

“The old man’s death was due to the pranks, Pamba and I played on the couple. We took

off our shorts and planted little mounds of excrement throughout all the rooms.”

To have a child behave in such a manner, to come up with such a debased and filthy idea is objectionable.

As noted by Dr A.Tirivangani (2015) in relation to the pranks by Damba and Pamba,

“This misdirected adventurism is ‘too far’ beyond what society can consider as

childhood pranks. It underlies a certain level of debasement bordering on dementia”

However, in this case Charles Mungoshi represents these children the same way that No Violet Bulawayo

represents Darling and her friends in We Need New Names, who go about defecating in public places after

eating stolen mangoes from another neighbourhood. Who is to blame these children, when they are

children who spend their time at the rubbish dumps, collecting disposed items at places of abjection? The

human is controlled by the morals but what morals are to come from children who spend time in dirty

places of banishment and with parents who do not care nevertheless were they have spend the day.

The two boys have actually become what one can term as both crooks and organised thieves’ .Not only

can they steal money and little things from home but they also steal from tuck shops and other people’s

homes on top of it having a safe hiding place for these things. Stealing is immoral of whoever may do it

34
despite age and class but when it is done by a child who has gotten so way forward on it and is actually

doing it for no apparent reason but just for the sake of it then it becomes very questionable.

“We had our secret layer here, a huge flat rock where .sometimes we would make a fire

and cook or roast whatever we had filched nearby, there was also a hole in the rock where

we would hide tins of beef ,beans ,fish or whatever we had lifted from the tuck shops that

were scattered all over Zengeza.”Mungoshi (1997; 46)

The question, why? Is thus an inevitable question that one has to ask after reading about the errant

behaviour of these two boys.Nevertherless how can we have responsible children when the adults are not

responsible for them. The parents of the two boys Damba and Pamba are absentee parents ,the mothers

are pleased when the boys are away and the fathers are never home as said by Damba ,they never get to

see their fathers because they left before they woke up and came back way after they had slept. So these

children have neither parents really looking after them. Through this Mungoshi is also able to bring out

the effects of colonisation on the African family unit, after westernisation brought capitalism and the

urbanisation which created industrial jobs for the black man who had to toil to keep

up with the city life as well as to fend for his family, he in the process forgot the basics and importance

of being present and there for the family. After a long and tiresome day with stresses of the city life the

black man then engaged into beer drinking to escape and drown away his sorrows. What is more surprising

is the fact that when they are around the fathers seem to defend whatever notorious things their sons will

have done or beat them without question or need to understand.

“Do you want me to keep my children on a leash, haven’t you got children of your

own.”Mungoshi (1997; 48)

The mothers’ do this too instead of correcting their sons they go on to defend and cover up for whatever

their sons will have done .Damba and Pamba seem to enjoy and take advantage of this,

35
 “We somehow seemed to want to exploit this; l went to do other things because my father

will always be on my side .Pamba gone on to do other things because it was all the same to

him, whether he had or hadn’t, his father will always beat him.”Mungoshi (1997; 48)

Rose is a young girl in her early puberty years that Charles Mungoshi also represents as being errant.

Instead of priding herself and having the integrity to keep herself safe, she goes on to allow young boys

like Pamba and Damba to touch her budding breasts, as brought out by Damba,

“Rose was a girl on our street, who for just a toffee or a biscuits she would let us touch her

budding breasts.”Mungoshi 1997:47)

Rose’s errant behaviour can be solely blamed on her mother’s replacement that proves to be inadequate

and without the ability to look after Rose with the same care and affection that a maternal mother would.

However Rose like the nameless narrator in ‘Shadows on the Walls’ might be rebelling against the choice

her father has made of taking another wife threatening the memory or mother dearest to Rose. Thus

misbehaving is a punishment for a father who is never really present. Rose is not so different from the

fifteen year old Sheila from ‘The Brother’ who asks for money from Magafu after sleeping with him on

a night she spends with him and not go home. Like Mazvita from Yvonne Vera’s Without a Name, Rose

literally sells her body for little things which are just momentarily. Her letting the young boys touch her

breasts is similar to the way Mazvita let Joel exploit her when she gets to Harare, just for food and a place

to sleep.

Errant behaviour through sexual activities in children is not only brought out in ‘Did you have to go that

far’ by Damba and Pamba’s need to touch Rose’s breast but also in Marechera ‘House of Hunger’ in

which the narrator witnessed his brother once masturbating in front of his friends under a tower light and

on another occasion forcibly having sex with a young girl in front of his friends as well.

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These children live in a society where they are their own adults, because the supposedly adults in their

lives are just a form of representation, they are misbehaving because they can as no one can stop them

and also because they feel to rebel against something that they feel oppresses them as stated by Albeit

Camus in Ross (2005),

“To live a life, one must exercise the freedom to create life as just going along with the

conventional values and forgetting the absurdity of the world is not authentic.”Ross (2005)

2.6 ‘THE CROW’

‘The Crow’ is a short story from Coming of the Dry Season about two young boys, the nameless narrator

and his friend Chiko who apparently decide to defy the parents by not going to church as they had been

told to. The two boys rather equip themselves to go, hunt and kill a crow in the forest despite the fact that

they are afraid of it and they know that it is sacred. When the crow tenaciously holds on to its life the boys

get more infuriated and afraid they cannot show it as it is a silent pact between them never to show each

other that they are afraid. At the end the boys go back home not sure if the crow have died or not.

2.7AN ANALYSIS OF THE REPRESENTATION OF ERRANT CHILDREN IN ‘THE CROW’

In this short story Charles Mungoshi bring out the errant behaviour of two boys not in many scenarios but

just one unlike in ‘Did You Have to Go That Far’. The two boys who are brought out as errant in this

short story are the nameless narrator and his best friend Chiko and with one decision that they make, they

defer the set rules and regulations of their society and thus become rogue. The point at which the two

boys are brought out as erratic is the point at which they decide not to go to church as instructed by

narrator’s parents and rather they choose to go after a crow they have been planning to hunt down and

kill.

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 “Mother and father “had gone to church and left instructions for us to follow,but we had planned to

go hunting instead.”Mungoshi (1972:7)

It is considered as mandatory in Zimbabwe to follow the instructions of their elders especially parents

no matter how much those orders may not be what those children want, thus by not listening to his parents

the narrator and Chiko become what one might call ‘naughty’. Once one has been labelled naughty that

means they are straying away from the expected standards and thus become errant. Some scholars have

termed the short story a “symbolic narrative of résistance”. The narrator and his friend resist the authority

of the parents, it is like they just want to be let be and pursue their own course rather than that of their

elders. In this short story Mungoshi brings out the need by the younger generation to burn out the older

generation so as to be able to go after that which they really wish for. In this case the older generation and

its rules can be symbolized by the tenacious crow and the scary parents, both parties which the boys fight

off but are still much afraid of as noted by the narrator when he says,

“The crow was always frightening and it was safer to live it alone. Also one thing we were

afraid of; father and mother.”Mungoshi (1972; 7)

I agree with Muponde, (2005; 212) that, “The Crow’ is a demonstration of the child’s attempt to escape

the set taboos meant to preserve authority of tradition and the status of children in that tradition. In this

case the status of the children is that of meek and obedient beings who do everything that they are told by

their elders. What worsens the case of the two boys is not the fact that they decide to go hunting but that

they miss “church” ,this on its own intensifies the rowdy behaviour of the boys in the Zimbabwean society

in which church is an important pillar and a place where a child is given moral guidance.For a child to

decide not to go, to the society it implies that the child is lost. However, all this is what Mungoshi brings

out as what the children are fighting against, they chose not to go to church because it is what their parents

want not what they want.

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Charles Mungoshi as the creator of the short story does not make the two boys abscond the church service

and go hunt on any animal, he makes them go hunt a ‘crow’. A bird which is much feared ,linked to

witchcraft and associated with taboos in Africa, which the narrator is well aware of ,

“We do not eat crows, and birds and animals that people do not eat in our country

are associated with the night and witchcraft in our country.”Mungoshi (1972:11)

The errant action of the boys in this case is not them going hunting but it is what they hunt, they hunt a

sacred bird which on top of all they cannot eat and they hunt it mercilessly and tirelessly such that they

get frustrated when it does not die as said by the narrator,

“We were grim and sweaty .We wanted it to shut off its death voice, we were angry

and a newer fear had just come to us ...But the crow would not die.”Mungoshi

(1972; 11)

The hunting of the crow symbolises the need by the boys to do away with a scary tradition that they fell

traps them, it is like they want to do away with their fears which is why when the crow refuses to die they

get a newer kind of fear, with Chiko even breaking into a cry. The killing of the crow is similar to the

case of the errant boys in We Killed Mangy Dog by B.Honwana, in which a gang of young boys are so

pent up on killing a mangy dog and despite their age they are even in possession of guns. This thus at the

same time helps to bring out that misbehaviour issues are not in the case of Zimbabweans alone but in

Africa at large as B Honwana is from Mozambique.. The boys discover that for them to get what they

want they have to do away with the fears of the past and come to grips with it. Muponde 2005; 212) is of

the suggestion that,

39
 “The two boys interrogate authority through the figure of the crow that is

symbolical rather than through the direct confrontation with its human embodiment

their parents.”Muponde (2005:212)

On the brighter side of the story the boys might have gone rowdy just to have fun and bond and it is even

in this scenario that they both drop of their facades of being fearless and show the other their true

nature.Lassen-Seger, M (2001; 192) in relation to the above statement and how children merely do things

because they are not but because they just need to be .Thus the story is about the boys,

“taking time away for themselves as well as from authority ,which in stories about

children ,usually is adult authority” Lassaen-Seger, M (2001; 192)

The errant behaviour of the two boys can also be best explained through looking at their actions as the

need to let out some heat from authorial rule. The boys can be caught up in the oppressed becomes

oppressor cycle. They are repeating the actions of their oppressor on a weaker part. With the parents being

oppressed by the burdens of the day to day life they take it out on the children who in turn choose to take

it out on the crow. These two boys like Damba and Pamba from ‘Did You Have To Go That Far’ are just

victims of a much bigger force than them who are in turn looking for their own victims too.

Thus the boys decide to conquer their own fears and to do away with them and in the process finding their

foot in a society that have set up a suffocating position for them.

2.8CONCLUSION

This chapter focused on the representation of errant children at home from short stories by Charles

Mungoshi. Through a critical analysis of the representation of these errant children, analysing their

feelings, thoughts and actions, it has come to light that the children at home living with either their parents

or guardians are not immune to abnormal and unacceptable behaviours . The analysis also brought out

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that by being errant it is not always the children’s fault but also the fault of the parents and the guardians

who are sometimes absentee or who neglect their duties as parents leaving the children seeking attention

and love from outside or from peers which they get through unacceptable ways. There are other forces at

play as well which at times are inevitable like city life demands on parents which make parents be absent

from the lives of their children in a pursuit to keep up ,this however being a direct effect of colonisation.

The analysis of the short stories also bring out that the children misbehave sometimes to fit in with their

peers, to rebel against oppressive rules and systems as well as to get attention.Symbolicaly they are in

pursuit of doing away with the old and introducing the new, they are in need of creating a world that they

feel is more accommodating for them .Some need redemption other do not.

CHAPTER 3

A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE REPRESENTATION OF ERRANT

AT SCHOOL

3.0INTRODUCTION

This chapter will be a critical analysis of the representation of errant children at school from the short

stories ‘The Homecoming’, ‘The Hero’ and ‘White Stones and Red Earth’. On one hand the school systems

brought out Some Kinds of Wounds and in Coming of the Dry Season are school systems of the Rhodesian

era or the ‘Smith regime’ whilst the school systems brought out in Walking Still are mainly from

independent Zimbabwe. Thus the reasons for the misbehaviours of children from these two eras are

41
different. On one hand the children from the colonial era were educated in schools which were run by

white men, who could not concern themselves about black welfare and as a result the black children felt

neglected, on the other hand the children from post-colonial era learnt in schools in which their errant

behaviour was mainly caused by outer forces which manifested at the school. Most African authors have

wrote works bringing out the lives and behaviours of children in schools and these include Tsitsi

Dangarembwa’s Nervous Conditions, Mongo Beti’s Mission to kala , House of Hunger by Dambudzo

Marechera and Charles Mungoshi’s Waiting for the Rain. The chapter seek to analyse why the children

at school are misbehaving and also to bring out the symbolic meaning of their actions. There is also need

to look at what they do to be called errant children. As the previous chapter brought out the background

of the author, this will help to bring out some of his ideological implications which will help analyse the

short stories. As according to the Shona society the children who misbehave will have lost their ‘Unhu’

which refers to ‘behaviour patterns acceptable to Shona people’ and this is noted

by Mandava and Chingombe (2013; 100) who say, “Ubuntu is the Nguni word for the shona word

Unhu.”The chapter will bring out the analyses of ‘The Hero’ from Coming of the Dry Season, ‘The

Homecoming’ from Walking Still and ‘White Stones and Red Earth’ from Some Kinds of Wounds.

3.1 ‘THE HERO’

‘The Hero’ is a short story about a high school boy Julius who the title refers to as ‘the hero’. Julius is

suddenly labelled the hero after he makes a speech directed to the school authorities, complaining about

how the students are not being well fed yet they pay their fees. Unfortunately when Julius makes a stand

for the students he ends up being expelled from school, he momentarily gets attention and respect from

his schoolmates as well as the girl that he loves. However when this ends Julius discovers that after all he

has done he is left with nothing but to go home and live the rural life with his stepmother who is always

on his neck. So his actions are all futile. The short story comes from Coming of the Dry Season

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3.2 AN ANALYSIS OF THE REPRSENTATION OF ERRANT CHILDREN IN ‘THE HERO’

There is need to look at the title of the short story and how it goes hand in hand with the actual storyline.

In this case Mungoshi puts across a sarcastic title as to what the story actually brings out .The hero of the

story is supposedly Julius ,however Julius himself at the end of the story does not feel like a hero actually

he is regretting what he has done. Julius is just a momentary hero even owning the title, ‘Julius little

Caesar’. The above analysis is why one could chose to disagree

with Javangwe (2006; 74) who believes that Julius is a great hero given that he chooses to stand up and

do the right thing when the option of not doing nothing is there. Mapako and Marewa (2013) disagree

with Javangwe as brought out by the analysis when they say,

“The problem is Julius makes a blunt and tactless speech that is more calculated to grab the

attention from fellow students while offending the school authorities to the maximum,

hence the expulsion” Mapako and Marewa (2013:1565)

Julius is being labelled errant mainly because he stands up against the authorities; in this case the school

authorities that he felt have been suffocating the student board. He stands up and tells them that,

”I am not going to eat what you yourself would not willingly throw to your dog. I

pay for the food here and l must have my money’s worth .For a long time we have

complained about the poor diet at this school, but you have plugged your ears with

sealing wax.”Mungoshi 1972; 23)

Julius is called an errant child because it is unacceptable for students to stand up against the authorial rule,

however in this case Julius goes erratic because of his rebellion and resistance against the set parameters

that he feels are unfair for the rest of the students. Julius questions authority and this upset the white

authorities because they were teaching the blacks to be meek and humble. As noted by Zhuwarara

(2001:35),

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 “The issue of food shortages and student riots as raised in the story tells the true events

that happened in Africa missionary schools during the late 1960’s and 70’s; as evidenced

by Julius’ speech.”Zhuwarara 2001:35)

Despite portraying Julius in a somehow negative way, Mungoshi is able to bring out the reality of the

colonial era in Zimbabwe in which the black children in missionary schools suffered greatly. This is

because the whites cared less about their welfare as their only concern was the money and to uproot the

African from his culture. Since Mungoshi himself attended missionary schools then he is able to bring

out what was happening. The way Julius addresses the authorities without following any line of

communication or protocol makes him to be perceived as rowdy and at the end of the day he achieves

nothing and gets expelled. Mungoshi brings out that what causes Julius to take such actions is the

unfairness of the missionary school system, starvation yet they have paid fees. Julius has to choose

between being quite and taking action.Sarte in Wimsatt postulates that (1974)

,”Almost daily man is exposed to extreme situations and he is to make choice,

between heroism and abjection.” Wimsatt (1974)

Given a chance at a fair system Julius could have been an ideal high school student but the Rhodesian

school system is unable to offer any social or emotional guidance to the black students and as result Julius

lets out his frustrations through the speech.

Looking at Julius’ background, one is able to derive a vital conclusion as to why Julius decided to

vehemently attack the school authorities. Firstly Julius is a black boy in a country ruled by white people

and in which blacks are nothing but merely some humans below the whites such that it is hard for a black

person to be heard or seen as brought out in Ellison Ralph’s Invisible Man. Thus when Julius stands up

and goes rouge he does so as a result of the need to be recognised, seen and heard. Julius also comes from

a family unit which is already broken, a home in which his mother have been replaced by another woman

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who obviously is failing to provide an emotional. Julius takes advantage of the problems being faced by

the students and thrive on them to get the attention that he so needs.

This is sarcastically brought out by his principal, Old Bat who tells him that he is, “poor, spoilt, blind

who needed a loving mother’s care.” He thus goes on and seeks love and attention at school by causing a

scene, only to impress the girl he loves, Dora and his school mates. The young boy in ‘Shadows on The

Wall’ and ‘Mount of Moriah’ are a replica of Julius given that just like him their families are broken and

they wallow in loneliness without a soul giving them the love and attention they need. Julius is a

vulnerable back child who is victimised by colonialism. In the case of Julius the problems at home get to

manifest at school.

However on the other side of the coin Julius is the earlier version of characters like Munashe from

Kanengoni’s Echoing Silences(1997) who gives up his studies to join the Zimbabwean liberation struggle

after discovering the unfairly Rhodesian system. Although Julius does not drop his studies it is his

resistance to the system that makes him like Munashe. Thus looking at this closely Mungoshi might have

represented Julius in such a manner to cover up for what Julius the child narrator truly symbolizes, which

is the rise of the Zimbabweans sacrificing their selves so as to go and fight the white colonialist

Harman and Holman (2000) seem to be able to bring out Julius true predicament, that in his search for

something more, in his need for change and he ends up more miserable than what he had been in the past.

Instead of having the nice food he wished for at school he ends up going home to the bickering voice of

his step mother.

“Human beings are immediately aware of their own situation .A part of this is a

sense of meaningless in the outer world. This meaningless produces discomfort,

anxiety, loneliness in the face of limitations and desire to invest, experiment with

meaning by acting upon the world although effort to act in a meaningless absurd

world lead to anguish ,greater loneliness and despair.” Harman and Holman (2000)

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3.3 ‘THE HOMECOMING’

As the title suggests the short story is the eventual coming home of the story’s protagonist Musa a 16 year

old boy recently suspended from a local mission boarding school.Musa have grown up to be a rampant

,rowdy boy who does not listen to anyone ,not even the grandmother who looked after him since infancy

when his mother died. His grandmother Old Mandisa is very ill and old but Musa fails to see this and the

old woman goes on living by herself in pain with the occasional visits from Musa who comes only to

collect beer and money. The Old woman has gone short of ideas on what to do with Musa and she is

scared that Musa will get arrested in the end.Musa is so lost in himself and he even hides the fact that he

has been suspended from his grandmother who somehow knows the truth. At the end of the short story

Musa and his grandmother have a sort of reunion, with Musa discovering how ill his grandmother is. This

short story is from Walking Still.

3.4 THE ANALYSIS OF ‘THE HOMECOMING’ LOOKING AT THE REPRESANTATION OF

ERRANT CHILDREN BY CHARLES MUNGOSHI

Musa is only sixteen and already bringing alcohol into the school vicinity and at times getting there

already drunk. The fault is not really on the fact that he drinks because his grandmother allows him, the

fault is on the fact that he drinks at school which he well knows is not allowed and lies about it to his old

grandmother and when she asks him if it is true that they are not allowed alcohol in school he says,

“No it is not true; they do not stop us from drinking when we want to” Mungoshi, 1997:26)

Alcohol seem to have made him popular amongst his friends and just like Julius from The Hero’ he just

might be doing it as a need for the love and attention considering that he is an orphan, with no other family

ties other than to an old woman who he do not want to relate with. Thus the people he can get affection

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from are limited. Despite the fact that reasons to why Musa has been suspended are not started one cannot

help but think that, it is because of the same reason as to why Julius is expelled given their similar

backgrounds.

Musa also seem to have cut ties and abandon his grandmother, the only relative he seem to have left in

the world who actually care about him. This is considered as errant by the Shona culture under the concept

of “Unhu” from which the proverb ‘Chirere chigokurerawo’ (take of them so that they will do the same)

is derived from. This relates to how as a child grows up and the adults get older, the child is in turn

supposed to look after his/her elders, helping at home and lending a hand.Musa might not be seeing the

importance of his grandmother in his life because of the colonial educational system he has been exposed

to, which somehow advocated for individualism in the black student, at the same time making him forget

the importance of family ties. The colonial education detached the African child from its grassroots living

him/her to be a being without a base. Short stories like ‘The Homecoming’ thus support what Muponde,

(2015; 8) states, that the literary works written by blacks before their independence up to now brings out

a,

“Presentation of childhood that bears upon the question of history, politics and

resistance.”Muponde (2015:8)

Musa is not so different from Mongo Beti’s Medza from Mission to Kala, Mungoshi’s Lucifer from

Waiting for the Rain ,Nharo from ‘The Mountain’ and even Ferdinand Oyono’s Toundi from Houseboy

who ends up asking , “Brother what are we black man who are called French.”Oyono( 1990;4)All these

characters seem to have lost the idea of how important family ties and friendship are to the black man.

Having been detached from their people such that they can hardly relate because of the education from

the white colonisers.Musa stays away from home so as to detach himself from that place just like what

Toundi in Houseboy did, running away from his father to go and live with Father Gilbert.Musa and his

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grandmother cannot relate because of what Zhuwarara (2001) calls the ‘generational gap’ which have

mainly been aided by colonialism.

Musa have lost all respect for his grandmother as just like Garabha from Waiting for the rain, he,

“Come and goes like the wind.”(Zhuwarara 2001; 101)

Stealing is immoral of whoever does it no matter what age and in the short story Mungoshi brings out that

Musa does not only steal from his grandmother but from the people in the society, stealing their chickens

such that they are threatening to have him beaten or send to prison which will not be the first time as

brought out through Old Mandisa’s thoughts,

“Once he had spent a weekend in the cells at the local police station.”Mungoshi (1997; 33)

Mandisa is now emotionally deranged as she considers who will inherit her land and huts when Musa

seem to want nothing to do with. What is most errant about Musa’s behaviour is insinuating that his

grandmother killed her children including his mother and that she is now after him, it is taboo to accuse

a mother figure of such a heinous act and Musa seem not to care,

“What are you, an old woman doing, still hanging about on this earth? Where are

your children? What did you do to your children? How could they all die? All of

them! You must know something about it. And now you are on

me...”Mungoshi,(1997:29)

One can note a sense of fear in Musa’s words, he is afraid of dying just like the rest of the family and he

does not know who to blame given that Old Mandisa is the only one still living despite her age. Mungoshi

then brings out that Musa’s errant behaviour might be due to his fear of dying just like everyone and with

the lack of a father figure to help and anchor him he goes haywire. Nevertheless, the society does nothing

to help him rather than add petrol to the fire. Given that socialisation through the ideas and suggestions

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of the society helps at moulding who one becomes. The society from which Musa comes from seem not

to be helping him as some of the people even think and tell him that he is sleeping with his Grandmother,

“Some people here in this village, even think I am sleeping with you.”Mungoshi (1997:29)

Musa’s behaviour then can be explained through the idea that to him, home is where people perish. By

all means he tries to escape home but in the process he does all sorts of things to survive like stealing and

drinking in an attempt to fill in that void and questions he has. He also runs away from home to avoid the

rumours that he might be sleeping with his grandmother as result he begins to loath her, a grandmother

he so used to adore.

Towards the end of the short story Musa comes back to his senses, decides to do away with his friends

and look after his grandmother after the realisation that she has seriously wasted away and this scares

hand.Musa is scared because he realizes that he can no longer be dependable on Old Mandisa but that Old

Mandisa is now the one who is dependent on him, the roles reverse in this case, this is the point at which

that statement, ‘Chirere chigokurerawo’ applies. As a result one can see that the reason why Musa has

been having a rowdy behaviour ,staying away from home and not paying any attention to his grandmother

is because he had been afraid of discovering that it was now his turn to look after Old Mandisa like she

had looked after him. He has been running away from the responsibility of looking after someone, the

same way the woman from ‘Who Will Stop the Dark’ loathes looking after her handicapped husband

.Musa have been running away from responsibility.

“When he had lifted the old woman in his hands, he had hardly felt anything. That had

frightened him. Now she looked at him and he could not bear it.”Mungoshi 1997; 36-37)

Unfortunately it is not only Musa who is an errant child in this short story but just that it is his story which

has been brought out in detail. Charles Mungoshi in this short story is able to bring out a couple other

cases of children who have been displeasing to their parents and errant as they take the unexpected course

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in their lives. This leads to the rise of the question, is it really the fault of the children that they have

decided to take another course or path in their lives, or is it that the parents, guardians and society have

some kind of ideal child and childhood that they have set .As noted by Reynolds (1994;23),

“Adults create a childish ideal which is unthreatening and undisturbing.”Reynolds (1994:24)

Cases of errant children in the short story include the case of a ten year old thief who is burned down in

a locked hut by the villagers. Old Mandisa also brings out that the villagers might complain about Musa’s

behaviour but when he does the things he do, he does not do them alone but with other children his age,

“Of course Old Mandisa agreed with them although she did not tell them that Musa didn’t

do what he they said he did alone.”Mungoshi (1997; 27)

The head man even complains about his children being the opposite of what he wanted them to be and

hence he has been poor. It is like they have failed him. However, unlike others the headman clearly admits

that it is his failure at raising his children properly that has led to them being a disappointment.

Old Mandisa’s fear to loose and upset Musa if she corrects and scolds him, does nothing to help Musa to

be better or to change his behaviour rather it enables him to disrespect her even more. She is aware that

Musa have been suspended from school but she does nothing, she is aware that Musa is not allowed to

drink at school and he does anywhere but she gives him beer to carry to school. Thus instead of helping

him she is aiding him, failing her duties as his grandmother and guardian which the villagers are also

aware of as they tell her that all he needs is a “good beating” like the one Medza gets from his father

failing to respect him in Mongo Beti’s Mission to Kala.

Musa is brought out as having been caught up in W.E.Dubois’, ‘double consciousness’, from Souls of

Black Folks ,because at one point he seems to want nothing to do with the African cultural family ties and

responsibility, staying away from home and supporting the individualism he is taught at school and on

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other points he seem to connect well and understand as well as feel for Old Mandisa with the edge to look

after her and her homestead. He is confused and trying to embrace two different worlds.

3.5 WHITE STONES AND RED EARTH

‘White Stones and Red Earth’ is a short story from Charles Mungoshi’s Some Kinds of Wounds and it is

about a young boy Bishi who attends a missionary boarding school .Unfortunately upon his return from

a camping trip with other students he arrives to the news that his brother at home has passed away. Bishi

have been staying at school without going back for a long time such that he has gotten distanced from

the rest of his relatives such that he cannot even relate to them. Bishi fails to feel any pain or to shed a

single drop of tear when he hears about his brother’s death. The story however ends on a positive note

with Bishi finally being able to relate with his culture and relatives.

3.6 A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE REPRESENTATION OF ERRANT CHILDREN IN

WHITE STONES AND RED EARTH FROM SOME KINDS OF WOUNDS.

The Shona people believe that upon the death of a loved one people are supposed to cry to show that they

are hurt and are grieving.

“Failure to show grief and sympathy earns one the suspicion of being the witch that

bewitched the deceased.”Mwandayi (2011; 202)

Bishi fails to cry or show any emotion in relation to pain when he hears the news about the death of his

brother Michael from a fellow dormitory mate. He just stares not knowing how to react as his mates are

looking at him with faces full of concern. Given the ideas about crying when someone dies in the shona

culture it becomes troubling when Bishi fails to cry and he knows it himself but he can’t seem to be able

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to. Bishi becomes errant as he strays from what he is expected from him by the society and does the

otherwise, he defies the cultural norms. Given that Bishi is still young and he has lost a brother someone

who is supposed to be close to him, he is expected to be moved and to cry but surprisingly he does not

feel a thing,

“Death, there was nothing in him that that responded to the word but he knew that people

cried when there was a death of someone close to them.”(Mungoshi 1980; 79)

However Bishi is a product of his surroundings, he cannot be expected to have attachments to the people

he left home when he have not been back there for a while as he personally admits. He has become more

of an outsider than a family member; his family is at the mission school. Thus Bishi’s unexpected and

unacceptable behaviour within the shona culture can be traced back to the effects of colonialism on the

African people. As stated before the colonial education aimed at uprooting the African person from his

culture. In this case Bishi becomes so assimilated into colonial education that he forgets about home and

its people and he is completely detached from them. As noted by Zhuwarara (2001; 76) Bishi as his name

implies,

‘has been busy’ living his life at school, hardly noticing the extent at which he has

become distanced from his family. Zhuwarara (2001; 76)

Bishi is the Lucifer Mandengu from Waiting for the Rain , who is travelling on a bus full of people he is

supposed to know but do not, a landscape he is supposed to relate to but he cannot rather he goes on to

say that , “I was born here against my will.” Mungoshi (1975).The need to completely uproot the African

through colonial education can be shown through how the mission schools where even built far away to

the extent that Bishi have not been able to go home in a while. This case is similar to Nhamo’s from

Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembwa’s who spends a whole lot of time at the mission school run

by his uncle only to come back in a coffin.

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 “This story offers us a version of that spiritual numbness.”(Zhuwarara 2001; 77)

Bishi becomes so busy at school that he forgets that he needs other people, others in this case being his

family. According to the shona culture, a person reaches his full potential through his people, this accounts

for the shona proverbs like, ‘chara chimwe hachitswanye inda’ and ‘rume rimwe harikombi churu.’It is

thus important to stay in connection with your people. Thus when Bishi stays at school all the time he

becomes an abnormally a person who acts like he comes from a place where there are no people. He

adopts the behaviour of a people who were visitors of the land, people who could not visit or go back to

a family because they were far away. He fulfils the ‘black skin, white mask’ notion by Franz Fanon. In

her dissertation Madondo (2013; 21) says,

“Colonial education aimed at alienating African culture and assimilating the black child to

Western cultures, its ultimate aim to create a completely new psych of the Blackman one that is

different from the original in order to mentally and physically enslave the African.”Madondo

(2013:21)

In this short story through the character of Bishi is able to bring out how the children are not to blame

when they go errant at times considering that some forces that change and push them are forces that could

even affect an older person. Mungoshi brings how by sending children away to boarding schools during

the Rhodesian era was to alienate the children from their people and culture and as a result creating this

new hybrid they could not seem to understand and accept. How can a boy who grows up amongst foreign

people without the guidance and love of the father, mother and family members, be expected to conform

to the culture he has not invested in.

3.7 CONCLUSION

In the three short stories analysed in this chapter, one can see how Mungoshi represents the children who

are errant at school. Charles Mungoshi also brings out that, had the school systems and education been

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African centered and teaching about the African culture and fully catering for the black child’s needs, the

black child would not have gotten errant or would not have chosen to rebel and resist the school system

making him unsuitable to be part of it. The short stories also bring out that the problems and inadequacy

of love at home caused the child to misbehave at school where he felt he would get what he truly needed.

Also the education created a being that the society could not relate with, because he/she would have been

stripped off, of that made him/her a part of them and as a result they would make him/her unacceptable.

In the Shona culture or Zimbabwean culture at large, “munhu, Unhu”, thus if you no longer have what is

perceived as “Unhu’, you will no longer be part of the society and you cease to be a being.

CHAPTER 4

A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE REPRESENTATION OF ERRANT CHILDREN

(YOUNG ADULTS) IN THE CITY,AWAY FROM HOME AND SCHOOL.

4.0 INTRODUCTION

This chapter is based on the critical analysis of the representation of errant children who are away from

the domestic sphere and from school whilst they are living in the city. The characters mostly analysed in

this chapter are called the young adults, people who no longer befit to be called children but at the time

not suitable to be called fully fledged grownups. The fact that this group of people can be called children

can only be understood or accepted if one grasps Bourdililon’s meaning (1993) when he says , “ Different

ethnic groups define childhood differently .Although culture is always changing ,some groups continue

to approach childhood and adulthood on the bases of undergoing specific rites of passage.”In Zimbabwe

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young adults are considered as children. The characters have either run away from home and school or

have come to the city under the approval of their parents to look for work. Thus the analysis will seek to

bring out why they have become errant, what is the symbolical meaning of their actions and what they

wish to achieve. It is also vital to take into consideration that unlike the children at school and at home,

most of the young adults actually live alone under no one’s authority. A brief summary of each short story

to be analysed will be given before the analysis. The analysis will also try to look at how some of the

author’s ideologies and experiences influenced such a depiction of these children.

4.1 ‘THE BROTHER’

This is a short story from Charles Mungoshi’s collection Some Kinds of Wounds (1980).It is a story that

run along lines of the lives of two brothers, Magufu the older brothers who lives in the city and Tendai

the younger brother who attends a boarding mission school. Magufu supposedly moved from the village

to come live in the city so that he can find work and be able to help his parents by paying Tendai’s school

fees. However due to excessive partying and drinking Magufu has gotten sick and at the same time broke

to the extent of not being able to pay his younger brother’s fees. His house have literary become a pub of

some sorts and nothing moral seems to come out of that place as his walls are pestered with pictures of

naked women .Connected to the story of Magufu and his brother is the story of Sheila a fifteen year old

girl who Magufu have spend the night with and have forced into having sex by brutally hitting her. Sheila

is a young girl, she and her friend have spent the night away from home and they plan on lying about it.

Tendai loathes what his brother and his friends are doing but unfortunately there is nothing he can do

about it as he is warned not to even a said a word of this to his parents.

4.2 A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE REPRESENTATION OF ERRANT CHILDREN IN ‘THE

BROTHER’

The character of Sheila is one of the fewer female young adult characters who Mungoshi brings out in his

short stories as he mainly focuses on the boys. In the Zimbabwean society the unwritten rules which guide

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and restrain the female child with the aim of protecting her are more than those which protect the male

child. Thus the immoral behaviour of a girl is considered worse than that of a boy to do so. In many cases

an errant female child ends up being marked as someone who behaves like a boy. When Sheila and her

friend decide not to go home and spend the night at Magufu’s they defer those rules that are set for them

as girls.

At fifteen the girls are still too young to be having a night out more so in the company of people like

Magufu and his friends. Before they go to Magufu’s place the girls spend their time with Magufu in a

pub, drinking and in the process they have their drinks drugged. As noted by John from Charles

Mungoshi’s Waiting for the Rain (1995), the city was not really a safe place for the girls. One can say that

Sheila’s road was spiralling down to that of Loveness from Zimunya’s; ‘You haven’t met her’, who is

now the terror of the city, destroying other women’s homes,

“Of course you have not met her; Loveness the sunshine of the city...her fried eggs

broke a marriage contract. Now Tito’s home is a village wound, that bubbles with

gossip and the bitter cries of his mother.” Zimunya (1995)

It is not only morally unacceptable for a girl of that age to be drinking at a pub but it is also illegal and

this makes Sheila errant as she is doing what is considered out of line. However Sheila is just one of the

city children who feel the push and need to enjoy the city life and to spread their wings and reach new

horizons. This is clearly aided by parents who do not pay attention to the whereabouts of their children.

Fortunately unlike the parents of Serina Maseko from Branching Streams flow in the dark by Charles

Mungoshi who actually aid and pushes Serina to have a relationship with Amos ending up with her being

pregnant, Sheila’s parents do it indirectly by not paying attention. Sheila’s parents obviously do not pay

much attention or scrutinize what their daughter is doing as shown by how firstly she sneaks out of the

house, goes to a pub and spends the night away from home without them raising an alarm. At this point

then one is left with a question as to why and what are the parents and guardians of girls like Sheila are

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doing, is it because they as are caught up in the city rush, hustle and bustle in an attempt to find a footing

in the artificial world created for them by the white man.

“Does your wife know that you treat people and when they don’t know who they are and

what they are doing anymore, you drag them home to bed and tell them to strip to the

skin?”(Mungoshi 1980)

Sheila becomes more of a prostitute over night because despite the fact that she protests against what

Magufu proposes, she goes with him to his house knowing that he has a wife as shown by the above

quotation and also she knows that spending the night away from home is so wrong as she tries the next

morning to formulate a plan for her father so that he can believe where she have been. Sheila spend the

night at Magufu’s and during that night like a sex worker she is forced to strip for him and have sex with

him in the same room that his brother is in . In the morning she is forced to ask for transport money from

Magufu who refuses to give her any. Sheila becomes the Mazvita from Yvonne Vera’s Without a Name,

who is emotionally abused by Joel and does anything he wants just so as to please him and to continue

having his favour even when she does not like it. However the issue of children indulging in sexual

relations somehow has become a trope in Zimbabwean literature. We see this in No Violet Bulawayo’s

We Need New Names in which we see Darling and Godknows attempting to have sex in an abandoned

house, yet they are merely children who do not even understand the concept of sex.

The above drives one to arrive at the conclusion that maybe children like Sheila have actually become

adults who are trapped in the bodies of children, given that she is aware of everything that is happening

around her. When faced with a situation she knows how to tackle it, given that she knows all about the

mints to clear her breath and is also able to come up with a believable lie for her father.

These children however have become errant as a result of exposure to a culture and life that neither their

parents nor themselves can comprehend and they just seem to grasp the basics which the city comes with.

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As noted by Zimunya (2001), the urban area becomes the place were as result of different circumstances

an individual ends up losing himself/herself, their morality and dignity. Zimunya (2001)

Magufu the protagonist of the story is a young adult who have actually become more of a child than a

young adult he is supposed to be .His excessive drinking have actually left him as the lost son of the

family. Drinking at his age is not prohibited but the extent of his drinking has actually driven him to the

edge that it becomes morally unacceptable. Magufu is sick and he is spending all his money on alcohol

and as a result can no longer fend for his family back at the village and also pay his brother’s school fees

a duty for the elder children in the family. Magufu is failing his parents and their expectations, because

by raising him they in turn expected him to raise and look after his brother. Magufu’s excessive drinking

and his deteriorating health is brought out by Sando his friend while talking to Tendai when he says,

“You see Sonnybig .This stuff is very bad for your brother .In the beginning it gave him a

name and earned him a name and earned him admirers right and left in the drinking

community .But now its losing him fast ,money faster and his health fastest.”Mungoshi

(1980)

The most errant act which Magufu does in the short story is to force Sheila into having sex with him, even

beating her in the presence of his brother Tendai. Magufu forces a fifteen year old girl into having sex

with him and yet he is married. He does respect neither his newly wedded wife nor Sheila. On top of it in

the morning he just expects Sheila to disappear into thin air without a sorry or even bus fare .Besides

drinking, Magufu is obsessed with sex and its art as brought out by the narrator that his walls were covered

with posters of naked women.

However Magufu might be doing all this in an attempt to escape the tirades of his life in the city as well

as his responsibilities. He and his friends spend their weekends drunk, lying around playing the game of

cards in a state of oblivion running away from matters in their lives and things they are really supposed

to be doing. The city seem to be swallowing him and given that it is the colonial period in which Africans

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let alone young Africans were constantly discriminated ,he feels the need to let out all the bottled feelings

through alcohol and sexual activities. Like the boys from The Lift he feels alienated and oppressed and to

some extent have become to hate himself just like the boys from The Lift

“He was tired of looking into himself, of asking why he was like this and not like

that, tired of examining himself, tired of judging and condemning

himself.”Mungoshi (1972:35-36)

4.3 ‘THE COMING OF THE DRY SEASON’

The Coming of the dry season is the short story which has the same title as Mungoshi’s collection of

short stories from 1972.The protagonist of the story is Moab Gwati a male young adult living and working

in the city whilst his mother is in the rural areas .Moab is caught up in all the hustle and bustle of the city,

having to live on an meagre salary as well as to use that salary to look after his mother whom he seems to

be hating by the day and neglecting .To drown his sorrows Moab goes on drinking and having sex with

whomever he picks up from the bar.

4.4 AN ANALYSIS OF THE REPRESENTATION OF ERRANT YOUNG ADULTS IN ‘THE

COMING OF THE DRY SEASON’.

As a young man from the rural areas now working in the city, Moab has certain responsibilities that he

has to take of .Responsibilities that the society have bestowed upon him and failure to do them makes him

rowdy in their eyes. However, in this short story Moab seem to be overburdened by one of his main

responsibilities that to take care of his mother who is in the village. Mungoshi brings out Moab as a young

man who has come to that stage of loathing his mother. To him she is always draining that meagre pay he

gets as he keeps on complaining that she keeps on asking of him of things that he cannot give cause he

do not know how to.As shown on page 45 of the collection, Moab feels that his mother in the rural areas

is nothing but someone who makes him more sad and unhappy,

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give cause he do not know how to.As shown on page 45 of the collection, Moab feels that his mother in

the rural areas is nothing but someone who makes him more sad and unhappy,

“He would hear over and over the small woman’s voice that was full of tears and

self pity ,the voice that was a protest .Zindoga mwanawangu ,remember were you

come from .A warning ,a remonstration, a curse and an epitaph .With it he could

never have good times in peace.”Mungoshi (1972; 45)

What makes Moab errant is the fact that he is shunning away the woman that gave her life and taught him

almost everything he knows. Within the African culture, Moab is committing one of the most taboo crimes

considering that mother is supreme and is to be respected at all times. To disrespect your mother is taboo

and if one commits that one is punished through some cultural punishment called ‘Kutanda botso’ and all

this shows the importance of a mother. As noted by Tabona Shoko (2007:42),

“Someone who beats his mother is punished by undergoing a ritual called “Kutanda

botso” which involves public humiliation.”Shoko (2007:42)

Moab seem to be already receiving his punishment ,considering that nothing in his life has meaning and

he cannot even form strong human relations ,to him Chipo is just a woman he has spent the weekend with

and has sex with.

However for one to truly understand Moab’s behaviour and actions, one has to look at his personal

background as well as the era he lives in. Moab is a black young person who is living at the core of white

civilisation during the colonial era which is characterised by a strong sense of European capitalism, in

which being black means you are merely an object of labour, all you have to do is continuously work for

the system as it drains you on the other side. Moab feels trapped and suffocated and in his mind his mother

is just like the European capitalist system which keeps asking for more yet giving out nothing. He works

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hard for a month but at the end of the month he still has close to no money. The system only pays him

enough to clear his head through meaningless things like alcohol and women, just mere distractions.

The relationship and bond that Moab and his mother are supposed to have symbolises the relationship

that he and his culture are supposed to have. Like most young African people during the colonial era and

after he feels that the African culture is pulling him back and paralysing him, disabling him to fully belong

to the European culture. Therefore the only option is to fully detach himself from the culture. One can

then see similarities between Moab and Lucifer from Waiting for the Rain who does not even recognise

the place where he was born because he loathes it so much as shown in the novel when he says,

“I am Lucifer Mandengu; I was born here against my will.”Mungoshi (1995)

He tries to run away from who he is by detaching from his mother but ironically it is not fulfilling as he

is lost and in constant agony in a world that is not his. His walking around the township when he does not

feel like going to his one roomed house, is as if he is trying to run away from the city.

“The black mood was on him, when he felt this way Moab would walk foe miles

completely blind.”Mungoshi 1972:45)

The protagonist Moab is running away from the responsibility of looking after his mother back in the

rural areas. He knows that it is his turn to look after her but he cannot bring himself to it and in an attempt

to run away from it he drowns himself in alcohol and meaningless sex.This explains his unbelievable

behaviour of postponing the news of sickness and death of his mother in the letter that he receives. Moab

first spends a weekend in the arms of a prostitute and alcohol instead of rushing to the village for his

mother, he is aware that he is obliged to fund his mother’s burial with his meaningless salary but he delays

and spends it first. He only brings himself to go to the village when he is penniless.

In a nutshell Moab is caught up in a world that is not really meant to be his, a world of European

civilisation which keeps draining him, just the same way he feels his mother does, He feels that he is in

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chains and shackles and unfortunately no one can help him and yet it is as if he is at the brink of sanity.

He feels that if he rejects his mother and culture then he can do well in the city but nevertheless it does

not help.

4.5 CONCLUSION

Mungoshi brings out how the city is a hostile place for the young people and that it fails to accommodate

them. In an attempt to feel accepted they lose themselves as well as their dignity and instead of feeling

free they trap themselves. The errant behaviours can be explained by the need to escape the horrors of the

city or by the need to feel more belonging to the city .The young people go on to adopt ways which do

not fit with their African culture and because of that they become anomalies.

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 CHAPTER FIVE

5.1 CONCLUSION

Charles Mungoshi artistically portrays children who have gone errant from all the corners of their day to

day lives that is from school, home and in the city. This all is a true reflection of not only Zimbabwe but

the African continent at large. As noted by Odini (2006:25) the author is , ‘one who is an embodiment

of truth ,sound morals ,articulate and upright ,a gadfly of society and one who strives to warn society

whenever it is adrift.”

Analysis of the short stories in the previous chapters has brought out how children and young adults

become errant because of different factors within their own societies and surrounding environments.

Basically the children and young adults are reacting to certain push and pull factors and most of them do

not have someone to put the back into the right path. The actions of these children are not just merely

actions but they are actions which carry deeper meaning. However Mungoshi is clever enough not to

carelessly lay out these meanings as he uses the technique of subtlety to hide the symbolical meaning of

the errant children. Through his representation of errant children Mungoshi is able to tackle and deal with

crucial issues that some authors have been ignoring. He is also able to give the children a voice to speak

and to be heard as well as to justify their actions. The analysis of the short stories from the previous

chapters bring out how most of the erratic behaviour that the children and young adults are presenting are

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as a result of the need to resist certain set systems that they feel they can no longer conform too. Mungoshi

also brings out that it is not always the children who are at fault but their parents and guardians who lack

the audacity to control their children or who have previously been ignorant to factors that led to their

children being errant. Some young adults and children are behaving in an unacceptable manner as a way

of escaping different horrors in their lives while others are doing so in an attempt to get the love and

attention that is lacking at home. These children that Mungoshi represents in his short stories thus become

the representatives of many children who are being judged for their behaviour without the society seeking

the reason behind.

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