The Tswana short story : from B.D. Magoleng to O.K. Bogatse

Abstract

Chapter One of this thesis investigates the growth and development of the Tswana short story. It commences with an evaluation of studies done on this genre and proceeds to a brief exposition of the Tswana short stories published prior to 1995. It also provides theoretical backgmund on the modern short story. The main focus of Chapter Two concerns the major themes explored in Tswana short stories. These include tradition and culture, love and marriage, the makgoweng motif, religion as well as corruption and other social problems. This thesis has discovered that the Tswana Miters not only criticise the negative aspects of these realities, but also recognise their significance and beauty. Chapter Three examines the organisational patte~ of the Tswana short story and tests it against the structural pattenl of the West. It is revealed that the Tswana short story, like short stories of other cultures, shows a continuous sequence of exposition, development and resolution. However, it occasionaHy deviates from the nonn and commences with philosophical commentaries and details irrelevant to the developmental phase. In structuring their stories, the Tswana writers also use flashback and foreshadowing to link their events. However, what has been discovered is that foreshadowing occurs less frequently than flashback in the Tswana short story. Chapter Four focusses on the word, the sentence and the paragraph and refers to other related clements such as repetition, rhetorical questions, proverbs, idioms and Biblical allusions. These elements serve to enhance the style of the Tswana short story and bring the readers into a dialogic relationship with their language and culture. Creative writing in Tswana illustrates a strong, dynamic relationship with oral tradition. Chapter Five shows how writers have cirawn from the wealth of their traditional and cultural heritage original and wlique devices to improve their works of art. The threads of oral tradition that reveal themselves in the Tswana short story pertain to the organisation of material, characterisation, setting, style and language as well as narrative perspective. In Chapter Six the findings of the earlier chapters are highlighted and recommendations for future research are outlined.