Through a Charged Field: Authoritative Discourses and Dialogism in Solomon Mutswairo's Chaminuka: Prophet of Zimbabwe (1983)

Abstract

This article explores the dialogic nature of spiritual and patriarchal discourses in Solomon Mutswairo's novel Chaminuka: Prophet of Zimbabwe and the extent to which they conform to Bakhtinian notions of authoritative and internally persuasive discourses in the polylogical nature of truly novelistic text. It establishes that, in this novel, spiritual discourse is unstable and inhabits the liminal space between authoritative and internally persuasive ones. However, when appropriated by future generations, it can readily metamorphose into authoritative discourse. On the other hand, patriarchal ideology in the text, which is a priori, is more authoritative and less amenable to dialogization. The article concludes that due to the nature of the society represented in the text, there are different dialogic levels or hierarchies that can be seen as limiting the overall novelistic and social dialogue, which has an effect on the novelistic quality of the text.