Reading Alternative History in Literature: A Focus on Pat Ngurukie's Soldier's Wife
Journal Title: Scholars Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences - Year 2017, Vol 5, Issue 9
Abstract
Works of popular fiction have, for a long time, been denigrated as simple entertainment; “escapist” fiction, marred by formulaic narratives, superficiality, and sensationalism. This paper revisits the dialectic relationship between literature and history, and seeks to challenge the accepted notions of what constitutes ‘serious’ literature by dismantling the perceived barriers that exist between the "elite" and "popular" fiction brands. According to Bourdeu [1], the concept of ‘popular’ is always ambiguous because it comes to us inscribed with the history of political and cultural struggles. It is not only a site of contested evaluation but the term ‘popular’ has also been used pejoratively. ‘Popular’ has been used as synonymous with low-class; and low-class with irrelevant. This paper argues that popular literature carries within it the envisioned image of a given society, sometimes projected through the vision of the author or by the author satirizing the behaviour of the said society with the aim of enabling the society reflect upon its behaviour and effect necessary changes. The paper focuses on Pat Wambui Ngurukie's Soldier's Wife [2] and explores how this author engages with history. It therefore investigates the relationship between history and popular fiction and more so how the author of the selected text captures this interplay. By premising its discussions on selected tenets of New Historicism, this paper provides a description of the complex web of political, social and economic attitudes, values, ideals and situations in the selected text that constitute the conceptualization of the author's immediate environment. By employing close reading, the paper embarks on an intrinsic reading of the selected text and by focusing on characters, plot(s), setting(s) and use of language, examines the elements of popular fiction present in Pat Ngurukie's Soldier's Wife; and explores how the author engages with the history of the time of production. This paper's significance is derived from its provision of a way forward towards understanding how writers of popular fiction capture the history which shapes their work, furthering the growing corpus on studies focusing on Kenyan popular fiction, and contribution to the conceptualization of the interplay between history and popular fiction in particular, and culture in general. Keywords: History, Popular Fiction, Soldier's Wife, Reversed Concepts, Marriage, Social Commentary.
Authors and Affiliations
Maina T. Sammy, Wamalwa Moses K, Kariuki G. Rahab
Keywords
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