Abstract:
Since independence, the African continent has witnessed
varying degrees of conflict and instability. In some cases,
these conflicts have been upheavals, easily quelled while in
others they have threatened to cripple nations. This state of
affairs has been imagined on the post-independence African
literary landscape which has seen a wide range of conflict
literatures. This paper seeks to examine the dramatization of
conflict and the projection of possibilities of hope and peace
in two dramas: The Return of Mgofu by Imbuga (2011) and
Shreds of Tenderness by Ruganda (2001). The paper aims at
comparing and contrasting the nature of conflict in the two
dramas. This shall be followed by an interrogation of how
similarly and/or differently the two playwrights project
various possibilities of a return to peace. This analysis will
also seek to answer the troubling question with regard to
conflicts in Africa: Is it possible to have reconciliation and
return to peace without retributive justice? While one of the
dramas emphasizes the need for perpetrators to pay penance
for wrongs done, the other advocates for withdrawal into the
spiritual world of traditional African religion in the search for
cohesion – restorative justice. This paper shall utilize
sociological theories of literary criticism and the semiotics
paradigm in literary criticism. The sociological theories shall
be used to probe conflict as presented in the dramas as an
incident of the prevalent social struggles, while the semiotics
theory shall be used to read the use of symbolism and
metaphor in projecting possibilities towards amity.
