Where use has been made of the scholarship of other authors, they have been duly acknowledged in the text. An examination of the representation of women in particular is appropriate because their role in the making of Zimbabwe's history has been deliberately undermined or ignored by both "patriotic" historians and politicians. I have found it imperative to study Vera's representation of women especially because the role of women in the making of Zimbabwe's history has been deliberately undermined and ignored by nationalist historians and politicians (Ranger, 2005; Veit-Wild, 1992; Zhuwarara, 2001) ).
In The Stone Virgins, as will be discussed in more detail later in this introduction and in chapter three, Vera challenges the historical representation of what happened in Matebeleland during the post-ceasefire period of the dissident movement. We do not believe that words become independent of the speech that carries them. Paper is a stranger's own habit. As explored in more detail in Chapter Three, Vera returns to the question of healing and the possible growth of her female characters despite their transgressions in her last novel, The Stone Maidens.
Utterance in The Stone Virgins goes beyond the narrow meaning of the word, which denotes speech, to women's assertion of their subject positions, as women are represented as agents of their own recovery. Vera keeps returning to the scene of the rape of Mazvita in Without a Name, Nonceba in The Stone Virgins and Zhizha, a child raped by her own father in Under the Tongue (a novel not analyzed in this study , and which focuses on incest in the context) of the liberation struggle).
CHAPTER ONE Nehanda
Much of the story is told through the dreams and consciousness of the female characters. The narrator says that "when she [Nehanda] has left, the bugler emerges from the crowd again. Christiansen deals with the spiritual history of Zimbabwe and argues that Mugabe has now usurped the role of the spirit medium.
Even the men stop dancing and kneel around Nehanda, and the women in the outer circle cast protective shadows over the bent bodies of the women. This is contrary to Mr. Smith and Browning's perception of Nehanda in the narrative, which is actually representative of the settlers' general attitude towards black women. Thus, in the text, Nehanda is positioned against two factors that blocked women, that is, the official nationalist historical record and the settler accounts of Zimbabwean history.
In the narrative, we are told that "[the child] came silently into the darkness and warmth of the hut..after she was born, she did not cry for a day. Because their dreams are prophetic and not logically verifiable, Vera's women assume the authority to foretell the fate of the nation in the tale. Some other men have doubtless been carried away. . . . None of the [black] people have been hurt" (87).
In the scene of Nehanda's birth, Vera's portrayal of the first woman does not fit into the customs of the Shona people she portrays.
CHAPTER TWO Without a Name
As this brief background to the narrative's spatial setting shows, violence came to the rural population from both sides of the war. Mazvita also 'reads' in the 'treasures' in the surrounding silence when the actual rape trial is over. By relating only part of her ordeal to Nyenyedzi, it becomes clear that Mazvita observes some of the social characteristics prevalent in her culture.
Literally, travel is risky because of the raging war and the landmines planted on the roads by the warring parties. The question of 'who is speaking?' is asked for the whole narrative because it is important to establish the agent whose point of view orients the narrative text. In the story there are three men, each of whom finds himself in one of the contrasting environments that have a direct influence on Mazvita's life.
However, I will also mention the attitude of the men on the bus from Harare to Mubaira towards their wives. The rapist, although anonymous in the sense that Mazvita cannot see his face during the rape, represents patriarchy and a betrayal of the goals of the story's struggle. Nyenyedzi (literally 'star') symbolically represents the light, however small, at the end of the tunnel of Mazvita's harrowing experiences.
Besides portraying Nyenyedzi in contrast to the other men in Mazvita's life, Nyenyedzi is given the view of the land held by Nehanda. This can be interpreted as an indication of the fact that Mazvita's flight to the city in search of freedom is a futile exercise as the environment of the city is not suitable for a start. The attitudes of the men on the bus from Harare to Mubaira towards their wives and women in general also warrant comment in this chapter.
On this return journey to Mubaira, Mazvita adopts two voices, that is, one is inside her and the other comes from the strange woman on the bus. The story then cuts, in Chapter 21, to Mazvita's memory of what took place in Joel's room and she remembers how the sun licked her face as she woke up "to the stinking smell" of the kerosene heater in the cramped room. Although the story seems to return to the beginning, the effect is open-ended, as there does not seem to be one definitive conclusion to the events of the story.
The didactic meaning of the narrative is that Mazvita (and other victims of rape or sexual abuse) must recover from the abuse she was subjected to, must remember the violation she was subjected to, i.e. return to the past and face the truth about what happened to her. One of Vera's challenges in The Stone Maidens is how to tell part of the narrative from the perspective of the rapist so that the reader can begin to understand how the rapist has been shaped by the history of his country.
CHAPTER THREE The Stone Virgins
In the narrative, we are told that they do not discuss their relationship (154) and that Cephas "does not dare to question his continuity of emotion, of love - a form of incest, loving two sisters" (159). Thus, the novel's final word 'liberation' indicates hope for the future of her female character in the narrative. We are told that the new owner of the house that used to belong to Sibaso's family also.
Embedded in the novel is a dead spider that seems to suggest the weightlessness and death of the old idealism that Sibaso once held. The Stone Virgins show that the murders and the atrocities committed during the period of the dissident movement in Matebeleland must be condemned, regardless of which of the belligerents. By referring to the rural women as the embodiment of independence, Vera celebrates the steadfastness, courage and determination of these women in the absence of the men during the war.
What Vera does with her female soldiers in the story is very important because it contrasts with the ordinary village women who are happy and excited with the return of the male soldiers. Vera's aim in The Stone Virgins is to present in a compelling way the horror of the Matebeleland murders and the severity of the violence perpetrated on her female characters. She said that she considered writing the scene a challenge for her.
Vera's representation of the violence in the entire scene occurs through the togetherness and collaboration between point of view narrative and authorial narrative. As has been mentioned in the previous chapter on Nameless, the rapist's whisper is part of the horror of the rape scene. By alternating between the victim and the perpetrator's focalization in the narrative, Vera gives us a balanced view of the magnitude of the violation and the possible reasons for the perpetrator's brutality.
Having lived in the arid terrain of the Gulati Mountains, Sibaso needs the vitality he seeks in the bodies of Thenjiwe and Nonceba. There is also a strong connection between Sibaso and spiders in the story, even as it shows how Sibaso acquired an intimate knowledge of the natural world. The smell of charred meat filled the air and has remained forever in the minds of the Kezi villagers” (123).
I have also established a connection between speech/utterance and women's agency in all the novels I have discussed. Vera also had to struggle to show that both sides of the warring factions in the Matebeleland massacres were to blame for the suffering of the civilians.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Texts
34; Remembering Violence: Trauma in the Writings of Alexander Kanengoni and Yvonne Vera and the Idea of Irreconcilable Citizenship in Zimbabwe". 34; Writing Beyond the Fact: Fictional Revision of South African Women in History by Yvonne Vera and Lauretta Ngcobo" . 34; Bourgeois Theories of Gender and Feminism and Their Shortcomings in South African Countries".
34; The image and potential power of Mbira and Kwela's rhythms in Yvonne Vera's 'Nameless' and the Burning Butterfly'.
