REPRESENTATIONS OF FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION IN NGUGI WA THIONG’O’s THE RIVER BETWEEN, HENRY OLE KULET’s BLOSSOMS OF THE SAVANNAH AND MARY KAROORO OKURUT’s THE SWITCH

Abstract

This study explores the representations of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s The River Between (1965), Henry Ole Kulet’s Blossoms of the Savannah (2008) and Mary Karooro Okurut’s The Switch (2016). In these three novels I explored the ways in which the authors variously represent different shades of the practice that has come to be known as FGM. I investigated why the fictional communities depicted in the selected novels engage in FGM practice and established how FGM affects characters individually and collectively. I also examined the narrative techniques the authors use to represent the practice and effects of FGM in the selected novels. The key method I used to obtain data is a close reading of the primary texts which included Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s The River Between (1965), Henry Ole Kulet’s Blossoms of the Savannah (2008) and Mary Karooro Okurut’s The Switch (2016). The secondary texts were also consulted both print and electronic from relevant works written by other scholars. I collected data with the guidance of the research objectives. The study involved the examination of documents guided by a textual checklist as the major research instrument. This study adopted the cultural feminist theory. In the study, I discover that different communities engage in FGM as a way to regulate their women’s sexual behaviour and as a norm to transform them from childhood to adulthood. Different individuals and communities are affected in different ways, some individuals have lost their lives while others though they may heal from physical wounds still undergo psychological trauma. The practice has also created space for diseases like cancer and fistula. Victims of such diseases usually have pus coming from their private parts especially in the advanced stage of infection acquired as a result of FGM. They die painful deaths due to mutilation of their female genitals. The authors have tactfully used techniques like diction, setting and description among others to clearly bring out their different messages. I recommend the human rights advocators to sensitize the communities on how best they can ably control female genital mutilation within families and NCDC (National Curriculum development Centre) should make the literary texts under study set books in order to sensitize the students on Female Genital Mutilation.