Narrative Reconstruction of War History in Maaza Mengiste’s the Shadow King

Abstract

The study set out to interrogate the narrative strategies Maaza Mengiste employs in The Shadow King to re-image and re-imagine Ethiopia as a nation. The study sought to achieve two objectives: To interrogate the narrative techniques and aesthetic processes used to reconstruct and re-image the history of Ethiopia and to examine and discuss the role and portrayal of women in the second Italo-Ethiopian war as captured in the text. The study sought to prove the two hypotheses: That the writer (re)constructs history of the second Italo-Ethiopian War by employing a variety of narrative techniques in the text and that the text paints war as a program that allowed Ethiopian women to claim and exercise agency by taking on hitherto masculine roles. The writer employs a variety of narrative techniques to re-image and reconstruct the history of the Second Italo-Ethiopian war. The study was guided by two theories: the theory of narratives (Narratology) and Feminist criticism. The theory of Narratology guided me in studying the narrative strategies at play in the reconstruction of the history of Ethiopia as manifest in this novel. Feminist criticism with a specific focus on the principles of Black feminism helped me to critically analyze the issues raised in the text concerning the role and position of women in the second Italo-Ethiopian war which has been historically patriarchal in nature. Feminism also helped me to examine the issue of gender relations in the text. The study achieved its objectives and proved its hypotheses to be true. My study recommends that further research be done on the text by interrogating how; through the narrative strategies, the text situates itself within conflict resolution and national development discussions both in Ethiopia and across the African continent.