An Analysis of the Narrative Techniques Employed in Yusuf K. Dawood's Novels

Abstract

This study analyses the narrative techniques employed in Yusuf K. Dawood's novels insofar as they illuminate his views regarding love and marriage, self-identity, tribalism and racism, greed and corruption. We have analyzed his characterization as a significant technique of narration with a view to highlighting the novelist's approval of inter-cultural marriages as a guarantee to a cohesive society and as a way of gaining self-identity in the face of identity crisis. The issue of lovelessness in marriage and Dawood's view of the permanency of the conjugal union have also been tackled by focusing on characters drawn from varying cultural backgrounds. Dawood's views concerning self-identity are extensively analyzed in a chapter titled, "The Motif of Identity." We have concluded that his triple heritage plays a role in his concern with integration and assimilation as avenues of guaranteeing an identity. The novelist's criticism of modern vices is analyzed by specifically focusing on his use of sharp satiric descriptive focus. Such vices as negative ethnicity, greed and corruption have been pointed out. We conclude that despite his Indian extraction, Dawood's fiction has a social relevance in Kenya. Equally although the works are set in Kenya, they also have a universal significance, since the issues he focuses on, also appeal to consumers of his fiction the world over.