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    The Letter

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    derrick marfo
    The document provides background on Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga and summarizes her short story "The Letter". The story is set in apartheid South Africa and follows an unnamed woman who receives a letter from her husband after 12 years of forced separation. Security forces had wanted to arrest the husband for his political activism. Upon receiving the letter asking her to join him, security agencies search the woman's room, find the letter, and arrest her for treason. The document discusses themes of oppression, censorship, and the harsh treatment of political dissidents under apartheid rule.

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    The Letter

    Uploaded by

    derrick marfo
    194 views10 pages
    The document provides background on Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga and summarizes her short story "The Letter". The story is set in apartheid South Africa and follows an unnamed woman who receives a letter from her husband after 12 years of forced separation. Security forces had wanted to arrest the husband for his political activism. Upon receiving the letter asking her to join him, security agencies search the woman's room, find the letter, and arrest her for treason. The document discusses themes of oppression, censorship, and the harsh treatment of political dissidents under apartheid rule.

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    The document provides background on Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga and summarizes her short story "The Letter". The story is set in apartheid South Africa and follows an unnamed woman who receives a letter from her husband after 12 years of forced separation. Security forces had wanted to arrest the husband for his political activism. Upon receiving the letter asking her to join him, security agencies search the woman's room, find the letter, and arrest her for treason. The document discusses themes of oppression, censorship, and the harsh treatment of political dissidents under apartheid rule.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    194 views10 pages

    The Letter

    Uploaded by

    derrick marfo
    The document provides background on Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga and summarizes her short story "The Letter". The story is set in apartheid South Africa and follows an unnamed woman who receives a letter from her husband after 12 years of forced separation. Security forces had wanted to arrest the husband for his political activism. Upon receiving the letter asking her to join him, security agencies search the woman's room, find the letter, and arrest her for treason. The document discusses themes of oppression, censorship, and the harsh treatment of political dissidents under apartheid rule.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    THE LETTER

    TSITSI DANGAREMBGA
    THE AUTHOR
    • She was born in Zimbabwe on 14 February but she spent her
    early life in England while her parents pursued graduate
    studies.
    • She is a playwright, a novelist and a film producer. She has
    written three novels: Nervous Conditions, The Book of Not and
    This Mournable Body.
    • She has been arrested a few times for her political activism.
    THE AUTHOR
    • Her works have the recurrent theme of alienation and its
    pervasiveness in the lives of women.
    • She also deals with the liberating quality of education.
    Education empowers through knowledge and skills.
    • “The Letter” deals with the oppressive nature of some political
    and social systems
    SYNOPSIS
    • The story is set in Apartheid South Africa. A family is separated
    because security forces want to arrest the husband who
    escaped outside the country.
    • After twelve years of silence, the wife receives a letter from a
    letter from the husband indicating where he was and asking the
    wife to join him.
    • In the evening, the woman received a visit from the security
    agencies who searched her room, found the letter and arrested
    her for treason.
    THEMES
    • The story is mainly about oppression in a dictatorial regime:
    • The harassment of black people deemed to be subversive.
    Some of them are killed, imprisoned and others reported as
    missing. Receiving a personal letter can be taken as
    subversion.
    • The separation of loved ones – fathers, sons and uncles – from
    their families.
    • The loneliness and the anxiety of spouses as to where their
    partners are, whether they are being unfaithful or whether they
    are alive or dead.
    THEMES
    • The physical and mental abuse of political prisoners.
    • The poor living conditions of those living under oppression.
    • Blacks serving as maids and servants to the Boers.
    • The interception and opening of personal letters.
    2. The desire to communicate to the outside world the plight of
    those living under oppressive regimes.
    3. The fate of those who decide to protest against the oppressive
    system.
    POINT OF VIEW
    • The story is told from the first person point of view. It is told from
    the wife’s point of view.
    • This is realistic because she is telling the story of her own life.
    She does not glorify her life because she confesses her
    infidelity to the reader.
    • She also admits that she and her husband became political
    activists for which the husband was declared wanted which led
    to his going into self-exile.
    TIME
    • The story has not been arranged in chronological order. The
    story begins with the receipt of the husband’s letter.
    • The narrator then goes back in time to explain how she and her
    husband were separated. Then she narrates what happened
    after she got the letter.
    SETTING
    • The story is set in Apartheid South Africa.
    • The story mentions homelands which represents any of the ten
    self-governing areas in South Africa designated for particular
    indigenous African peoples under the policy of apartheid.
    • Townships also mentioned in the story were areas designated
    under apartheid legislation for exclusive occupation by people
    classified as blacks, coloreds and Indians.
    CHARACTERIZATION
    • The husband.
    • The wife.
    • The apartheid system with its brutal security system.

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