| dc.description.abstract | The thesis examines the style of ten short stories by three of Kenya's pioneer writers in that form.The study has been prompted by a lack of any serious critical attention paid to the genre in this country, yet it is the one form that renders itself easily to production in dailies, weeklies, magazines, periodicals and journals. Unlike its sister, the novel, it does not require a lot of space to communicate meaningfully and aesthetically; nor does it demand of the author the kind of external complexity that is synonymous with a good novel. The result of this is the story's popularity with writers and publishers of periodicals which form the story's favourite venue. Ironically, the deceptive simplicity responsible for the genre's popularity is the very cause for its avoidance by literary critics who view the finished works in this form as not being able to stand up to the rigours of critical appreciation.
In this study, we are focusing our attention on style because that is the one essential element that can lend authority to anything we can say the short story is since the genre treats the same themes as those that are to be found in the novel.
One major objective is to analyse each writer's style in terms of the special way each one uses words to enhance point-of view, setting, tone and mood and to suggest the meaning of the work. Another objective is to highlight the various points of departure in the three authors' approach to the short story through analysis of the style of each. A final objective is to arrive at what one can, with relative confidence, define as a short story in Kenya, basing the conclusion on style.
The study has used library research as the dominant methodology. This has been necessitated by the nature of the task at hand: analysing the style of the ten selected stories in the larger context of literary studies on the short story as a form. Nonetheless, the study has also been enriched by views, information and observations collected from one writer-Grace Ogot - a relative and a friend of Kibera and Ngugi respectively. Open discussions were used to collect this information.
The theses is in four chapters. These chapters have been presented in such a way that each author's works are given a chapter of their own under a heading that highlights the author's peculiarity: "Elasticity in Prose", "A Genre on Trial and "Dream and Reality" for Ngugi, Kibera and Grace Ogot respectively. In this way, we have been able to focus on each writer's style in
detail, highlighting those elements of the short story adhered to or ignored, the
stylistic devices used and the final achievement. The approach has been adopted as the only way to avoid over generalizations. The method has also enabled us to come up with what appears to be each individual author's idiosyncrasy.
The thesis has two main achievements: it has introduced the study of the short story as a genre to Kenya's literary studies and that it has done so from an approach that is unique- analysing style. The conclusion - that the short story is at its best when allowed to focus intently on one main character, one setting both in time and space, one theme and to operate along one strong story line - is reached by purely examining the three authors' artistry. Thus, using style, the thesis has been able to demonstrate the richness of the short story both as a medium for social commentary and as an aesthetically satisfying entity. | en |
