Browsing by Author "Haile Gezae"

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    Interfacing Fact and Fiction in Tower in the Sky and The Emperor: A New Historicist Reading
    (Addis Ababa University, 2021-06) Haile Gezae; Olga Yazbec
    This dissertation explores the interfacing of fact and fiction in two Ethiopian creative nonfictions, "The Emperor" (1978) and "Tower in the Sky" (2012). The main objective of the study is to examine the line and relationship between fact and fiction, thereby understanding and gaining more insight into a new historical method of presenting history in the context of creative nonfiction. In order to achieve this objective, an attempt is made to review relevant literature in relation to new historicism and the subject texts. In addition to this, the new historicist approach to literary texts is used as the study’s theoretical framework. New historicism purports that literature must be studied and interpreted within the context of the historical background and context of the time of production in order to evaluate how the text was influenced by the time in which it was created. Using this basic assumption as an initial point, the study examines the stories presented in these texts so as to find out how they are affected by situations in the times they were created and how their fact/fiction, dual nature is reflected in the process. However, this tension of classification seems not new. There are examples that combine approaches and processes, and mix life writing with history, novels with memoir and journalistic writing with fictional narrative, which in turn made the line blurry and the works hybrid. The focus of this study is thus examining how the facts and fiction mixed and made the line between them blurry in selected life narratives. Accordingly, the study attempts to analyze and interpret the two texts in light of Greenblatt’s New Historicist theory, mainly focusing on major paradigms such as textuality of history and historicity of text, and reveals postmodern concerns about re-writing history. The findings reveal that both Hiwot’s and Kapuscinski’s narratives portray the narrative of history and change its closed linear nature into multiple discontinuous histories. The narratives have unmasked the textuality and historicity of the texts; and hence the textualization of the books shows the ideological embeddedness of our knowledge about the past. The authors have explored the connections between literature, history, and the organization of social and cultural power relations through both utilizing and trying to challenge historical authorities and facts. As such, their works indicate that the experiential history of narrating subjects always blurs the line between fact and fiction. Hence, it can be said that there is an inseparable unity of discourse, history and imagination in both texts. The study’s findings further indicate that both authors are more concerned with marginalized histories of marginalized people. Based on this, with a vast array of characters and overflowing with incidents, the life writings re-create a new version of history with fused personal and political narratives. In addition to this, Kapuscinski has undergone a process of self-fashioning in which he was first a reporter (correspondents), and then showed himself up as a creative writer, whereas, Hiwot, who was influenced by the environment and time In conclusion, the two texts prove that both the historian and life writer maintain using both literary and historical mechanisms in their attempts to craft images of reality.
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    Narrative Time and Mode in Minkuhkuwah Zeyfleyelu Mae’tso and Hezike Nabey
    (Addis Ababa University, 2013-05) Haile Gezae ; Olga Yazbec
    This thesis tries to explore the structure and application of the major narrative techniques in Minkuhkuwah Zeyfleyelu Mae’tso and Hezike Nabey novels. In this respect the main aim of the thesis is identifying the major narrative techniques used in the selected books and analysing the recurring techniques and their structure. To accomplish the objective of the thesis, I have tried to review related and relevant literature regarding narratology. Thus, an attempt has been made to go through the two selected books in accordance with the application of the narrative techniques and their structures. Due attention has been given in application of narrative time and mode. In the analysis part, it is pointed out that in respect to narrative time, the two literary texts partake similar narrative time. The stories in these novels are presented in the form of long flashback and symbolic foreshadowing. Because of this, the reader might find him/her self, connecting incidents of information in the process of reading. Thus, this unnatural flow of events made them similar to achronological order of time. Speed up or acceleration is the second narrative time technique explored under narrative time with short discourse time and long story time. Both novels are presented through acceleration technique. Regarding frequency, it is found out that they have portrayed similar techniques. With dominancy of singulative presentation, both novels employed iterative and repetitive techniques. Hence, both novels happen to have similar structure in respect to narrative time. In both literary texts the amalgamations of different techniques helped the writers to stress on thematically concerned areas. Similarly, by employing the third person omniscient narrator, both narratives made the reader a passive recipient of information since every point is forwarded from the narrator’s perspective. On the other hand, some minor differences in narrative mode have been observed between the two novels. Comparatively, except in some very rare instances, Minkuhkuwah Zeyfleyelu Mae’tso employ very small amount of scenic presentation unlike Hezike Nabey. So, the use of summary and scenic presentation has direct and indirect significances on the theme. Generally from the analysis of the two novels, it can be concluded that they have employed similar narrative time techniques and slightly different narrative modes.