GOOD MORNING LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.

TODAY LET US FOCUS ON *COMING OF THE DRY SEASON*.

I THANK YOU ALL.

Coming if the dry season z a classical piece timeless on its approach

It can be viewed as both a collection of short stories or a continuous novel that depict the life of a boy
from childhood till they die

Coming of the dry season is a novel with ten different stories.The stories deal with several issues that
affect not only Zimbabwe but Africa as a whole in today's world.

Education is viewed as a vehicle to success but Mungoshi presents a negative side of formal education to
Africans esp during colonial periods.Social alienation and ostracization result from this formal / modern
education.

All the titles are capitalised, I wonder why? Is it a technique or?

l do not see use of upper case on titles as a technique.This could have been editor or publisher's choice.

The various stories depict that element of dryness in the lives of Zimbabweans which resulted from
colonialism eg unemployment, broken familial ties, prostitution, etc

Looking at the story "Hero" the title is hotly debatable, can we really term it ironic or the title suits the
story. Is Julius a hero?

It is a coming of age story that chronicles various challenges in the lives of the general populace and
individuals.the dry season is symbolic of the stagnation,lack of purpose, shattered dreams, hopelessness
etc

Yes the title is ironic

. Julius "heroic" of rebellion leads to his expulsion from school...As he heads home he is doubtful of his
future .Did his heroic act get recognition.?YES ....but negatively way..The hero status he hoped to
achieve degraded him in the eyes of his peers ....

Irony is there ,I think he is a hero to some extent as he manages to challenge the system but with
disastrous results .
From a different angle l would think Julius is a tragic hero, he earned the name Julius little ceasar
because of his courage, he able to confront the system which is exploitative, what could be however
amiss is his downfall, thus l see the story fitting Aristotle's traits of a hero, yes he is not a man of high
status but his character is admirable, he is the cause of his downfall, he fails to have an introspection of
himself, thus he falls at the end

_In The Accident, the author avoids saying directly that the accident victim had no money to buy clothes
but gives you a lengthy description of how haggard the man's shoes are and how dirty his underwear
is....(understatement)_

The stories can also be grouped into 2 segments on the basis of theme and setting. The 1st segment
comprises 5 stories dealing with characters living in rural world which is undergoing changes. These are:
Shadows on the wall,The Crow, The Mountain, The Hero and the Setting Sun and the Rolling World.

Julius can also be an Okonkwo in miniature. His courage to confront the system is "rash" and leads to his
expulsion and an uncertain future in a hostile socio-political environment. Nevertheless, l think his fall is
the necessary sacrifice needed to take on the system head on

The second segment,characters are seeking meaningful existence in hostile urban environment. These
are: The Lift,The Ten Shillings, Coming of the dry season, S.O.S from the past and accidents

Depiction of poverty

One of the main themes in the book is cruelty and injustice of life in the colonial era .

The name Gwati Moab in the story Coming of the dry season could be apt naming to comment on the
'crusty' meagre kind of salary and life he lives

The affluence of the white man in The Accident is implied by the car he is driving and by the fact that he
is a stranger in this part of town. The story is not entirely about the Accident but about black-white
relations and how they are strained by the problem of misreading of non-verbal signs and failure to read
the linguistic signs. The black on lookers misread the European motorist who comes out of his car to
check on the Accident victim while he waits for the police...pg 56-57.

Cultural, ideological conflict in ‘Coming of the Dry Season

Colonial education creates individuals who, because of lack of belonging, are alienated from their
families and communities.

CONFLICT, according to Devito (1992:243), “refers to disagreements … between or among connected

individuals, close friends, lovers or family members”, and as posited by Simons (1986:23), it (conflict) is
“a clash of interests in which one party’s gain is another’s lose”.
Ideology, as postulated by Cayne (1988), is a body of ideas used in support of an economic, political or
social theory; the way of thinking of a class, culture or individual.

In the light of the above it is imperative to note that for a compromise to be reached there should be
conflicting parties, whose values and norms, though averse, may be used to enrich either part.

As such, though each part may be striving to gain an upper hand in the outcome, there need not
necessarily be antagonism or hostility, as subscribed by the pathological theory which scoffs at conflict.
Though conflicting parties may express disgust at each other to the point of scuffling, they are not foes
per se as they might share some common ground.

In “Coming of the Dry Season” (1972), Charles Mungoshi explores the nature of ideological and cultural
conflict which exposes the individual as he/she tries to locate himself/herself in the national discourse.
Using the metaphors of drought, the setting sun, and the rolling world, the writer exposes conflict at the
personal, family, community and national platforms.

The setting sun, which is symbolic of the old order, whose fortunes are on the decline, is juxtaposed with
the new world which is on a roller coaster, as symbolised by the metaphor of the rolling world.
However, as these two conflicting worlds try to merge they encounter a void, which is metaphorically
apt in the dry season of their toils. This is especially so because of ideological differences.

The cultural and ideological differences are not only a result of the generational gap that exists between
parents and their children, but are also a culmination of colonial deprivation through Western
education. Colonial education creates individuals who, because of lack of belonging, are alienated from
their families and communities.

In their struggle for identity, these individuals fail to appreciate the traditional norms and values of their
people and at the same time cannot be consumed into the alien culture of the imperialist, as they know
little about it.

In the story “The Mountain”, Chemai, who like the Old Man and Moab’s mother in “The Setting Sun and
the Rolling World” and “Coming of the Dry Season” respectively, epitomises the old world with its roots
firmly stack in African traditional norms and values, finds himself at pains to defend his culture.
His friend Nharo, as his name may suggest, belongs to the new whirlwind sweeping across the African
landscape, like Mari and Moab. His ebullient and daredevil nature is not only characteristic of youth, but
is a culmination of Western education as he is in Form 2. It is the latter that puts him at loggerheads with
Chemai, an exponent of untainted traditional norms.

Chemai’s belief in the existence of the supernatural in determining destiny and a people’s way of life is
scoffed at by the cantankerous and all knowing Nharo who clings to scantily discernible scientific
explanations to phenomena; and the role of the individual in steering destiny.

In the end, however, although he is not convinced that white miners abandoned their operations on the
mountain considered sacred by his people, because angered ancestral spirits caused their mines to fill
up with water, Nharo is scared of the goat that follows them. Unable to explain its existence in scientific
terms, he finds solace in the traditional herbs administered by his grandmother to cleanse him of evil
spirits.

The metaphorically titled story “The setting Sun and the Rolling World”, pits a father, Old Musoni against
his son, Nhamo, who believe

The Effects of Colonial Education in Coming of the Dry Season

Valerie Braman, Class of 2000.5, English 119, Brown University

Part 7 of "Education as a Means of (Post) Colonial Control in the Literature of Zimbabwe and Singapore:
A Theoretical and Literary Analysis"

Charles Mungoshi's collection of short stories, Coming of the Dry Season, provides a series of vignettes
of life in colonial Rhodesia and postcolonial Zimbabwe. Some critics have argued that the text as a whole
functions as one cohesive novel, with characters, issues, and themes remaining consistent throughout
the ten chapters. While to this author, the text of Coming of the Dry Season seems to defy classification
as a novel, it is important to note that several themes do in fact recur within the stories of the text. As a
discussion and often an indictment of the colonial systems of governance and power set up in
Zimbabwe, as well as their effects on the colonized subjects' relationships to each other and to their
traditional ways of life and belief, the topic of education comes up frequently throughout the different
stories and situations in this text. The establishment of education as the way for children to find better
lives and opportunities for both themselves and their families, the creation of a social system in which
the educated are granted higher status than those without schooling, and a created alienation between
those who are educated in the English tradition and their own cultures are each illustrated in several of
Mungoshi's tales.

In "The Mountain," the narrator immediately establishes the fact that how far a student progresses in
school is a status marker between peers:

We were the same age although I bossed him because I was in Form Two while he had gone only as far
as Standard Two. He had to stop because his father, who didn't believe in school anyway, said he could
not get the money to send Chemai to a boarding school. We had grown up together and had become
great friends but now I tolerated him only for old time's sake and because there was no one within miles
who could be friends with me. Someone who had gone to school, I mean. (Mungoshi, 15)

The school to which this character refers is obviously one that comes from an imported, English
background. Mungoshi is careful to point out that these boys were friends on an equal level until they
entered into this alien school system, and that it was the values and social hierarchies imposed by this
institution that created the rift between them. The impetus to socialize with someone becomes not that
you share interests or a common background, but rather that you are both involved in this educational
apparatus. Here, the effect of removing traditional, indigenous networks of value and social behavior
from the colonized subject in favor of those of the colonizing powers is clear. Further evidence of the
competing value systems lies in the fact that Chemai's father did not believe in schooling, apparently
favoring more traditional Zimbabwean methods of education in the ways of the home and the family. As
in several of the other works we have seen, the prohibitive cost of education in this system is also a
factor and serves to further stratify social and economic classes on the basis of educational access.

Chemai, too, recognizes the differences that education (or, the lack of it) has created between his friend
and himself. He, having left school, speaks with and believes in the stories of his people, justifying his
words with such statements as "All the people say so" (15). He knows that his friend feels superior to
him in terms of knowledge and the right to speak and be believed, as he exclaims, "You know it's true
but just because you have been to school you think you know better" (15). Clear rifts are being
illustrated here between the life and beliefs of those who have been educated in the colonial schools,
and those who have not. Still, the narrator clings to his notions of superiority and the absolute truth of
all that he was taught in school.

The boy begins to waver in his confidence,