Relevance of the Portrayal of Masculinity in Ebrahim Hussein’s Plays to the Tanzanian and Kenyan Societies

Abstract

This paper examines the relevance of the portrayal of masculinity in  Ebrahim Hussein’s Kinjeketile and Kwenye Ukingo wa Thim, in  response to the scholarly need to establish the relevance of the literary  portrayal of masculinity in the plays to the Tanzanian and Kenyan  societies. The study is qualitative and adopts Butler’s (1990) Gender Performativity Theory and Connell’s (1995) Gender Order  Theory that  were both used as a framework for reading, analyzing and interpreting  characters’ expressions and performances of  masculinity in the  selected readings. A Constructivist Paradigm was employed, and it  comprised of a number of stages, namely  identification of the plays as  the primary texts, a close reading of the plays and a review of literature  on the gendered portrayals in  Hussein’s plays. The researcher finally  found that the dramatic portrayal of masculinity in Hussein’s  Kinjeketile and Kwenye Ukingo wa  Thim is realistic and relevant to the  Tanzanian and Kenyan societies. Therefore, the present study is very  significant since it gives  significant knowledge of the reality and  relevance of the two dramatic works of art to the Tanzanian and  Kenyan societies with regard to  the dramatic portrayal of masculinity  in them. The study fills the knowledge gap of the relevance of the literary portrayal of the master- servant relationship between  Tanganyikans and the Germans from 1890 to 1904 and the famous  1987 Kenyan ‘Otieno case’, and how  masculinity was represented both  positively and negatively in both cases.