Unnaming and mis/naming as a thematic strategy in Bulawayo's We need new names and Tagwira's The Uncertainty of Hope

Abstract

Previously, names in literary contexts were generally treated as peripheral lexical items or mere identity tags for the personages and geo-spaces in texts. Yet, recently, the subject has become a polemical one, accorded much scholarly attention as evident in a remarkable upsurge of fascinating examination of literary names and a profound increase in academic conversations about naming practices in fictive landscapes. What is more interesting is the argument that names in fictive discourse are an inherent and indispensable part of the textual composition which contributes to the overall semantics of the text. Drawing from this realisation, the study further explores the premise that naming is not arbitrary but rather, a salient and (sub) conscious artistic technique that provides significant semiotic avenues for the articulation and signification of nuanced and dynamic meanings. This study interrogates the stylistic, thematic functions and semantic possibilities of some toponyms, anthroponyms and charactonyms in selected contemporary Zimbabwean novels from an onomastic perspective. The study proposes that onomastics could offer critical and refreshing interpretive insights aimed to provide rich avenues of reading and decoding thematic preoccupations in the chosen novels.