The Silent
Text: Symbolism amidst Political Disillusionment in Luangala's On a Campaign Trail[1]
Gankhanani
Moffat Moyo
University
of Zambia, Zambia
Abstract
The
paper discusses symbolism in John Luangala’s short story ‘On a Campaign Trail’.
It begins with an examination of symbolism and how it is employed in literary
texts. The work then focuses on the short story and identifies that symbolism
has been employed in two ways: firstly the text as a symbol and secondly
individual symbols are in the text. While the text as a symbol has been tied to
the author of the work, the other two symbols are physical items identified in
the text. The two identified symbols have also been seen to have multiple
interpretations subjected to them. It has finally been concluded that the
symbols employed by Luangala are centred on showing how much the author is
disillusioned with modern-day politics.
Keywords: symbolism, politics, literature, society
[1] Paper first presented to the Department of Literature and Languages,
University of Zambia, on 29 January 2015 in the language lab as part of the
departmental seminar series
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