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QUESTION 1: “Because satire often combines anger and humour it can be profoundly disturbing-because it is essentially ironic or sarcastic,it is often misunderstood”.Do you agree?Argue with close reference to events and characters in Oyono’s Houseboy and Eppel’s Absent:The English Teacher.
This statement is correct as the writers satirical motive can often be misunderstood by the audience.Both Oyono and Eppel are political satirists and their use of irony and humour which can be described as controversial,as both these writers are making an important political statement about colonialism and post-colonialism in Africa;specifically in countries such as Cameroon (The houseboy) and Zimbabwe …show more content…
When you meet him you don't lift your ht but your skirt’.Oyono represents this instance through the character of Sophie.Sophie’s relationship with the agricultural engineer,Sophie represents the powerlessness of African women however her relationship with the engineer breaks the barriers between white and black and disproves colonial beliefs regarding ‘natives’ as primitive and the white superiority.A ‘relationship’ with a white man was a technique of protection as it was in the form of a job,Sophie’s description of her relationship with engineer would seem inappropriate and crude as she sates ‘Fuck this country and fuck him.It makes me sick when I think of all time I’ve been going with the uncircumcised sod and what have I made out of it?’ but it is misunderstood as a black women had to ‘obey’ and had no control and rights over the relationship.However in Eppel’s novel Beauticias is a representation of post-colonial Zimbabwe unlike Oyono’s novel is a women of power especially over George.J.George but Beauticious is not a good representation of post-colonial Zimbabwe.Beauticious uses George.J.George in order to revenge on colonialist as she states ‘Beauticious talked to George for most part in what Rhodesians called ‘Kitchen Kaffir’…because that is how she remembered being talked to by white people as a girl’ but employs her distant relative as a servant as the character Joseph is employed as her gardener. ‘Beauticious employed a distant relative called Joseph…he stayed in the