Contradiction of Action and Inaction: A Reading of Selected Absurd Mini-Narratives in Ruganda’s Plays

Abstract

This article focuses on the absurd mini-narratives in John Ruganda’s three plays—The Burdens (1972), Black Mamba (1973) and Shreds of Tenderness (2001)—whose intertwining struggles communicate the desire for progress among the characters even as reality consigns them to regression. This article argues that the progress or regression in the three plays stems from omissions and commissions because the actions and inactions of the characters in the three plays determine their destinies. Sharp contrasts/paradoxes/absurdities stare with precision in the faces of the main characters whose embrace of Eurocentric cultures such as monogamy and capitalism have made them fail to coexist. Jean-Francois Leotard’s postmodernist theoretical ideas of mini-narratives are key here to unravelling this glaring paradox. Lyotard theorised that 'Grand Narratives' of progress and human perfectability are no longer tenable, and the best we can hope for is a series of 'mini-narratives', which are provisional, contingent, temporary, and relative and which provide a basis for the actions of specific groups in particular local circumstances. This article contends that the strivings of the characters in the selected plays under review come to naught, thus the absurd reality inherent in the condition of the characters. This article thus surmises that art and reality are conjoined twins in the selected plays and the characters’ actions enable this researcher to make a commentary on the human condition.