Themes on Selected Kiswahili Texts on HIV and AIDS

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume III, Issue VIII, August 2019 | ISSN 2454–6186

Themes on Selected Kiswahili Texts on HIV and AIDS

Wasike Charles, Mosol Kandagor and Samuel Obuchi
Department of Kiswahili and Other African Languages, Moi University, Kenya

Abstract:-The HIV and AIDS scourge has been in our society for more than three decades and during that duration, more than 34 million people have been affected by the disease in the world. In addition, according to UNAIDS (2012) more than 18 million people have died. Initially the HIV and AIDS disease caused a lot of destruction in the history of mankind. This paper sought to assess how figures of speech and style have been used to present themes regarding HIV and AIDS in selected Kiswahili Literature works. The themes were generated from ten Kiswahili Literary works that cuts across three different genres that were used in this study namely; novels, plays and short stories. The selected works from the three genres gave the researcher appropriate data for this study. The study was carried in the library and employed content analysis as a method of data collection. This study has established that despite the differences in the genres and style, different artists have similar themes that are presented regarding HIV and AIDS.

Key words: Themes, literature, genres, community, scourge

I. INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW

The concept of themes has been addressed by different scholars with an attempt to make it well understood. According to Masebo and Nyangwine (2008) a theme is a main idea that is espoused in works of literature. The two authors argue that the themes originate from the society. According to them, themes could be political, economic or cultural in nature. According to Wamitila (2002), the concept of themes is used to refer to the topic, content and a specific objective of a specific work of art. However, there are different approaches and dimensions of using themes in a special way to refer to a concept or an aspect that comes up and is developed by works of literature.
Themes refer to the total meaning that an author and readers discover in course of writing and reading respectively. We can get the meaning of a specific work of art by reading that work carefully and keenly by identifying the relationship between sections and how those sections relate to build a specific work of art. There are some critics who argue that the meaning of a particular work of art is not in the work itself but is generated by readers themselves.

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