ABSTRACT
What runs through the undoing of ideologies discussed previously, as well as through the privileging of the position of the outsider in Marechera’s work, is the empowerment of the individual over the collective. Chapter 6 draws on the findings of the first five chapters to show that Marechera demands a triumph of the self over the masses. To do this, there is an examination of the tension between the self and the community and Marechera’s championing of the will of the individual. Noting Marechera’s illustration of how collectives can be destabilised by the beliefs and ideologies they themselves propose, this chapter shows that Marechera appeals to a particular understanding of the relationship between self and society – one that requires the individual and the masses to be ceaselessly and simultaneously attached and detached. What Marechera yearns for is a community composed of a collection of independent entities – a transgressive collective body that connects the self to the masses without demanding any sacrifice of self-interest. Such a society is necessarily composed of a constellation of individuals that abandon morality (understood as the law of others) in favour of an affirmative ethics that demands full responsibility is taken by an individual for their behaviour within society. It is argued that this sense of freedom sits at the core of Marechera’s utopian thinking.
