Published Paper Details:

An art form constituting the interlocution of human psyche, emotions, subtlety and other forms of creativity confirming the mastery over artistic merit can be accounted as literature. In this aspect, literature evokes rationale and critical thinking in human psyche. Furthermore, literature connects the readers through various modes of literary composition and enriches social consciousness and aesthetic appreciation at the peripheries. Being located between the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn, Africa as a nation consists various ethnicities who would sensitise the sensibilities of nationhood irrespective of cultural diversity. Moreover, African Literature addresses the issues of slave trade, gender discrimination, racism and embodies literary aspects on slave narratives, postcolonial perspectives and trauma narratives prior to colonization. With the emergence of literary theories, psychoanalytic criticism facilitates the reader in analysing the psyche of characters in literary texts. In this view, Zakes Mda, South African novelist depicts the Post-apartheid South Africa in one of his works Ways of Dying. Toloki, the predominant character, was marginalized and traumatized by the society finds solace in his own community. The chief motive of the paper is to analyse the traumatic events encountered by Toloki in his lifetime in the violent city of South Africa.