Fact and fiction in Thomas Mofolo`s Chaka

This study examined and analysed the use of historical facts in Thomas Mofolos Chaka. It used fryes theory of mythoi, which refers to the four narrative patterns, to interrogative the relationship between fiction and the historical figure it purports to fictionalize. Frye contends that a human beings project their narrative imaginations into two fundamental ways: the representation of an ideal world and the representation of the real world. Fryes theory is used to account for the characterization and narrative progression of Chaka. Additionally, historical criticism has been employed to determine the relationship between the fictional representation and the original historical context. The study has established that in Mofolos work the legendary Chaka of the Zulu is presented in both the ideal world where he is fictionalized and becomes a character in the story and in the study and in the real world; the basis of the historical facts about Chaka that renders credence to the fictional account. The analysis of the novel as the primary text and non-fiction texts as co- texts such as historical books helped to establish that Mofolo`s Chaka is hybrid of history and fiction. In creating this novel, Mofolo uses some of the historical facts and mixes them with fictional feasts. This demonstrates that reproduction of historical accounts in Chaka should be read more as a fictional account subjected to the rules of narrative progression and characterization than as a true historical account of the life of Chaka in narrative form.