Zenzele a Letter for My Daughter

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Zenzele A letter for My Daughter In Zenzele A Letter for My Daughter, Shiri shares her wisdom and the experiences that come with it with her daughter, Zenzele, who has rejected cultural traditions to welcome Western influence. Shiri is afraid that the Westernized culture of the United States will threaten Zenzele into living a life independent of Zimbabwe culture. After reading the short story about Mukoma Bryon, it becomes apparent to the reader that one of Shiri’s major motives for writing the letter to her daughter was to remind her about the importance of Zimbabwe culture and persuade her not to make the same decisions as Mukoma Bryon. However at the same time, she is filled with deep love towards Zenzele and understands her fondness of Western ideology. In a way, this letter is just as important to Shiri as it is to Zenzele because while it provides the motherly advice that Zenzele will always treasure, it also gives Shiri a fighting chance to convince Zenzele to intertwine her education abroad with the roots of her home country and ancestors. Ever since Zenzele was a kid, she would debate with her mother about many things, much of the time about their culture and other times about the world around her. She had always been looking for answers, wanting to explore and understand everything she could. Even her mother had a hard time keeping up with her in a conversation. She said, “In your company, I often feel blind, groping for firm objects, hesitant lest I collide with some obstacle I cannot characterize, let alone surmount” (Maraire 4). Zenzele has this burning desire for knowledge that her mother could not fathom and this desire was forged during the time between Shiri’s and Zenzele’s generation. Shiri often thought to herself, “It was as if I had skipped through some critical developmental milestone in the metamorphoses from precolonial clone

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