This article explores the theme of contact and clash of two cultures, that of the Basotho tradition and Western civilisation in Mafata’s novel Mehaladitwe ha e eketheha. Mafata encourages the promotion of the Basotho culture and a move for the Basotho to reaffirm their identity. In Mafata’s efforts to articulate the contact and clash of the two cultures, the author has employed young characters as a tool for portraying his artistic message. The article demonstrates the author’s characterisation technique that entails creating two different sets of characters – characters endowed with attributes of indigenous Basotho culture and characters dominated by European culture. When Theko goes to the Basotho initiation school, he is reclaiming Basotho identity for the Mohlakeng community; he symbolises the youth of Mohlakeng. His cousin Kgama, on the other hand, symbolises Western sympathies because he goes to a missionary school. Since Kgama and Sentebaleng who both attend the Western-oriented school are young people, their lives are easily disrupted and taken over by new self-identities. Once their original identities are erased, they are lost and cannot talk about their cultural identity. The original identities of Theko, Dipuo and Dibakiso, on the other hand, are not erased as they symbolise their Basotho culture.

中文翻译：

---

Mafata的小说《 Mehaladitwe ha e eketheha》中巴索托文化与西方文化的接触与冲突

本文探讨了Mafata的小说《 Mehaladitwe ha eketheha》中巴索托传统和西方文明这两种文化的接触与冲突的主题。Mafata鼓励推广巴索托文化，并采取行动重申巴索托的身份。在Mafata努力表达两种文化的接触和冲突的过程中，作者采用了年轻人物作为刻画他的艺术信息的工具。本文演示了作者的刻画技术，该技术需要创建两个不同的字符集-具有土著巴索托文化特征的字符和以欧洲文化为主的字符。当Theko进入Basotho入门学校时，他正在为Mohlakeng社区重新获得Basotho身份；他象征着Mohlakeng的青春。他的堂兄Kgama，另一方面，象征着西方的同情，因为他去了一所教会学校。由于都参加西方学校的Kgama和Sentebaleng是年轻人，因此他们的生活很容易受到新的自我认同的干扰和接管。一旦消除了他们的原始身份，他们就会迷路，无法谈论其文化身份。另一方面，Theko，Dipuo和Dibakiso的原始身份并未被抹去，因为它们象征着巴索托文化。