A Grain of Wheat as a narration of the nation.

Topic:1 A Grain of Wheat as a narration of nation?

name : Makwana Ankita

Roll no:01

Paper No: 14 The African Literature.

Enrolment No: PG13101020

Submitted to: Departmnt  of English

Enrolment No: PG13101020

NamaAbout the author

Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s

Born: January 5, 1938

Education: Makerere University

Awards: Tahtifantasia Award.

Ø  

•   Thiongo also transliterated as Ngugi. Kenya novelist, playwright, essayist, short story writer, children’s writer and critic.

Ø  Ngugi is widely regarded as one of the most significant writer of East Africa.

v About his works.

Ø  Weep not child

Ø  Petals of Bloods 

Ø  The River Betwee

Ø  His first novel,Weep not , child , was the first English language novel to be published by an East African and his account of the “ Mau Mau “ emergency in A Grain of Wheat presented for the first time an African perspective on the Kenya armed revolt against British colonial rule during the 1950s.

Ø  A Grain of Wheat and many of NNgugi wa Thiongo early novel were written in English. john McLeod claims that…

Ø  “Ngugi use of the lEnglish Language and the literary forms as the means to create a distinetly national representation”

Ø  The title of the novel is taken from the New Testament, and refers to a passage from Paul’s first letter to Corinthians which is placed as an epicgarph at the very beginning..

Ø  “thou fool, that which thou sowest

is not quickened, except it die

And that which thous sowest,

Thou sowest not that body that shall be, but grain…”

Ø  The reference to the “A Grain of Wheat” links this epicgraph to a second one, taken from john’s Gospel, which opens the last part of the novel, “Verily, verily say unto you, Except a corn of Wheat fall into the ground and die…”

Ø  The ideological character of the historical and geographical construction of the nation becomes evident when one realizes that the frontiers imposed by the colonizers were totally arbitrary and that the historiographical foundations of the political genealogy of the movement proposed here are, at best, thin.

Ø  The Gikuyu see the arrival of the white missionaries with curiosity and nobody pays attention the prophency of Mugo Wa Kibiro, who had predicted that the newcomers would bring only misfortune.

Ø  Ngugi was not interested in perpetuating the rhetoric of the “Liberators “ , he gives place to the heroic narration of the only in as much as the masses themselves endow some figures with meaning ,transforming them into myths that help to mobilize the people and trenghten the horizontal solidarity among colonized.

Ø  According to Ngugi…

Ø  “Africans writing in English fall victim to a kind of “Europeanized Writing”, he however, recognize his own complicity in this scheme.

Ø  Ngugi also talking about anti-colonialist betrayals is through his descriptions of Karanja’s speech interactions with his European official for whom he works.

Ø  Many times Karanja had walked towards Thompson determined to ask him a direct question.Cold water lumped in his belly, his would thunder violently when he came near the Whiteman.

Ø  This passage shos the Karanja’s inability, to communicate with the whites. Karanja’s deference and subservience directly contrasts Kihika’s “Cult of Personality” and presence against colonialist oppression.

Ø   Most of these historical movements were too heterogeneous to be reduced to unity, but Ngugi as noticed by James Ogude, intends to show the “Mau Mau” as a unity force with a consistent nationalist standing and a firm class-rooted view discards all the aspects of the movement, which contradict this narrative.

Ø  Ngugi also includes a new song in Gikuyu , Written by Kihika that also addresses revolutionary concerns….

“Gikuyu Na Mumbi,

Gikuyu Na Mumbi,

Gikuyu Na Mumbi,

Nikihui ngwatiro”

Ø  This song written by Kihika in Gikuyu and making explicite reference to the language and heritage of Kenya, comes to embody all aspects of the Kenyan nationalist and independence movement.The song also suggest that link between heritage and Language.

Ø  However, in addition to his song in Gikuyu about independence, Ngugi also incorporates revolutionary songs in English. One such song is…

“We shall never rest,

Without land

Without Freedom true

Kenya is a country of black people”

Ø  Though this song represents Kenyon’s Zeal for independence, it places all of its empahasis on the revolutionary struggle.

Ø  The nation that the people will “ never rest “ and that they are “ without land “ and “ without Freedom” highlights Kenyan’s status as a colony; though the song expresses a desire for independence , Uhuru has not yet come.

Ø  In addition to these songs in both English and Gikuyu and, Kihika also relates another piece of African text in Swahli: “Watch ye and pray; Kihika said, calling on his audience to remember the great Swahili proverb: Kikulacho Kimo nguoni mwako” .

Ø  “Watch ye and pray” is a message of hope.

Ø  The idea that kihika parallels a Christian maxim with a Swahili one is a motif that recurs throughout the novel. At several’s point, Kihika uses language from the Bible in English the message to have revolutionary significance.

Ø  The Bible does not talk about circumcising women”. At several points in the novel, Kihika references the Christian Bible in order to strengthen his appeal for nationalism.

Ø  According to Mcleod…

“Kihika’s knowledge of the Bible is used to resists the colonial teaching he is exposed to. The Bible was one of the chief resources that Christian missionaries used to condemn indigenous African religious practice”

Ø  Ngugi’s inclusion of numerous Biblical passages to promote nationalism is also linguistically significant, in that the Bible was a tool used by missionaries not only to gain converts, but also to teach English.

Ø  One of the main Biblical verse with a note that they are “underlined in red in Kihika’s Bible” . Kihika’s uses several verses from Exodus in a revolutionary; he employs passage describing “the affliction of [God’s] people with that of the Israelites in Egypt, again lending a revolutionary interpretation to a traditional tool of colonial oppression.

Ø  According to McLeod’s…

“Kihika’s has a larger-than-life personality; this passage also ties Kihika’s Christianity to nationalism.”

Ø  As John Hawley cites, Ngugi an other Africans author “replace the Eropean christian story, which they associate with the religious and cultural subjugation Foucault observed, with an indigenized or Hybridized Christianity aligned with liberation and justice.

Ø  From the very beginning of the novel, Ngugi intentionally calls attention to the ‘Politics of time’.

Ø  Gikonyo’s decision to betray his Mau Mau oath, Gikonyos psychological breakdown manifests the extent of the horrors of detention life.Suffering without knowing the committed “crime”, these detainsees were contantly threatened to be swallowed by their despair.

v Conclusion.

In short, The word ‘Uhuru’ means freedom.It is about freedom for nation. Kihika has been killed by the time of the ‘Uhuru’. Throuhout the novel there remains the tension between individual and collective action that is never fully resolved. Ngugi is Following Fanon’s concept of nationalism is making the people for the novel.