Grain of Wheat As Anti- Colonial Novel

Name : Niyatiben  Anirudhbhai Pathak

Paper: - African Literature

Topic: Grain of Wheat As Anti- Colonial Novel

Enrollment No:_2069108420180042

Submitted To: Department of English, MKBU

Email Id ... napathak02@gmail.com 

SYNOPSIS

• Biography
• Introduction …..
• Political considerations:
• Reactions to Changes:   
• Conclusion…..

Biography

Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a Kenyan writer of Gikuyu descent, began a very successful career writing in English before turning to work almost entirely in his native language, Gikuyu. In his 1986 Decolonising the Mind, his “farewell to English,” Ngugi describes language as a way people have not only of describing the world, but of understanding themselves. For him, English in Africa is a “cultural bomb” that continues a process of erasing memories of pre-colonial cultures and history and as a way of installing the dominance of new, more insidious forms of colonialism. Writing in Gikuyu, then, is Ngugi’s way not only of harkening back to Gikuyu traditions, but also of acknowledging and communicating their present. Ngugi is not only concerned with universality, though models of struggle can always move out and be translated for other cultures, but with preserving the specificity of his individual groups. In a general statement, Ngugi points out that language and culture are inseparable, and that therefore the loss of the former results in the loss of the latter:

specific culture is not transmitted through language in its universality, but in its particularity as the language of a specific community with a specific history. Written literature and orature are the main means by which a particular language transmits the images of the world contained in the culture it carries.
Language as communication and as culture are then products of each other. . . . Language carries culture, and culture carries, particularly through orature and literature, the entire body of values by which we perceive ourselves and our place in the world. . . . Language is thus inseparable from ourselves as a community of human beings with a specific form and character, a specific history, a specific relationship to the world.

Aside from Decolonising the Mind, Ngugi has written several novels in English: Weep Not,  Child, A Grain of Wheat, The River Between, and Petals of Blood, as well as a memoir of the  time he spent detained by the Kenyan government, Detained. Other works include his essays, collected in Homecoming, the short story collection, Secret Lives, and the plays The Black  Hermit and The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (with Micere Mugo). Since turning to Gikuyu, Ngugi has written the play I Will Marry When I Want (with Ngugi wa Mirii) and the novels Devil on the Cross and Matigari.

Introduction …..

“A Grain of wheat” chronicles the events leading up to Kenyan independence, or Uruhu, in a Kenyan village.

At the beginning of the novel, as independence approaches, several visitors come to mugo s door. They ask him to speak at the Uruhu celebration and become a leader, and also ask if kihika mentioned karanja, a worker for the white government who is suspected of betraying his friend, before his death. Kihika, a rebel fighter from the village, was captured and publicly hanged. Mugo denies knowing anything about kihika s death and says he ll think about making the speech.

The novel “A Grain of wheat” reveals a number of characters experiences during the lead-up to Kenyan independence, or Uruhu. Mugo is one of the central characters. He feels detached from the world around him, and he is fearful of the attention given to him by the townspeople. Mugo s connection with the woman in the hut is a central element in the story. They are connected by their common loneliness. Mugo has no one, and he cannot bring himself to participate in the community. The old woman has lost her son, and she talks to no one. She lives isolated, away from the world, sequestered by loss and trauma.

Religion is an important element in the novel. The white men brought Christianity to Kenya, and many blacks take up Christian religion. However. The existing religions do not die. At the Uruhu celebration, the town will sacrifice rams in a traditional sacrificial rite. At the same time, kihika is a devoutly religious man, comparing the struggle of the black man in Kenya with the struggle of the Jews to be freed from the pharaoh. His bible is full of underlined passages, and one passage that Gikonyo reads becomes important mugo. God is on the side of the oppressed and will save the impoverished and downtrodden. Mugo, though not moved by kihika s abstract ideas of freedom and black unity, is moved by the idea of the poor and the suffering. He empathizes with individual tragedy.

Ngugi Wa Thiang’o arises the concepts such as negritude nation and nationalism. Fanon defined anti-colonial nationalism. He might recap following points in the novel A Grain of Wheat. He asserts the rights of colonized peoples to make their own self-definitions, rather than he defined by the colonizers. He offers the means to identify alternative histories, cultural traditions and knowledge which conflict with the representations of colonial discourses. He presents the cultural inheritance of the colonized people in defiance of colonial discourses, etc.

The novel ends with Uruhu. Kenyan independence is the end era, and beginning of a new one. No one knows what is coming, good or bad. Political corruption corruption certainly exists, and the wealthy seem to remain wealthy while the poor remain poor. Still, Uruhu means change, and change means hope. The celebration is a coming together of the people a time for unity in the quest to move forward.

Political considerations:

         In A Grain of wheat, says Emmanuel Ngara, Ngugi shows his socialist inclinations by focusing his attention on the common people and their predicament. The novel depicts events leading to the coming of Uhuru, but the focus is not on the majot events that are recorded in history books, Joma Kenyatta is mentioned, but only as part of the history of the people of Kenya-Ngugi does not project the interests and views of outstanding figures like Kenyatta and other people in the upper echelons of society. The book talks about independence celebrations, but we are not shown the celebrations which took place in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. Rather, we are taken to an insignificant place out in the country-Thabai. Similarly, the characters  deal with are small village people and members of the peasant class-Gikonyo, Gitogo, Mumbai, Karanja and, of course, their British overlords.

Reactions to Changes:    

         However, Jacqueline Bardolph argues: “In spite of the rewriting of A Grain of Wheat in 1986 to give positive examples to people in their present resistance, the novel remains complex, alive and fraught with deep contradictions.” It has been suggested that the contradictions are both inter-textual and extra-textual. For the reader who knows both the original and the revised text, traces of the original act like a palimpsest, a hidden text beneath the authorized version. This is particularly true in relation to the rape of Dr.Lynd. Ngugi has been  criticized by David Maughan Brown and by Bardolph for including the rape of a Eurpoean woman by an African man in his novel, Maughan Brown arguing that the rape was an unnecessary attempt to balance Mau Mau violence against colonial violence and Bardolph suggesting that Ngugi may have been influenced by anti-Mau Mau propaganda. (It is worth noting, though, that, in the first version, it is only after the rape that Koinandu runs into the forest to join the fighters.) It might have been better, in terms of historical accuracy, if Ngugi had not included this episode in the published text. Indeed, Bardolph has demonstrated that Ngugi excised a number of passages about rape fantasies from the original manuscript. However, since this episode is in the first version, anyone who has read it is unlikely to forget it, and especially as the killint of the dog and Koina’s hatred of Dr.Lyne (a low level representative of colonialism who is not “worthy” adversary) do not explain why seeing Dr.Lynd again should cause Koina such distress. Neither is Ngugi’s alternation of “the incident…that had shamed her body” to “the incident…that had samed her being” convincing. In a novel which, even in the revised version, includes Gikonyo and Karanja wanting to hurt and humiliate Mumbi because of their sexual desire for her and Mwaura crudely fantasing about Margery Thompson’s sexuality, the rape of Dr.Lynd appears consistent with the gender politics of the novel, even if ti undermines the nationalist and anti-colonial agenda.

Conclusion…..

         The first version of the novel had a wide readership, A Grain of Wheat having been on the Cambridge University International ‘A’ level English syllabus in the mid-1980s before the revised edition was published. It had been translated into several languages. The 1986 edition may be the grand narrative, approved by the author, but there are a range of commentaries which put pressure to modify the master are a range of commentaries which put pressure to modify the master narrative. The existence of two versions of A Grain of Wheat, each produced within different ideological conditions, creates a number of problems for the readers. Ngugi’s revisions are an intervention in debates about Kenyan history and the relationship of history and literature.

Work sited ….

Trivedi Hezal “Themes in 'A Grain Of Wheat'.” Themes in 'A Grain Of Wheat', 1 Jan. 1970, trivedihezal17913.blogspot.com/2017/04/themes-in-grain-of-wheat.html.

Sousa, Matt de. “The Predicament of Post-Colonial Hybridity: 'A Grain of Wheat' and 'Wide Sargasso Sea'.” The Predicament of Post-Colonial Hybridity: 'A Grain of Wheat' and 'Wide Sargasso Sea' - Arts and Culture, arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/brightonline/issue-number-four/the-predicament-of-post-colonial-hybridity-a-grain-of-wheat-and-wide-sargasso-sea.

“A Grain of Wheat.” Colonial and Postcolonial Theory, 4 Oct. 2010, rupostcolonial.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/a-grain-of-wheat-2/. “A Quote from The Sense of an Ending.” Goodreads, Goodreads, www.goodreads.com/quotes/509875-what-is-history-any-thoughts-webster-history-is-the-lies. Markowetz, Florian. “A Philosophical Suicide - Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending.” Sides, 12 June 2012, scientificbsides.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/the-sense-of-an-ending/.

Sousa, Matt de. “The Predicament of Post-Colonial Hybridity: 'A Grain of Wheat' and 'Wide Sargasso Sea'.” The Predicament of Post-Colonial Hybridity: 'A Grain of Wheat' and 'Wide Sargasso Sea' - Arts and Culture, arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/brightonline/issue-number-four/the-predicament-of-post-colonial-hybridity-a-grain-of-wheat-and-wide-sargasso-sea.

“A Grain of Wheat.” Colonial and Postcolonial Theory, 4 Oct. 2010, rupostcolonial.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/a-grain-of-wheat-2/.