Historical, biographical and Post
colonial approach in "A Grain of Wheat" by Ngugi wa Thiongo.
*Introduction*
One of the most important characteristcs
of literature is that it is Imaginative.Although we've to remember that it is not
Fanciful ideas away from Reality.It has touch of realism. No writer can write anything
unless that experiences is lived by himself, feel by himself.
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So, lets discuss that how Ngugi
wa Thiongo's personal experiences are poured into A Grain of Wheat. At the same
time we will also keep in mind that Ngugi is very important figure in Post colonial
world. So, we will also try to evaluate novel from post colonial angle.
Colonial period was a time of turmoil, supression/repression
of colonies. So this was experienced by the writers himself as a child. and when
they grew up they have written their experiences of this time.
Lets have a brief look on What
is Post colonialism?
Post Colonialism is an
approach, a lens to see, understand and subvert notion of Western superiority.
~ It is an approach, in which
colony writes back.
~We have to relook, rethink,
revisit whatever written or spoken by the white people.
~Europeans have developed pre
conceived notion about the East.
~Doubt whatever comes from
West, every step taken by them is under doubt& question.
. Postcolonialism includes
terms such as
“resistance, hybridity, desire, difference” in
addition to “the facts of slavery, migration,and political independence”
# Hybridity:-
Concept of hybridity is very
essential in post colonial era. Writer himself was born in colonial Kenya,
given a christian name James and later on he also studied English authors. so the
impact of European as well as native values, tradition and culture always remains
at clash.
Ngugi
wa Thiong’o is one
the most important
postcolonial writers who
shows his protest against the
colonizers in his
works. In Decolonizing
the Mind, he
stresses how the colonizers exploited Africa, and its people. He asserts that, In the
eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries Europe stole
art treasures from
Africa to decorate their
houses and museums;
in the twentieth
century Europe is
stealing the treasures of
the mind to
enrich their languages
and cultures. Africa
needs back its economy,
its politics, its
culture, its languages
and all its
patriotic writers (eds. Parker and Starkey, 125).
Ngugi was born in 1938, and grew
up in rural areas of heaviest European occupatipn , where memories of expulsion
and displacement were within the life time of the people.
His elder brother joined the Mau
Mau, and another brother, who was deaf and dumb, was shot by security forces in
exaclt the way Gitogo dies in the opening pages of A Grain of Wheat, unable to hear
an order to stop runing.- This point indicates that how biographical elements also
shape the literature. He makes a character who stands for his own brother. The kind
of description is given about character is very powerful and it touches to heart.
we feel sympathy for the character as well as writer. we can imagine the pain that
what may happen to him as well as his mother when their family members were killed
by White people. After such terrible experiences what can we expect from him?? Definitely,
it will be full of angst, anger and hatred.
*Hisgorical approach:
The novel captures the period
of independance of Kenya and Emergency. Mau Mau Emergency in A Grain of Wheat presented
for the first time an African perspective on the Kenyan armed revolt against the
colonial rule. novel is a reading of past-
present & - future of Nation (Kenya).
novel is interesting historical document to read the contemporary
time. we find many parallel of that time narrated in the novel-Mau Mau rebellion
is one of them, so lets discuss about it.
The Mau Mau Uprising , also
known as the MauMau Revolt , Mau Mau Rebellion , or Kenya Emergency , was a
military conflict that took place in British Kenyabetween 1952 and 1960. The
Mau Mau failed to capture widespread public support, partly due to the British policy
of divide and rule and the movement remained internally divided, despite
attempts to unify its various strands.(Wikipedia)
So, the resistance, the struggle
for independence ( Mau Mau revolt) which is the spirit of the time is very much
present in the novel. In A Grain
of Wheat, we
again see the
awakening and resistance
of native people,
who go to the
forest to fight
against the colonizers
The novel
includes four main
characters, who are
all from the
Gikuyu village of Thabai.
These characters are
Mugo, Gikonyo, Mumbi
and Karanja. Mugo
is a heroic person, who
started hunger strike
in detention camp
and also he
resisted against a
village guard to protect
a pregnant woman
from beating. Although
he is considered
to be a hero
throughout the whole
novel, at the
end of the
story it is
understood that Mugo
is the traitor of
Kihika, who was a freedom
fighter hanged after
being betrayed by
Mugo. That is,
Mugo is the symbol
of betrayal in
the novel. Apart
from Mugo, Karanja
is also betrayer
who collaborated with the
British and considered
to be the
traitor of Kihika.
Karanja opts for joining
the government guards
instead of fighting
for his own
people. He also
betrays his close friend,
Gikonyo, by sleeping with Gikonyo’s wife, Mumbi. A Grain of Wheat gives voice
to this
underlying sense of loss.
while also reaffirming the value of Africa’s past (pre-colonization), it offers
an intimacy and strong clarity to the painful process of redefining and
recreating a broken society.Gikonyo is driven to deny an oath he holds sacred
because of a longing to return home where, “He only wanted to see his Mumbi and
take up the thread of life where he had left it” (125). On a larger scale, the
reality of Gikonyo’s wanting and its outcome illustrates this haunting
consequence of colonization. Obviously, there can be no return from
colonization; decolonization simply shifts.the forced relationship from
exploitation to the painful struggle for independence and liberation.
All of
the characters look
forward to freedom. Warui’s
expressions show their
love for freedom:
“Our people, is
there a song sweeter
than that of
freedom? Of a
truth, we have
waited for it
many a sleepless
night. Those who have
gone before us,
those of us
spared to see
the sun today,
and even those
to be born tomorrow,
must join the
feast” (Thiong’o, 19).
Gikonyo also thinks
that his country is
ready for freedom.
“For a time
Gikonyo forgot his
mission to the
city as his heart
fluttered with the
flags. He got
out of the bus and
walked down Kenyatta
Avenue feeling for the
moments as if
the city really
belonged to him…
to Gikonyo Nairobi
seemed ready for Independence” (Thiong’o, 59-60). Ngugi, by
means of Kihika,
expresses his thoughts
about freedom. In
every case, Kihika tries
to motivate his
people for the
independence. Kihika says
“Choose between freedom and
slavery and it
is fitting that
a man should
grab at freedom
and die for
it” (Thiong’o, 186). Kihika
also believes that
black people are the owners
of Kenya. It
does not belong to
the whiteman. This
soil belongs to
Kenyan people. Thus,
nobody has right
to sell or buy
it. He sees Kenya as
their mother and
also thinks that
all her children
are equal before her.
She is their
common inheritance (Thiong’o,
96). He continues
his speech by giving
the example of
India and Gandhi
to encourage his
people. Because, he
believes that if they
never stop fighting
against the colonizers, freedom
will come so
soon. With the story
of Gandhi, he also stresses the importance of
togetherness. It is a
question of unity,
the example of
India is there
before our noses.
The British were there
for hundreds and
hundreds of years.
They ate India’s
wealth. They drank India’s
blood. They never
listened to the
political talk-talk of
a few men.
What happened? There came
this man Gandhi…
they say with
one voice: we
want back our freedom.
The British laughed,
they are good
at laughing. But
they had to swallow back their laughter
when things turned out serious (Thiong’o, 86).
We also see
why native people
went to the
forest. The only
reason of this
is the increasing oppression of
the colonizers. They
went into the
forest because whiteman
never behaved them in
a good way
as he declared.
“He ruled with
the gun, the
lives of the
all black people of
Kenya” (Thiong’o, 95).
General R. talks
to the public
to make them
aware about the colonizers and why
they chose to live in the forest: The whiteman
went in cars.
He lived in
a big house.
His children went
to school. But who
tilled the soil
on which grew
coffee, tea, pyrethrum,
and sisal? Who
dug the roads and
paid the taxes?
The whiteman lived
on our land.
He ate what
we grew and cooked.
And even the
crumbs from the
table, he threw
to his dogs.
That is why we went into forest.
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*POST COLONIAL FEMINISM
Gayatri Spivak
also mentions the
inferior position of
third world women,
and she uses the
term “subaltern” to
describe them. She
focuses on mainly
colonized females who are
double-colonized economy and
gender. And, she
makes it clear
that there are
not two basic categorizations of
people and nations
as colonizer and
colonized, but there
is another group except
for this, and
it is colonial
women oppressed by both the
colonizer and colonized. In her most famous work,
Can the Subaltern Speak, she
points out that: Within the effaced itinerary
of the subaltern
subject, the track
of sexual difference is
doubly affected. The
question is not
of female participation
in insurgency, or the
ground rules of
the sexual division
of labor, for
both of which
there is evidence.
It is, rather, that,
both as object
of colonialist histography
and as subject
of insurgency, the ideological
construction of gender
keeps the male
dominant. If, in the
context colonial production,
the subaltern has
no history and
cannot speak, the subaltern female is even
more deeply in shadow
(Spivak, 28). That is, the
oppression of colonialism
and patriarchy makes
it unbearable for
the females, for this
reason non-white women
were silenced and
nobody can hear
them.
Woman offered
their naked bodies
to him, even
some of the
most respectable came to
him by night.
But Mumbi, his
Mumbi, would not
yield, and he
could never bring himself to force her (Thiong’o, 205). That shows
the bitter lives
of colonized women
in a wretched
society. Even they
were enjoying with themselves,
women have the
fear of humiliation.
Ngugi says in
the novel “Mothers warned
their daughters to
take care not
to be raped
in the dark”
in the festival
of celebration (Thiong’o, 199)
COLONIALISM- POST COLONIALISM:-
Oxford English
Dictionary defines the term as: A settlement
in a new
country… a body
of people who
settle in a
new locality, forming a
community subject to or connected
with their parent
state; the community so
formed, consisting of
the original settlers
and their descendants
and successors, as long
as the connection
with the parent
state is kept
up.
This definition of Colonialism
is also problematic. Because it says Settlement in new locality..., But what about
those people who were already living there.
What did they do with them??? What about the conflict between settlers and Natives??
The definition is silent over this matter. so we can understand that how under a
good language even Oxford dictionary has totally changed the meaning of Colonialism.
Whenever next generation will read this definition, they will think Colonialism
means this only.Meaning is constructed by language.
So, the tale which OXford definition
tries to hide, is made public by Ngugi wa Thiongo in the novel. There is always
another side of coin, the darker shade which White people's definition was trying
to hide is shown to the world- that what colonialism actually was. Supression, torture,
slavery, killing of mass, rape were faced by Natives.
In spite
of these deaths,
nobody stepped back.
“The movement remained
alive and grew,
as people put it,
on the wounds
of those Waiyaki
and Kihika left
behind” (Thiong’o, 17).
And the
deaths of these
people were the
grains of wheat,
which led to
freedom. Especially, Ngugi stresses
the death of
Waiyaki: “Then nobody
noticed it, but
looking back we
can see that Waiyaki’s
blood contained within
it a seed,
a grain, which
gave birth to
a movement whose main strength thereafter sprang from a
bond with the soil” (Thiong’o, 12). The colonizers
showed no mercy
to the native
people during the
emergency. But in the
beginning, the colonizers
were not as
hard as during
the emergency. “…
whiteman came to the
country, clutching the
book of God
in both hands,
a magic witness
that the whiteman was
a messenger from
the lord. His
tongue was coated
with sugar; his
humility was touching” (Thiong’o,
10). By using
the Bible and
mild language, they
attracted several people. But
their attitudes changed day by
day, they threw the
Bible and used sword:
Kihika also
deals with the
colonizers’ use of
the Bible. He
is aware of
the fact that
the colonizers benefited from
the Bible just
to get the
lands of the
native people. He
makes it clear that:
We went
to their church.
Mubia, in white
robes, opened the Bible. He
said: let us kneel
down to pray.
We knelt down.
Mubia said: let
us shut our
eyes. We did.
You know, his remained open so
that he could read the word. When
we opened our eyes, our land was gone and
the sword of flames stood on guard (Thiong’o, 14)
The most
grief oppressions were
generally experienced by
the women. They
were seen as sex
tools for the
colonizers. Ngugi mentions
an event in
which Mugo also
takes place, “Mugo had
been arrested during
the Emergency for
intervening to stop
a policeman from beating up a woman who, it was said, had
refused him sex” (Thiong’o, ix).
Emergency is the
other name of
Mau-Mau rebellion, and
during this movement
a lot of people
suffered so much.
Githua is one
of these sufferers,
who lost one
of his hands. He
says “I tell
you before the
Emergency, I was
like you; before
the whiteman did
this to me with
bullets, I could
work with both
hands, man” (Thiong’o,
3). Kihika, one of the main
characters of the
novel who died
for his own
country, was also
excruciated by the colonizers. “Kihika
was tortured. Some
say that the
neck of a bottle was
wedged into his body
through the anus
as white people
in the Special
Branch tried to
wrest the secrets
of the forest from
him” (Thiong’o, 17).
His sufferings ended
with death. He
“was hanged in public,
one Sunday, at
Rungei Market, not
far from where
he had once
stood calling for blood
to rain on and water
the tree of
freedom” (Thiong’o, 17).
Waiyaki is also
one of the sufferers, who was killed brutally by
the colonizers.
Conclusion:-
Thus, we can examine A Grain of Wheat from Historical, biographical and post colonial approach.
Conclusion:-
Thus, we can examine A Grain of Wheat from Historical, biographical and post colonial approach.
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Work Cited:-
Wikipedia contributors.
"Mau Mau Uprising." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 10 Feb. 2016. Web. 4 Apr.
2016.
Alhabian, Rama Mohammed Ghaili. "Uhuru: a post
colonialist reading of Kenya's independence in Nugi wa thiongo's selected
poems." 27 November 2010.
Bolat, Eren. "The
figure of post colonial women in Ngugi wa Thiongo's Petals of blood and a grain
of wheat." august 2014.
Thiongo, Ngugi Wa. A
Grain of Wheat. Heienmann, 1967.
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