Themes in ‘A Grain Of Wheat’

Name: Trivedi Hezal K.

Roll No: 32

PG Reg. No. PG15101040

M.A. – English Regular, Semester-4

Year: 2017

Paper  No. 14:  The African Literature

Unit-2: Ngugi Wa Thiongo,  A Grain of Wheat(1987).

Assignments Topic- Themes in ‘A Grain Of Wheat’

Submitted to: S.B. Gardi Department of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University 

(Gujarat – India)

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About The Writer:
 

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o   (born 5 January 1938). Ngugi wa Thiong’o is a writer of Kenyan descent. One of the foremost living African novelists, he has also developed a reputation as a post-colonial theorist, and has taught at universities around the world. .  His first Novel for over twenty years was published in Gikuyu in 2004.His work includes novels, plays, short stories, and essays, ranging from literary and social criticism to children's literature. He is the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. Ngugi’s work is often highly political, which has caused much controversy for him in Kenya. Ngugi currently holds a post as Distinguished Professor in Comparative Literature and English at the University of California, Irvine.

Ngugi Wa Thiongo himself remarked that:

“I am a writer some have been called me a religious writer. I write about my people. I am interested in their hidden lives and hates and how the very tension in their hearts affects their daily contact with other men. How in other words, the emotions stream of the man within interacts with the real type” – This book is divided into the three parts. The novel starts in the village Thabai, just a few days before Kenyan independence of the village and has been selected as a day in December, 1963 (Uhuru Day).

About the Novel:

“A Grain of Wheat

is a complex, powerful novel exploring the psychology of a hauntedman – haunted by an act of treachery to a hero of Kenya’s freedom movement.”

The novel ‘A grain of wheat’ is Ngugi wa Thiongo’s third novel. This novel published in 1967. The novel has Marxist  and Fanonian militant attitude. A Grain of Wheat is about the events that lead up to Kenyan independence, or Uhuru. It's set in the background of Mau Mau rebellion. The setting is a Kenyan village.  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. This is a story about events and relationships leading up to a country’s struggle for independence, and the story, focusing on the quite Mugo, whose life is ruled by a dark secret.The action of the novel focuses on the hero’s memory of the incidents of the “Mau Mau Revolt”, the movement began in 1946 Mau Mau rebellion an anti – colonial movement which historians says revolt an independence for the African nation.  The novel stats into a small village and it give us detail about the physical, psychological and political impact of the revolt on small village people. The novel can be summarized as a “Collective act of recalling and reflecting on the past” that is a narration of nation.  We can also compare this novel with European and Latin American style – especially historical novel is a vehicle to construct a national conscience.

Variouse Themes in “Grain Of Wheat”:

The major themes in "A Grain of Wheat" by Ngugi are Betrayal and guilt and redemption. More specifically, the story's protagonist finds redemption after dealing with the guilt of his actions. Others major themes in Grain of Whete is like,

1)  Colonialism:

Kenya was colonized by the British in 1895 and was not independent until 1963. In the subsequent years the country struggled to negotiate a post-colonial reality in which the divisions caused by political and economic oppression, the Emergency, violence, racism, exploitation of rivalry and competition amongst Kenyans, and psychological trauma endured and deepened. Even though Ngugi does not take his readers into the days after colonialism, he hints at the difficulties the characters will face. Thompson's claim that Africa will always need Europe may not be true in the sense he wishes it to be, but it is prescient in that Europe's involvement in the region can never fully be erased. Finally, on a more personal level, all of the characters' lives are affected by colonialism, whether they are in detention camps or the Movement or losing their homes and land or trying to repair their fractured families or dealing with paternalistic colonial administrators. Colonialism is an inescapable reality, even after it is ostensibly over.

2)  Individuals and the Community:

The novel's narrative focuses on the individual, with time given to Mugo, Mumbi, Gikonyo, Karanja, Kihika, and even minor characters like General R and Koina. Individual stories are significant, especially Mumbi's, as they facilitate greater growth for the self and for the community. As for that community, it is also Ngugi's focus, and one that has attracted a large amount of critical writing discussing whether or not he successfully managed to convey the struggles of the masses at the same time as he relayed the individuals' tales. Indeed, some of the individual characters seem as if they are thinly drawn in order to promote the understanding that they are merely part of the Kenyan people as a whole, and when individuals do make choices for themselves those choices reverberate back through the community.

3)  Forgiveness:

Many of the characters in this novel do reprehensible things: they betray loved ones and their community and the Movement, they commit acts of violence, they engage in selfishness and bitterness, and they compete and fight with each other. Some characters ask for forgiveness (either directly or subtly), while others do not. Forgiveness is important on both a personal and communal level, and those levels are related to each other. Individuals must work to forgive those who have wronged them in order to work together to build a stronger community. In the vacuum left by British rule, it will be more important than ever for Kenyans to trust each other, work together, and create a mutually sustaining and fulfilling community. Mugo's public confession, an act of asking for forgiveness, is significant, and indicates a model for the future.

4)  Violence:

When colonization is main part of the novel then it was next to turn into Decolonization. But Decolonization always comes with violence. Decolonization is a violent event. Decolonization is quite simply the substitution of one "species" of mankind by another. The substitution is unconditional, absolute, total, and seamless. Decolonization, which sets out to change the order of the world, is clearly the agenda for total disorder. It is also known as historical movement.

5)  Theme Of Betrayal:

Individual’s betrayals are representative of the vast betrayal of the whole society by its power elite. Karanja was more powerful and in power position so, Mumbi betrays Gikonyo when he was imprisoned and slept with Karanja and also having child, too. Mugo betrays the whole village with his idea and because of it only some people were caught by British people. He was the person who betrays the entire village, so it is also known as one of main theme of this novel.  Mugo’s betrayal of his friend Kihika. And  Both saw their life from different stands. Mugo’s confessional speech:

" I wanted to live my life. I never wanted to be involved in anything. Then he came into my life, here, a night like this, and pulled me into the stream. So I kiled him.”

So,  Mugo’s guilt conscious is then mitigated by his bravery and  He is taken to various detention camp.

     6) Love:

We can find example of love marriage of Gikonyo and Mumbi in this novel and even if we think in platonic way then we can realizes that every person of this novel is in love with Uhuru, self-freedom and nativism. They want to fight for their native land and want to see their self-free from British Colonization, so Love is also noticeable theme of ‘A Grain of Wheat’.

7) Unity:

This is another similar theme that is found in the works of Ngugi. Being unified help the Kenyans stand against the Europeans. The Mau Mau revolt was established to achieve one particular aim,

“Fight for our land and Freedom”

Despite the death of Waiyanki and Kihika, the other forest fighters still maintained their stand. They continued fighting to the last.

                   "United we stand, divided we fall.”

Despite the unity that exists, some of them were divided. But in unity, Kenyan got its independence in 1963.

8)    Land:

In most of Ngugi’s works, there is an importance attached to land. in Weep Not Child Ngotho believed strongly in the prophesy of Mumbi -Gikonyo (Adam and Eve). The land was his source of hope. In the Trials of Dedan Kimathi, Kimathi struggled for the land of Kenya. Moat noticeable among others is depicted in Grain of Wheat. The reason the Mau Mau revolution was set up was not because of the existence of the Europeans in Kenya. Rather, the Europeans invaded and forcefully acquired theland which belongs to the Kenyans “ The supreme importance which the Kikuyu attach to their land has been described by Jomo Kenyatta in his anthropological treatise, Facing Mount Kenya, where implications go beyond economic: 

“As agriculturalists the Gikuyu people depend entirely on the land. It supplies them with material needs of life, through which and spiritual contentment is achieved. Communication with the ancestral spirit is perpetuated through contact with the soil in which the ancestors of the tribe lie buried. The Gikuyu considers the earth as mother.. that feeds the child through lifetime; and after death it is the soil that nurses the spirit of the dead for eternity…”

9)  Freedom:

There is one motive that inspired the blacks against the whites despite their oppression freedom. Ngugi is known as a novelist of the Gandhian message because the story of Gandhi of India is his source of inspiration. The Kenyans, as depicted in Ngugi’s A Grain Of Wheat, struggled for their freedom against oppression and foreign rule. In their struggle for freedom. Waiyaki was captured and buried alive; Kihika was captured and hanged publicly; other blacks were disposed without trial. So many blacks were restricted of their freedom:

“The soldiers beat them with truncheons… Manyan (detention camp) was divided into three different compounds: A,B and C. Every compounds was then subdivided into smaller units, each enclosing ten cells. One big cell housed six hundred men”

To estimate. Thousands of  Kenyans were restricted of their freedom. 

10)      Role Of Woman;

Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s presented the role of woman in several aspects. Woman took care of the family. Mumbi took care of Gikonyo’s mother  and her (Mumbi) son in Gikonyo’s absence. Woman were perceived as a link between the people in the village and the freedom fighters in the forest. Wambui, on an occasion, took a gun to the forest fighter. Woman also played a role of worthless people.

11)      Corruption:

Despite the colonization, corruption was not abolished. Ngugi  pictured two policemen who stopped a bus. The bus was discharged when a little settlement of money was given to the policemen. Ngugi also pictured a corruptible M.P who secretly bought a huge plot of that Gikonyo and some others have made plan for.

So, in this way the there are numbers of themes works in the novel.It shows man’s defeat from his desire.

   

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