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Name : Niyatiben Anirudhbhai Pathak

Paper: - African Literature
Topic: Grain of Wheat As Anti- Colonial Novel
Enrollment No:_2069108420180042
Submitted To: Department of English, MKBU

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 pre-
serving the specificity of his individual groups. In a general statement, Ngugi points out that language and culture are inseparable, and that there-
fore 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 spe-
cific 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, collect-
ed in Homecoming, the short story collection, Secret Lives, and the plays The Black Hermit and The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (with Micere Mu-
go). 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, be-
fore 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
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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. Howev-
er. 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 fol-
lowing 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. Politi-
cal 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 out-
standing 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 hid-
den 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, Bar-
dolph 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 dif-
ferent 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.
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Work sited ….

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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, scientific-
bsides.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/.