A Grain of Wheat Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Constructing a National Consciousness John McLeod – Beginning Postcolonialism

Forging a National Consciousness by Narrating the People’s Struggle

   1. The focus in the novel is on the little figures of the revolution, not the big figures -- not on Kenyatta, but on Mugo, Gikonyo, Karanja.

2. The novel’s unnamed narrator uses the collective voice – “WE”. This voice speaks for and to the people.

3. There is no primary hero or heroine, but instead multiple “heroes.”

Forging National Symbols

   Unities of time and space (Takes place over the course of 4 days, in one village, pretty much.) Icons which anchor the people’s sense of national identity. Kenyatta, Harry Thuku, Waiyaki and Kihika:    Use of past learning for the present struggle. Kihika draws on ancestral knowledge and his colonial schooling, the bible in particular.

Kihika preaches the importance of collective action – yet he becomes a mythic hero.

Ngugi recognizes the difficulty of creating a charismatic hero who inspires collective action, without also becoming an actor or a force by and for himself.

The Challenges of Independence

  The complications of Mugo’s situation – a hero/traitor – symbolize these challenges. He is no ordinary man, but he is also guilty – like Gikonyo, Mumbi and Karanja.

His confession raises questions about how the people should deal with those who committed crimes against the nation during the struggle. Who should judge? Who is in a position to “cast the first stone?” Should all be forgiven/ forgotten, as Koina suggests? Or, should all the scores be evened, all the betrayers punished, as General R. desires?

The Possibilities for Neo-Colonial Exploitation

  The Local MP’s betrayal of Gikonyo General R’s observation that those marching in the streets of Nairobi were not the Freedom Fighters, but the King’s African Rifles

The Gendering of Nation

  Mumbi comes to represent the allegorical mother-figure of the Kenyan Nation. Her name recalls the mother of the Gikuyu.

Gikonyo dreams of being reunited with Mumbi – with the motherland, with Kenya. “His reunion with Mumbi would see the birth of a new Kenya” (105 of GoW).

Mumbi and the Child

 She becomes pregnant during the State of Emergency. Her child is a “hybrid.”     Suggesting that the new Kenya inherits both the people’s struggle against colonialism and their complicity with it.

At the end of the novel, the child is sick. The new Kenya is not free from the ills of the old Kenya. Her refusal to capitulate to Gikonyo’s request to stay and talk indicates the complicated nature of nation building. More collaborative work needs to be done.

However, Gikonyo’s stool, with the carving of the woman big with child, suggests the possibility of rebirth, growth, redemption.

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