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Housekeeping:

• TBA

Agenda: 

Dare to imagine something new! 

Imagining a New World

The backdrop for Ngugi wa Thiong'o's A Grain of Wheat (1967) is Kenyan independence from Great Britain on 12 December 1963. The novel set in the village of Thabai, near Rung'ai Market, in rural Kenya during preparations for the approaching celebration of Uhuru, that is, Independence (in December 1963).  The villagers want clearly identified heroism and villany, good and evil, to demarcate the advent of a new era. Their attempt to isolate and identify these two extremes in the wake of colonialism leads to disappointment and death (while acceptance of the bad with the good leads to renewal and new life).

Like Woolf, Thiong'o shatters the traditional (novelistic) concept of self and time in his narrative. A Grain of Wheat follows multiple protagonists, weaving in and out of their thoughts and flash backs. The primary instigation for the action is the 1952-1960 Emergency (a time of martial British law in Kenya).

Characters:

• Mugo, a loner who became a hero after leading a hunger strike in a British prison and trying to stop a village guard from beating a pregnant woman to death. Although he is thought to be a hero throughout the whole book, he is the traitor who betrayed Kihika to the British in order to selfishly save himself.
• Gikonyo, an ambitious carpenter and business man married to Mumbi. He confessed to taking the oath of the resistance while in a concentration camp, securing an early release only to find that his wife had borne a child with his hated rival Karanja while he was away.
• Mumbi, the wife of Gikonyo and sister of Kihika. While Gikonyo was imprisoned she slept with Karanja, who had been appointed village chief by the colonial power.
• Karanja, a collaborator with the British and widely suspected to be the traitor.
• Kihika, a resistance fighter who conquered a police station and killed the hated District Officer Robson. He was caught and hanged after being betrayed by Mugo.
• John Thompson, an early British settler and administrator of Thabai, who believes in the ideals of colonial imperialism and persecutes black Africans.

Summary:

A Grain of Wheat chronicles the events leading up to Kenyan independence, or Uruhu, in a Kenyan village. Gikonyo and Mumbi are newlyweds in love when Gikonyo is sent to detention. When he comes back six years later, Mumbi has carried and given birth to his rival's child. Instead of talking about their trials, a wall of anger separates them. Mumbi's brother Kihika, a local hero, is captured and hanged, and his comrades search for the betrayer. Mugo becomes a hero through leading a hunger strike in detention, and the town wants him to become a political leader. Mugo, though, struggles with guilt and ultimately confesses that he betrayed Kihika.

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.

Gikonyo, one of the men who asks Mugo to speak, feels his life falling apart after coming home from detention camps. As a young man, he is deeply in love with Mumbi, and his rival is Karanja. Mumbi chooses Gikonyo, and they marry. Gikonyo, a carpenter, is happy, but he is arrested as a rebel. Gikonyo spends six years in concentration camps, even after he confesses his oath to the Movement, in order to come back home. He feels guilty about his confession. When he returns home, though, his wife has a child by another man, Karanja. Gikonyo refuses to talk about the child or to share a bed with his wife, and throws himself into work in his distress.

While Gikonyo is away, the town is punished. The huts are burned down and the people are forced to rebuild in a contained area. They are put into forced labor building a trench around the town, and they have no food. People are beaten, raped, and starved. During this time, Mugo protests a guard beating a woman in a trench and is arrested and taken away. Mumbi works hard and is faithful to Gikonyo, though she doesn't know if he's alive or dead. She finds out finally that Gikonyo is coming home, and in a moment of weakness, allows Karanja to have sex with her. Afterwards, she rejects him again, and never wants to see him. Karanja has embraced the white government to gain power.

Meanwhile, Mugo struggles with his own guilt. Before Karanja's death, he hopes to have a quiet life, building a home, business, and family. One day after shooting a government official, Karanja comes to his house and asks him to join the Movement. Mugo is afraid that either the rebels or the government will kill him. He turns Karanja over to the government, but immediately regrets it.

At the detention camp for intervening in the beating, Mugo truthfully claims to have taken no rebel oath. No one believes him. He is beaten mercilessly and inspires a hunger strike. Afterwards, the townspeople consider him a hero, but Mugo is driven by his conscience to confess at the Ururhu celebration, and later is taken away by the former Freedom Fighters to be punished. Also at the celebration, Gikonyo breaks his arm. In the hospital, he realizes that he needs to open up communication with Mumbi and that he wants to rebuild their marriage. (From Book Rags)

Motherhood and Post Colonial Narratives

Throughout postcolonial literature, motherhood appears in the form of metaphors, imagery, and political discourse. Authors maternalize the natural: land, water, and farmland take on feminine characteristics in their creation of a mother land.

Motherhood and the female body become symbols for the combination of new and old in the Post-Colonial world. The sexual history of women is the sexualized history of the nation. It's a past that cannot be undone. But the future does not need to repeat the abuse patterns of the past. The sexual victim can also be the mother of new life. This theme looms large in A Grain of Wheat.

Group Work: Gendering Authority in A Grain of Wheat

Re-read the first few pages of chapter two. How do themes of gender and authority (colonialism and autonomy) collide in this chapter. How is gender used to think through issues of subjugation of foreigness? Write your responses in the comment box below.

Paintings of the Weya Women:

The Weya Women are a group of women artists from Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwean Stone Sculptures

African Art: Aesthetics and Meaning

Discussion Questions: Post-Colonial Women in A Grain of Wheat

• Consider Mugo's relationship with his aunt, Waitherero. 
• How is Waitherero characterized? 
• Mother of six married daughters.
• A drunk.
• An abuser. 
• Insane.
• How has this relationship shaped Mugo?
• How does Waitherero's MATERNITY symbolic in this post-colonial novel?
• Consider Mumbi?
• How is she characterized?
• How are sexual relationships with her (even desired, imagined relationships) a driving force in this novel?
• How is Mubmi's sexuality and maternity symbolic of the post-colonial narrative?
• How is the female body a canvas for the post-colonial message in A Grain of Wheat? 
• How does the female body represent the community in these African paintings by the Weya Women? 

Post-colonial theory is about challenging assumptions and asking new questions!