COLONIAL CONSIOUSNESS IN NGUGI WA THIONG’S A GRAIN OF WHEATP.PULAMAI PRIYA

B.A., ENGLISH

BHARATHIDASAN UNIVERSITY CONSTITUENT

ARTS & SCIENCE COLLEGE, INNAMKULATHUR,

SRIRANGAM TK, TRICHY.

Ngugi is a writer who revises his published work. David cook and Michael Okenimpkehave outlined changes Ngugi made to stories published in the east African journal penpoint in the early 1960s fir their subsequent publication in the Makerere anthology Origin East Africa(1965) and in his short story collection secret lives(1975). He has also -revised his essay collection writers in politics, originally published in 1981, for its

republication in 1997. The revisions to A Grain of Wheat, though, are especially interesting as an illustration of Ngugi’s thinking around the relationship of literature, history and politics, says Pauline Dodgson-Katiyo.

Political considerations: In A Grain of wheat, says Emmanuel Ngara, Ngugi shows his socialist inclinations byfocusing his attention on the common people and their predicament. The novel depicts events leading to the coming of Uhuru, but the focus isnot 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 outstanding 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 tookplace 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.

The Intervening Years: A great deal had happened to Ngugi inthe years between the first and the revised edition: his work with the Kamiriithu Cultural Centre and his subsequent detention in 1977; hisdecision that his creative writing would be in Gikuyu; the publication of Devil on the Cross, considered by some critics to mark a turning point towards didacticism in Ngugi’s fiction andthe publication of critical collection of essayson cultural de colonization. In the light of this, the revisions to A Grain of Wheat can be seen as moving this early novel into ideologicalalignment with the later work, a refusal to allow any blurring round the edges as the revised novel removes negative representations of behavior and attitude of the members of the liberation movement. The revised sections of work show Ngugi moving away from the European literary models, which had influenced him when

he first wrote the novel and offering the readera directed reading which takes a particular position on Kenyan history and politics. The parlous condition of the postcolonial state, with the fear that the revolution would be betrayed now realized, has resulted in Ngugi’s adherence to the literature of commitment with the struggle against colonialism and neo-colonialism at the centre.

We witness here colonial Kenya giving way to the independent Republic of Kenya, which is the result of the sacrifices of the people ofKenya who suffered and died for freedom’s suggests, there was in Kenya “a new heaven and anew earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away”. But the crucial question is whether Uhuru has brought forth muchfruit as a result of the people who died. In other words, has independence brought about a change of system for the better? A Grain of Wheat, according to G.D.Killam, forecasts at itsclose the development of the political context in which Kenya created out of Jomo kenyatta’s repudiation of his revolutionary sensibility andhis collision with former political rivals and

international finance capitalists. The analysis Ngugi offers is presented in Detained (A Writer’s Prison Diary), the diary he kept in prison, In which he records the experience of being incarcerated for almost a year following the publication of Petals of Blood and the production of I Will Marry When I Want.

A Grain of Wheat, says Neli Lazarysm us situated at the border between a messianic and intellectual field of vision, by the late 1960s representing decolonization as a failure, and a more concretely committed socialism, casting the decolonizing presence in similarly radical but more soberly material and historicalterms. The novel leaves the reader with an imageof hope, embodied in Gikonyo’s carving of a stool in the shape of a pregnant woman, but alsowith the fear that, as represented, the victory of British colonialism will prove to have been aPyrrhic one. It would be in his fourth novel, Petals of Blood-a novel that would take him seven full years to write-that Ngugi would be able to find a less intellectualist register forhis new political sensibility; Petals of Blood

is definitive of the new political writing that has emerged in Africa since 1970.

Gatu’s Portrayal: Among the changes made by Ngugi in the 1986 edition of A Grain of Wheat is the portrayal of Gatu, at the Yala detention camp, where Gikonyo is also held. Gatu is another anti-colonial hero. His stories of worldwide anticolonial resistance, his comic tale of how he was tempted by the Queen of England and his courage (“No amount of beating could silence Gatu.”) inspire the other detainees. Gatu’s strength and determination are probed in the novel through Gikonyo since Gikonyo “felt the terrible bond being established between them”. Ngugi made significant changes to Gatu’s story in the revised edition of the novel. In the first edition Gatu is found wanting, broken by the colonialists; in the revised edition, he is a hero murdered by the colonialists who try to disguise the murder as suicide.

In the first version, after the narration of Gatu’s Queen of England story, we are told,

With months, Gikonyo noticed Gatu’s

fantasies were becoming more and

more wild. And there was something

like a haunted look in his eyes. Sometimes

he raised his eyes above the group, and his

gaze seemed to go beyond the barbedwire to

a land, far away.

In the revised version, this paragraph is omitted and a new section is inserted:

The camp commandant warned him, “We

Shall get you!” Gatu had become the

Symbol of their collective resistance.

Gikonyo could never understand how Gatu

Remained so strong despite being

Singled out for torture. Was it hisfantasies?

Or was the man made of iron?

“A Common Guilt”? Gutut’s stories are a possible sourceof source of strength rather than indication of his weakness, as Ngugi signals clearly in the 1986 edition. In both version, though, Gikonyo fails to appreciate this. In the earlier version, after Gatu had told Gikonyo the parableof a man’s failed attempt to finish building a hut, Gikonyo sees Gatu as weak like everyone else. His pity for him turns to hatred, and “Thetwo avoided each other for the rest of the day as if they were and knew they were involved in common guilt.” In the later version Gikonyo believes that it is easy for Gatu to be strong because Gatu does not have a women like Mumbai waiting for him. Rather then “a common guilt” between the two men, it is Gatu who remains strong and Gikonyo who is weak. Therefore, it isGatu who remains strong and Gikonyo who is weak.

Therefore, it is unsurprising that Gikonyo, obsessed with his lovemaking on the day of the race, denies the Mau Mau oath in order to returnto her. Gikonyo’s reaction to Gikonyo’s insistence on the need for collective action-“Hehas no women like Mumbi. How dare he talk to me about collective strength?” is an introverted variant on Mugo’s reaction to Kihika’s appeal tohim to join the freedom struggle-“kihika who hada mother and a father, and a brother, and a sister, could play with death. He had people whowould mourn his end… Kihika had everything; Mugohad nothing.”

This suggests that personal fortune ormisfortune does not provide a reason for participating in struggle. Kihika who had a family sacrificed himself; as did Gatu who was alone. The isolated Mugo betrayed Kihika; Gikonyo, the family man, denied the oath.

Formative Influence on General R: On the day of the Uhuru celebrations,there is a impromptu race to revive the already flagging celebrations. It also leads to General

R’s speech to the crowd, his call for the traitor who betrayed Kihika to come forward and the unexpected confession of Mugo. What the depiction of the race and subsequent speeches does is to allow the reader insight into the past histories and memories of two of the freedom fighters-Genral R and Lieutenant Koina(ndu). As in the case of Gatu Ngugi makes significant changes in the revised edition to the teling of these stories. Given Ngugi’s unequivocal championing of Mau Mau from the 1970s onwards, it is no coincidence that these changes present both men as less morally ambiguous and confirm the necessity of violent struggle to combat colonialism.

General R, the winner of the race, runs and speaks for Kihika: “He was determined not to fail Kihika, whose soul should reign overthe meeting, in triumph.” In the course of the race, though, General R returns to a time in thepast before he knew Kihika when he remembers hisboyhood and his physical challenge to his brutaldrunken father. General R had tried to prevent his father from assaulting his mother but she, “with a slave’s treachery”, had fought on his

father’s side. In the revised edition, Ngugi provides new details about General R’s father. He had been a colonial messenger and had become a “petty assistant chief” whose only contribution to family was violence and theft.

This description is given to us only after Karanja’s memories of his past when he, asa homeguard and chief under the colonialists, had the power “to save, to imprison, to kill”. General R’s assault on his father is now representer not just as a son challenging a brutal father but as a formative experience in the life of a future freedom fighter. In the first version, General R is driven out of the village by the villagers for daring to attack his father. In the later version, this is omitted, and we are told: “It was only later when he saw so many Kenyans could proudly defendtheir slavery that he understood his mother’s reaction.”

Alterations to Koina’s Story: The alterations to Lieutenant Koinandu’s life story are the most frequently

remarked upon changes in the revised edition. Koinandu is now named Koina as if he is a new character, presumably because readers of the first version will always think of Koinandu as arapist. In the 1967 edition, a European woman scientist Dr.Lynd, based at the forestry research station at Githima, is haunted by the memory of her rape by her houseboy who had rushed into her house with two other men. At theThompsons’ leaving party, she tells John Thompson that she has seen the houseboy again the day before at Githima. Two chapters earlier,General R had spoken of Koinandu’s recent visit to Githima to set up a trap for Karanja, whose “behavior at Githima points to his guilt”. The juxtaposition of behavior at Githima causes Koinandu to look “debauched, his eyes haunted” and to say in “an unnatural voice that he will never go back there. The reader may at this point make a connection between Dr.Lynd’s rape and Koinandu’s strange behavior, but it is not until Koinaandu runs in the race that his memories of the rape and his feelings of guilt are revealed.

During the race, Koinandu has difficult in finding the strength to run, “He felt himself a corpse.” Koinandu cannot understand why he is untroubled by the carnage of World War II, in which he served, and the guerrilla war in the forest but remains haunted by his sexual violence against Dr.Lynd,

Not one of the bloody scenes in which he had taken

part had broken into his sleep. On thecontrary, the

fight for freedom had given him a purpose. It had

made him a man. Why should then her ghost shake

him so?

Re-enacting the scene of the rape in his mind, Koinandu remembers how he had boasted to others in crude language about wanting to have sexual intercourse with Dr.Lynd and how this had becomean obsession. During the rape, he had believed that, in raping a white women, he was taking revenge of the white men who had humiliated him

and other colonized people. Seeing Dr.Lynd again, “The ghost had come to eat into his life;the cool Uhuru drink had turned insipid in his mouth.” Koinandu, however, continues the race, convincing himself that it is only the struggle against colonialism that matters.

In the revised edition, the rape is deleted. Dr.Lynd describes how the houseboy and the other men tied her up. Gagged and robbed her. The rape is replaced by the houseboy hacking her dog to pieces. At the Thompsons’ leaving party, Dr.Lynd says that she has seen the houseboy again. Whereas in the earlier version, seeing the houseboy had left Dr.Lynd scared, now it confirms her determination to stay in Kenya and to adhere to her fortress mentality. General R refers to Koina looks “weary, a little pained”; he says he will never go back there “in a voice totally unlike his lighthearted self”, and that he saw

Some kind of ghosts. But they were ghosts that

Make me wonder about what we are really

celebrating!

Koina’s Political Motivation: During the race, Koina remembers the time he spent as Dr.Lynd’s servant. In this version, he is obsessed with her dog because thedog has more comfort and privileges than the Kenyans. Koina’s political motivation is made clear. At the time of the attack, he had alreadytaken the Mau Mau oath and intended to join the fighters in the forest but had wanted to do after he had triumphed over Dr.Lynd. As he killsthe dog, he tells Dr.Lynd that she must leave Kenya. The same words are used to describe Koina’s feelings of seeing Dr.Lynd again, “The ghost had come to eat into his life; the cool Uhuru drink had turned insipid in his mouth,” but he is angry, not guilty since Dr.Lynd’s “unyielding presence” is an obsession because she and other settlers are in Kenya.

Changes in General R’s Address:

There are also changes in the narrative of General R’s address to the crowd after the race, and these changes are especiallylinked to Koina’s fears. In the first edition, General R remembers how he had killed a pro-colonialist preacher, the Rev. Jackson Kigondu who had faced death bravely and prayed for his killers. General R imagines Kigondu mocking and accusing him as he is on the point of making hisUhuru speech. In the later version, the details of how Kigondu faced death are omitted and replaced with the information that Kigondu defied Mau Mau warnings. Moreover, General R sees the dead Kigondu in much the same way as Koina sees the living Dr.Lynd. He imagines Kigondu mocking him, “We are still here. We whomyou called traitors and collaborators will neverdie!” General R then recalls Koina talking of “seeing the ghosts of the colonial past still haunting Independent Kenya”. In the earlier version, General R reminds his audience of the importance of continuing the struggle against colonialism and, by implication, neo-colonialismbut, in the revised version, this is more explicit as he asks, “What is the meaning of

Uhuru?” and states that the national party now in power must never betray the anti-colonial movement.

These revisions provide a commentary on the need to decolonize the mind, an activity which was to grow in importance in Ngugi’s post-colonial work. They separate the Mau Mau heroes,namely Kihika, General R, Koina(ndu) and Gatu from those who have been weak such as Gikonyo and from the traitors, Karanja and Mugo. This can be illustrated with just one further reference to a difference between the two versions. In the first version, Kihika, when attempting to persuade Mugo to participate in the struggle, says,

“I despise the weak. Let them be trampled to

death. I spit on the weakness of our fathers. Their

memory gives me no pride. And even today,

tomorrow, the weak and those with feeble hearts,

shall be wiped from the earth.”

In the revised version, the text is changed as most of the above is omitted and replaced by Kihika saying the weak do not have to remain weak and claiming that their fathers fought bravely but were damaged by their disunity.

It is easy to see why Ngugi edited thetext here. The language used by Kihika echoes the thoughts of Karanja, “Why should I fear to trample on the children, the lame and the weak when the others are doing it?” There is, of course, more ambiguity around Mugo than Karanja and individual readers may believe that Mugo’s confession deserved redemption. However, the emphasis on the fear that colonialists and collaborators will remain in Kenya makes the sacrifice of Mugo a rational outcome.

Ray of Hope: Hope does exist in Ngugi’s work, saysMartin Tucker, but it is a hope that gives little comfort. Just as men are apparently fatedto fight each other-at least the empirical

evidence seems to support such a view-so are they fated to desire peace. It is indeed the pattern of Ngugi’s three novels (The River Between; Weep Not, Child and A Grain of Wheat) that a hero who seeks to avoid conflict and violence is thrown into contact with a man who desires them. The antagonist justifies his belief in violence because of the injustices done to him and his people in the past; his solutions to these problems of injustices are anarmed conflict with the oppressor and a retaliation in kind of equal severity to the opposition. It is instructive to look at these three novels because they show that no man can deny or hide his conflicts. Only the brave ones resolve them, and in this resolution lies the hope of the future of mankind.

Ngugi seems to saying that only when people accept the present reality can they change their tomorrows. It is the dream of tomorrow that makes a new day possible, but it is the illusions about tomorrow that keep it from appearing. In his inability to dramatize such insights and to provide perspective on the land about which he has chosen to devote his

literary life, Ngugi is a writer who combaines movement with pacifism, tradition with inventiveness. He too is trying to reconcile, tocreate a unity of art-a pattern to which most great writers in the world have been drawn.

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 hidden 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 beenbetter, in terms of historical accuracy, if Ngugi had not included this episode in the published text. Indeed, Bardolph 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 “theincident…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 andhumiliate 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 thenationalist and anti-colonial agenda.

The first version of the novel had a wide readership, A Grain of Wheat having been onthe Cambridge University International ‘A’ levelEnglish 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 different ideological conditions, creates a number of problems for thereaders. Ngugi’s revisions are an intervention in debates about Kenyan history and the relationship of history and literature.