Some point about A Grain of wheat

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        Reader,

• Topic:- Some point about A Grain of Wheat. 
• Paper:- The African Literature      PG.Reg.No:- 20691084209190040.     
• Roll No:- 18     
• Prepard by Rayjada Mitalba J summited to Smt.S.B.Gradi department of English, Maharaja Krushnkumarsinhji, Bhavnagar, University.

Write a critical note on  a grain of wheat:-  

• Nagugi pictured in this work of act what happens when countries are about to get independence or be independent, he also tried to bring out the wickedness of the Kikoyo people, in the sense that he scholarly explained that when people are trying to get independence, people are also there to attain personal benefits.

• This story follows the life of an orphan named Mugo. Kihika, a Mau Mau insurgent leader from thabai, who always conveys some intense view about the way leaders in the previous years handled colonialism, he was also referred to as the people man, apparently, he was brought up in a rich home. As earlier mentioned that Ngugi made proper use of the flash back methodology.

• Kihika had spoken of blood as easily as if he was taking of drawing water in a river, mugo reflected, a revulsion starting in his stomach at the sight and smell of blood. Kihika was going to kill inspector Robson while he was still in the hut, note that mugo had given kihika shelter before he committed the murder.

• After kihika had committed the murder. The author portrayed another character known Gikonyo. He suffered a fate, he was young and his father sent him and his mother away, consequently he grew up with his mother alone. Thought growing up with a single parent may have negative effects on individuals, in the case of Gikonyo.

• On one faithful day, the Kihika's sister known as Mumbi was sent by her mother to go fix a broken stool in gikonyo's shop. When she got there, she was amused, trilled and impressed with gikonyo's skills, ultimately she fell in love with him. Mumbi was said to be the most beautiful and organized young lady in the community so she had so many other men who are interested in making her a wife.

• It marked the competition for mumbi's love between Kharanja and gikonyo. Mumbi is love with gikonyo so they got married this was unknown to Kharanja. According Palmer, Ngugi portrayed the premise redemption in Mugo's action on uhuru's day. Additionally redemption is the action of saving or being saved from sin, error or evil.

Female Characters in 'A Grain of Wheat':-  

Wambui:- 

• She is part of the women who in Ngugi's stories have an active role in political affairs. In the present part of the story, wambui is part of the committee which tries to convince Mugo to hold a speech at ceremony. This shows that she is indeed regarded as equal to men and is taken seriously. 

• African women to achieve this equality only after having reached a certain age as Wambui is not young anymore. This would imply that it could have been more difficult for younger women to be taken seriously, which leads to the analysis of the next character.

Mumbi:-

• Mumbi frist appears to the reader in a very simple role. The one of the dutiful wife who is treated badly by her husband. Mumbi one of these young women in Ngugi's novel. When the reader gets to konw her past, she appears to be simple there as well at first glance. One cannot but admire the way Mumbi decline several marriage proposal and how in the end she is the one who choose her husband, Gikonyo.

• She makes her voice heard not only through singing and making decisions herself, but also by telling the truth of her betrayal to Mugo. Which as a consequence brings him to his own confession. In the conversation between Mugo and Mumbi, the reader gets to konw the bravest side of her. In the years of the Emergency Mumbi took on a Nan's work. 

• She didn't let Karanja or other men in her life. Although he could have helped her in times when food was scarce. Only In Mumbi's weakest moment, when the joy of her husband return over powered her senses Didi she make love to Karanja but regretted it straight after. When Gikonyo calls her a whore she even leaves him, which shows how much she is able to shape her life. 

Title significant in Ngugi's was Thiong'o A Grain of Wheat.

• 'Grain of Wheat' is a novel by Kenyan novelist Ngugi was Thiong'o first published as part of the influential Heinemann African Writers Series. It was written while he was studying at Leeds University and first published in 1967 by Heinemann. The title is taken from the Gospel According to St. John, 12:24.

• The novel weaves together several stories set during the state of emergency in Kenya's struggle for independent, focusing on the quite Mugo whose life is ruled by a dark secret.

• The plot revolves around his home villages preparations for Kenya's independence day celebration Uhuruday. On that day, former resistance fighters General R and Koinandu plan on publicly executive the traitor who betrayed Kihika a heroic resistance fighter hailing from the Village. 

• Ngugi was Thiong'o's novel A Grain of Wheat published in English in 1967 revolves around the lives histories and meditation of several fictional Gikuyu characters as they encounter the historical realities of Kenya on the eve of independence. A Grain of Wheat as historical meditation rather than literary works or historical sources.

Historical contexts for A Grain of Wheat :- 

• during the late 1960s and early 1970s, when A Grain of Wheat was published Africanists were reevaluating their methods and theory. In the wake of independence in December 1963 both Kenyan and non-Kenyan Historian's and scholars had to reconstruct Kenya's past and they approaches this take from two distinct theories.

•  At the time the give method for analyzing Kenyan history and African history in general, was the rupture thesis, which examined African history before and after colonization as two distinct eras and suggested that Europeans had forever altered African history when they officially colonized Africa in the nineteenth century. Ngugi situates A Grain of Wheat at a pivotal moment in Kenyan history. 

• The novel action unfolds in the context of the decade after the1950s "Emergency", also known as the Mau Mau independence struggle. Kenya officially declared independence from Britain in 1963, and A Grain of Wheat takes place in the four days leading up to this declaration, but the years before this from 1952 onward were tumultuous as Gikuyu freedom fighters also knows as Mau Mau, fought a guerrilla war against the British colonizers and sympathizers.

•  Ngugi born in 1938 grew up in this context, and was raised in an are of heavy European occupation. The freedom fighters wanted freedom from Britain, wherever the cost, and this includes eliminating British sympathizers who were Kenyan. 

• A Grain of Wheat is Ngugi best example of historical meditation, and perhaps his last, as this novel later led him to his more political narratives. Ngugi was well suited to write such historical meditation, as the conflicts of colonization created binaries that demanded to be acknowledge and then transcended as Gikuyu history was surely more than a contest between Patriots and sell outs.

•  A Grain of Wheat examines these difficult moral choices and dilemmas with complex portrayals of the Freedom fighter the Gikuyu townspeople and even the British settlers. The divers character and conflicts in A Grain of Wheat enable a multiplicity of meaning. 

• The novel present contrasting ideas in tension together to work towards new peace and a new Kenyan identity. All of this challenge traditional historiography which too often neglects the voices of the very people it seeks to represent often falling into exclusive racist or sexist narratives. 

• Instead by incorporating a global set of allusions, themes, and stories with inclusion of Christian prayers and catechisms, while settlers character, and even writing his novel in English, Ngugi creates a space within which to contemplate the dynamic, traumatic, ever changing history of the Gikuyu people. The diversity and complexity, then of Ngugi Grain of Wheat offers an example of a strong historical meditation that seeks to bring contradictions together to seek and hope for communal and individual change and peace. 

Web Cites:-  

(1) Joseph A Ikape, Analysis of A grain of Wheat, academia.edu.

(2) Powell, Kathryn, Ngugi wa Thiong'o's A Grain of Wheat : a historical meditation, cardinalscholar.bus.edu.5/2018.

(3) Stefanie Dalvai , Female characters in Ngugi wa Thiong'o's "A Grain of Wheat" and Tsits Dagarembga's "Nervous Conditions" , m.grin.com, 2018.


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