A Grain of Wheat Notes PDF

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A Grain of Wheat Notes: Disclaimer: The notes are introductory notes of the novel “A Grain of Wheat”, this does not mean that the information being expressed, divulged and shared is outright correct and accurate. It is a mere compilation of what has been observed by the student which means that the information is open for editing and correction. The sole purpose of this manuscript is to pursue the mantra of Uhuru, kubatana, ukusebenza konke working together in conquering ENN220. 

A grain of wheat explores the gospel of liberation, examines the tropes of Christian ideas, salvation in political processes from certainty to uncertainty. Anything away from the center is exotic the interpretation or meaning of the term “exotic” is that the undertone and context of Africaness is deemed and understood to be foreign which is an idea that is misunderstood and grappled to the core of the actual meaning in its own land which creates a debatable understanding in essence how can something or an idea of Africaness be dubbed and deemed exotic in its own land? (food for thought).

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The concept of rather sense of center, there is not a center, in the analysis what is meant by center one can suggest that it is where the origins of ideas come from like how they come to life and existence, birthing the whole dimension of story arch’s that cover themes such politics, religion among a whole host of themes. There isn’t a center (answer) Consequences a moral center that can be certain of where does it all lie “the center”, in understanding the center one can suggest that the origins of center lie within the mind of the author in this case that is “A Grain of Wheat” the themes that Ngugi wa Thiongo comments about these are political, social among others.

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The novel “A Grain of Wheat, explores the time when Kenya was realizing her independence from 1955 to 63. Political talk, under colonial era metropolitan centers of political administration or influence would be that of London, Paris, Lisbon, Rome among other centers of political colonial administrative influence.

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Post colony a part of the colonized, post colony an inevitable fact of the African experience.

Que: “Effect of the past colonization was it wholly evil?”

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Que: Is there an authentic African experience? 

Ideas are not singular but they are influenced from the external to internal, the pillar of authenticity should acknowledge that there is transfer of information from one person to the other. Overtime societies have been influenced in multiple ways, “Globalization”

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As African societies explored and realized their own independence it can be understood that modernity ushered in skepticism on angles or facets of culture, religion, politics and society.

Achebe Notes 

Africa is a huge continent with a diversity of cultures and languages. Africa is not simple often people want to simplify it, generalize it stereotype its people but Africa is very complex.

A Grain of Wheat notes continued: 

Wrote during the four days of leading up to Kenya’s independence from independence from British colonial rule in December 1963, although the unconfessed events which are the drama of the narrative mostly took place during the “Emergency in the 1950s”

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The emergency was declared in 1952 to suppress the Mau-Mau, “an armed rebellion against European settlements in the highlands of Kenya.

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European settlement in the central highlands later to be called, “White Highlands” to describe the racial dimension of settler activity had been preceded by the expulsion of the Gikuyu people and their transformation into laborer’s and squatters on the land they had thought their own.

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One of the most striking aspect of “A Grain od wheat” is the method of its narration.

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The framing voice is a 3rd person narrator who at times speaks with a clear political awareness of the context of Kenya’s colonial history and at other times slides quietly into the inclusiveness of the oral story-teller speaking to listeners who are familiar with the main events of the tale.

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The narrative frequently slips in and out of present-time and between narrating voices, crating some instability some instability about what is known and what it means to know. Characters: 2

i.

Mugo: Grown into a tormented and isolated man.

ii.

Drunk Aunt: Loathed and tormented Mugo

iii.

Thabai: Friend believing in Mugo

iv.

Kihika: Wannabe hero

v.

Mumbi: Sister to Kihika/ wife to Gikonyo slept with Karanja

vi.

Gikonyo: Husband to Mumbi

vii.

Karanja: Home guard, worked for the colonial security force, had an affair with Mumbi.

viii. 

DO John Thompson

To his community Mugo is a hermit a holy quiet, self-sufficient, moral man. In reality he is as guilty as sin although we have to wait until the last quarter of the novel before we know this for sure.

Que: What are our responsibilities to ourselves and what are our responsibilities to our community? 

Kihika understands the need to resist colonial violence and when it comes, he runs away to the forest to join the Mau-Mau.

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Ngugi borrows the concept of redemptive language from the novel, “A heart of Darkness”, Ngugi’s own use of the idea of redemption Christianity concept or redemptive language in the novel is more equivocal not point to its inescapable duplicity but to demonstrate the unavoidable inhumanity of sacrifice.

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Mugo rightly insists on his human need to live as he chooses, but in the argument of this novel to live alone is a pathology (disease) and to live in a community especially one a historically oppressed as this requires a sacrifice of these needs.

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No person is an island, African culture compared to the Eurocentric culture.

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Kihika, signifies an inhumane heroism which is necessary for freedom and justice. He is the “Grain of Wheat” of the title who must die for new life to begin.

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A Grain of Wheat has its Kurtz DO John Thompson = Kurtz

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From idealist he becomes a torturer, forcing confessions out of the detainees by any means possible because that is the true meaning of colonial rule like Kurtz, Thompson comes to learn that violence and coercion are his unavoidable means.

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Thompson then is offered as not only a critique of colonial methods but of the whole narrative of imperialism which prefers the grindstone language of progress to the “the horror” of its actual practice.

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Thompson is denied humanity in the novel a sacrificial lamb in exposing the darkside of colonialism and the hunger of greed and power.

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Imperialism’s self-deception and cruelty has turned him into an unfeeling brute a mirror to the greater image of Britain.

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A grain of wheat is a political narrative. It is a political in its desire to show the development of an awareness of a history of oppression.

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Mugo, Gikonyo, Karanja betray the cause of freedom in their different ways, but they also betray themselves as does Mumbi. Though the guilt they suffer they arrive at a point of understanding and self-knowledge and so in the end the novel offers a possibility of regeneration in this sense. A grain of wheat is also moral narrative

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