An issue of culture and language in A Grain of Wheat

Topic :- An issue of culture and language in A Grain of Wheat

Name :- Chauhan Sejal Arunbhai

Subject :- The African Literature

Paper :- 14

Roll No :- 26

M.A. PART-II SEM-IV

Year- 2013-15

Submitted to :- Dr.Dilip.Barad

Smt.S.B.Gardi

Department of English

M.K.Bhavnagar University.

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o born in 1938 in colonial Kenya and baptized ‘James’, he was educated at independent Gikuyu and Christian mission primary schools. He studied at a Ugandan university college, where his specialist subject was Joseph Conrad and at Leeds University in England. He read widely during his youth, ‘especially the novels of Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson and Leo Tolstoy in addition to popular thrillers and wrote his early works in English, a language Oliver Lovesey points out, ‘few of his fellow Kenyans would be able to read.’

Ngugi’s uncensored political themes led to his exile from Kenya in 1982, he subsequently lived and taught in Britain and America. This culturally varied education and career, Lovesey argues, places Ngugi in the ‘ambivalent position of the postcolonial intellectual’, in which individuals are associated with ‘Europe and the colonizers and culturally distanced ‘from the majority of the people.’

This view conflicts with that of the bolekaja critics, Chiweizu, Jemie and Madubuike, who argued that the historical and cultural imperatives were radically different from and sometimes quite antithetical to those of Europe in an apparent refusal to concede that the historical fact of colonialism inevitably leads to a hybridization of culture.

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s A Grain of Wheat is a Kenyan novel written in English, a language traditionally associated with colonialism and oppression in Africa. Despite the fact that the novel is written in English, Ngugi still uses language to speak to the novel’s theme of revolution by incorporating his native Giuyu in the form of proverbs and folk songs. Addoitionally, the novel juxtaposes these Gikuyu proverbs with verses and parables’ from the Christian Bible, a medium through which missionaries spread English early in its history in Kenya. Though Ngugi wrote A Grain of Wheat in English, he manipulates and uses language in order to promote Gikuyu and Kenyan culture and to discredit English as a Kenyan language. In portraying English in a negative light in his novel, Ngugi reveals his opposition to English as a language of Africa literature and his larger national concerns for Kenya after its colonization and for its new status as an independent nation.

In his essay “ The Language of African Literature “, Ngugi expresses the opinion that the English language is unable to relate his African experience. Ngugi claims that every language is “a carrier of culture,” that if African writers use English, in their work they automatically promote European culture over their own.

John Hawley notes that it is “the ‘linguae francae’ that have helped establish a ‘global village’ have historically implied the subjugation of one community by another” in Africa.

Similarly, Ngugi asserts that African writers using English represent “ the final triumph of a system of domination the dominated stert singing its virtues” as a result, his vehement opposition to English takes on a nationalist and revolutionary outlook.

 

For Ngugi, writing in English is a sign of “the conscious elevation of the language of the colonizer” and still bears colonial overtones. This negative attitude towards English as a language of African literature as well as Ngugi’s urges for the promotion native African language and culture, is certainly evident in A Grain of Wheat.

Despite his vehement opposition to writing in English, however A Grain of Wheat and many of Ngugi’s early novels were written in English. John Mcleod claims that Ngugi’s

“use of the English language and the literary form as the means to create a distinctly national representation.”

is questionable in that it is a language with colonial associations. One way to interpret Ngugi’s choice  on of language to keep it consistent with his view English is to note that A Grain of Wheat is a novel about betrayal. Nearly all of the characters embody the theme of betrayal in some fashion, but two characters commit acts of betrayal against the nation. The first of these is Mugo, the main character of the novel, who informs the colonial authorities as to the where abouts of Kihika, the nationalist hero so that they could kill him.

The second character is Karanja, who “quickly became a trusted servant of the white people at Githima,” thereby betraying his own background and people. If one does not consider Ngugi’s opinions towards English, however the fact that the novel is written in English has a different effect. The style in which Ngugi writes A Grain of Wheat, incorporating words and phrases in Gikuyu into the English text, is very representative of most African authors writing in English Ngugi’s narrative style, which moves backward and forward in time through “flashbacks”, is also characteristics of some African novels, in contrast, the literary genre of the novel itself is, according to McLeod, European.

When viewed in this light, Ngugi’s choice of narrative structure seems to adapt European literary conventions like language, form and style to suit his own needs as an African author. According to Ngugi, Africans writing in English fall victim to a kind of “Europeanized writing”, he however, recognizes “his own complicity in this scheme.”

Another way in which Ngugi criticizes antinationalist betrayals is through his descriptions of Karanja’s speech interactions with the European officials for whom he works. Communication between the two races, represented by Karanja and John Thompson, appears blocked and futile.

Ngugi writes:

Many times Karanja had walked Thompson deter mind to ask him a direct question coldwater lumped in his belly, his heart would thunder violently when he came near the whiteman. His determination always ended in the same way, he would salute John Thompson and then walk past as if his business lay further ahead.

This passage details Karanja’s inability to communicate with the whites. Though he is “determined”, he never succeeds in verbally communicating with Thompson. Ironically, the colonial official Karanja the character most likely to use English is unable to do so. Rather the only communication that he achieves is nonverbal and is a sign of deference. Karanja’s deference and subservience directly contrasts Kihika’s “cult of personality” and presence against colonialist oppression.

By stressing the importance of personality in the revolutionary movements, Ngugi seems to be paralleling Kihika with figures like Jomo Kenyotta, who charismatically led resistance movements against the British

“ It is less the institution than the person of the president who is able to organize the people”

Of Kenya Ngugi seems to criticize Karanja’s reticence and failure to use language at all, never mind in defense of his country, as further evidence of his anti-nationalist betrayal and negative role in the novel.

Ngugi also manipulates language in A Grain of Wheat through his inclusion of several words in Gikuyu. Though Ngugi could have translated these words, he leaves them in his African language. Two of the Gikuyu words that he frequently the employs are “Uhuru” and “Mau Mau”. “Uhuru” is a word meaning “independence” and specifically refers to Kenyan independence in 1963. The fact that the novel is set in 1963 puts the concept of Uhuru at the farefront of its concerns. In choosing to keep “Uhuru” in Gikuyu instead of translating it into English Ngugi suggests that Kenyan independence frees the country from the ties of colonialism.

In addition to these individual Gikuyu terms, Ngugi incorporates cultural artifacts like songs and proverbs into his English text one of these is “Uhuru bado! Or let us carve Kenya into small pieces,” a revolutionary song of the movement.

The inclusion of this song supports Ngugi anti-colonial outlook not only because it is in Gikuyu but also because its message is for tribal pride and independence. Though the dividing up of the nation may not seem to fit with Ngugi’s sense of Kenyan nationalism, it makes sense in the context of his larger argument against colonial domination because the colony of Kenya, made up of seven different ethnic and linguistic groups, was first united by the British colonizers, rebelling against that very unity is another way to resist colonialism. In addition to this song about independence Ngugi also includes a “new song” in Gikuyu written by Kihika that also addresses revolutionary concerns:

Gikuyu na Mumbi,

Gikuyu na Mumbi ,

Gikuyu na Mumbi,

Nikihui ngwatiro.

While the text of the song is in Gikuyu, the song lyrics reference Gikuyu, the language itself the song lyrics also make extensive reference to Mumbi, the female character in the novel symbolically regards as “ an allegorical mother figure of the Kenyan nation”. This song then, written by Kihika in Gikiyu and making explicit reference to the language and heritage of Kenya, comes to embody all aspects of the Kenyan nationalist and independent movement. The song also suggest the link between heritage and language, embodied by Ngugi in his essay on language and also by Hawley when he asserts that “ the post-colonial drive towards identity centers around language.” However in addition to his songs in Gikuyu about independence,  Ngugi also incorporates revolutionary songs in English. One such song is:

We shall never rest

Without land

Without Freedom true

Kenya is a country of black people.

Though this song represents Kenya’s zeal for independence, it places all of its emphasis on the revolutionary struggle. The notion that the people will “ never rest “ and that they are ‘without land ‘ and ‘ without freedom ‘ highlights Kenya’s status as a colony, though the song expresses a desire for independence, Uhuru has not yet come. The song’s English lyrics perhaps speak to the continued oppression experienced by the people in the song the English lyrics associated with the subjugation of Kenya may represent the English colonial government.

Similarly, the final line calls attention to the people’s “blackness” just as Karanja does when he notes that the only thing holding Kenyans back from being “ true Europeans “ and controlling their own nation is their “ black skin “.

Ngugi’s use of English in this folk song calls attention to the oppression of the people at the hands of the English colonizers.

The idea that Kihika paralles a Christian maxim with a Swahili one is motif that recurs throughout the novel. At several points, Kihika uses language from the Bible in English, but subverts the messages to have revolutionary significance Ngugi makes it clear that the Christian. Bible was certainly a means to elevate English over African languages and culture, especially in elementary schools.

Another way in which Ngugi promotes Kenyan culture and language through Christianity is through a direct comparison of European and Kenyan Cultures. General R, a member of the revolutionary movement, states,

“ Let me first of all tell you that I never prayed to God.

I never believed in him.

I believe in Gikuyu and Mumbi and in the black people of this our country.”

In this speech the General suggests that his own heritage and language eclipse the importance of God and by extension, British culture. His specific reference to both Gikuyu and the people of his nation supports Ngugi’s claim that language informs heritage and vice versa and that

“ colonial language a carrier of culture .”

Additionally , the notion that “ Mumbi “ is again juxtaposed with “ Gikuyu “ , just as in the earlier song written by Kihika, further solidifies their relationship and the symbolic relationship between language and heritage.

In his novel A Grain of Wheat, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o uses both English and African languages to promote the revolutionary movement that fought for independence in Kenya. Though English is a language with colonial overtones in Africa, Ngugi uses the negativity associated with English to parallel the theme of betrayal that runs through the novel.

In addition to using English, Ngugi also employs African languages, in his native Gikuyu and Swahili, through folk songs and proverbs. By incorporating these traditional aspects of African culture in their original languages, Ngugi reinforces his observation that language is a “ carrier of culture.” By discrediting European language and culture in A Grain of Wheat , Ngugi promotes the language and culture of the Kenyan people and as a result furthers Kihika’s cause in the novel for Kenyan sovereignty.