A Grain of Wheat as a National epic of Anti-colonial struggle

Paper: 14 The African Literature

PG Enrollment No: 14101005MA Sem: 4Email id: nikunjbhatti332@gmail.com

Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar UniversityBhavnagar, Gujarat, India.

A Grain of Wheat as a National epicof Anti-colonial struggle

Nikunj Bhatti

A Grain of Wheat

Anti-colonial Struggle

National Epic

The West

White

colonizers

The Power

Patriarchal man

Fatherland

The Rest

Nonwhites

colonized

Have-not power

womanized

Motherland

Condition of African Labors

Mau Mau Rebellion

The Mau Mau Uprising, also known as the Mau Mau Revolt, Mau Mau Rebellion, or Kenya Emergency, was a military conflict that took place in British Kenya between 1952 and 1960.

It involved Kikuyu dominated groups summarily called Mau Mau, the white settlers including women and children and elements of the British Army. (Wikipedia)

Mau Mau Rebellion

PhysicalPsycholog

ical Political impact

The novel can be summarized as a ‘collective act of

recalling and reflecting on the past’ that is a narration of nation.

Uhuru : Freedom

The whole novel can indeed be summarized as a collective act of recalling and reflecting on the events leading to Uhuru, in order to understand what actual meaning it should have for Thabai peasants.That would be held on Kenya’s Independence Day. Kihika, a Mau Mau rebel who sacrificed his life to fight for Kenya’s freedom during the Mau Mau rebellion.People tries to struggle for their own Uharu and it is the main and central idea of Novel .

Anti-Colonial Struggle

The action of novel focuses on the protagonists’

remembrances of the events of the

‘Mau Mau ’ Revolt- the birth of

a new Kenya.

The author choose Christianity as a knife

to tear apart the society. “ They looked beyond the laughing face of the

Whiteman and suddenly saw a long

line of other red stranger who carried, not the Bible, but the

sword.”

Theme of Sacrifice

“A Grain of Wheat” can be called

‘impossible irony’ of nationalism in the

words of Terry Eagleton

Kihika

Gikonyo

Mugo

Heroism

Bhagat SinghKihika

Source

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Mau_Uprising

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