language of redemption. Remember Kurtz’s high-flown treatise on human progress in
Heart of Darkness
and its hollowness in the light of the degradations of colonial power. For Conrad all such language is duplicitous, a self-deceiving disguise of baser motives, or as Marlow puts it in
Lord Jim
: ‘it is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge’. Ngg’s own use of this idea of redemptive language in
A Grain of Wheat
is more equivocal, not to point to its inescapable duplicity, but to demonstrate the unavoidable inhumanity of sacrifice. Mugo rightly insists on his human need to live as he chooses, but in the argumentof this novel to live alone is a pathology, and to live in a community, especially one as historically oppressed as this, requires a sacrifice of those needs. So 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.
A Grain of Wheat
has its own Kurtz. DO John Thompson is an idealist of Empire, who starts off with a vision of ‘one British nation, embracing peoples of all colours and creeds, based on the just proposition that all men are created equal’. He starts working on a book to be called
Prospero in Africa
, which will put forward an argument for this conception of human progress. Like Kurtz, Thompson is mocked for the ‘artful dodges’ language allows him. In an echo of Kurtz’s ‘Eliminate all the brutes’ scrawled over his treatise on progress, Thompson writes ‘Eliminate the vermin’ in his
Prospero
notes. 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. When eleven detainees die under torture at Rira camp under his command, Thompson, the rising man in the administration, is quickly transferred out of sight. Thompson, then, is offered as not only a critique of colonial methods but of the whole narrative of imperialism, which prefers the grandiose lying language of progress to ‘the horror’ of its actual practice.
Ultimately Thompson is denied humanity in the novel, because I don’t think Nggis interested in him and his motivations, but in using him to demonstrate an argument. Not only is he an imperial tool, and the means of offering a critique of colonial method, but he is also shown as incapable of attachment or warmth. Imperialism’s self-deception and cruelty has turned him into an unfeeling brute. His story ends with his imminent departure on the eve of independence, demoralized and disillusioned, the ambitions of a lifetime transformed into inadequacy.
Nggis, however, deeply interested in Mugo, and how to resolve the consequences of his debilitating aloneness. Mumbi’s confession of her adultery touches him in an unexpected way. She is beautiful, she is young, and her vitality and courage in speaking about what hadhappened to her shames Mugo. It reminds him of the futility of his life: ‘he was at the bottom of the pool, but up there, above the pool, ran the earth; life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful’. And so begins the process of Mugo’s reintegration into his community, as first he confesses to Mumbi that he betrayed Kihika, her brother, and then confesses to the whole of Thabai the part he had played in the execution of their hero.
A Grain of Wheat
is a political narrative. It is political in its desire to show the development of an awarenes of a history of oppression. When the rebellion comes, the novel argues, it is the culmination of a long series of more restrained acts of defiance. The individual dramas become more prominent as the narrative progresses, but the rebellion is its point of reference. Mugo, Gikonyo, and Karanja betray the cause of freedom in their
Heart of Darkness
and its hollowness in the light of the degradations of colonial power. For Conrad all such language is duplicitous, a self-deceiving disguise of baser motives, or as Marlow puts it in
Lord Jim
: ‘it is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge’. Ngg’s own use of this idea of redemptive language in
A Grain of Wheat
is more equivocal, not to point to its inescapable duplicity, but to demonstrate the unavoidable inhumanity of sacrifice. Mugo rightly insists on his human need to live as he chooses, but in the argumentof this novel to live alone is a pathology, and to live in a community, especially one as historically oppressed as this, requires a sacrifice of those needs. So 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.
A Grain of Wheat
has its own Kurtz. DO John Thompson is an idealist of Empire, who starts off with a vision of ‘one British nation, embracing peoples of all colours and creeds, based on the just proposition that all men are created equal’. He starts working on a book to be called
Prospero in Africa
, which will put forward an argument for this conception of human progress. Like Kurtz, Thompson is mocked for the ‘artful dodges’ language allows him. In an echo of Kurtz’s ‘Eliminate all the brutes’ scrawled over his treatise on progress, Thompson writes ‘Eliminate the vermin’ in his
Prospero
notes. 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. When eleven detainees die under torture at Rira camp under his command, Thompson, the rising man in the administration, is quickly transferred out of sight. Thompson, then, is offered as not only a critique of colonial methods but of the whole narrative of imperialism, which prefers the grandiose lying language of progress to ‘the horror’ of its actual practice.
Ultimately Thompson is denied humanity in the novel, because I don’t think Nggis interested in him and his motivations, but in using him to demonstrate an argument. Not only is he an imperial tool, and the means of offering a critique of colonial method, but he is also shown as incapable of attachment or warmth. Imperialism’s self-deception and cruelty has turned him into an unfeeling brute. His story ends with his imminent departure on the eve of independence, demoralized and disillusioned, the ambitions of a lifetime transformed into inadequacy.
Nggis, however, deeply interested in Mugo, and how to resolve the consequences of his debilitating aloneness. Mumbi’s confession of her adultery touches him in an unexpected way. She is beautiful, she is young, and her vitality and courage in speaking about what hadhappened to her shames Mugo. It reminds him of the futility of his life: ‘he was at the bottom of the pool, but up there, above the pool, ran the earth; life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful’. And so begins the process of Mugo’s reintegration into his community, as first he confesses to Mumbi that he betrayed Kihika, her brother, and then confesses to the whole of Thabai the part he had played in the execution of their hero.
A Grain of Wheat
is a political narrative. It is political in its desire to show the development of an awarenes of a history of oppression. When the rebellion comes, the novel argues, it is the culmination of a long series of more restrained acts of defiance. The individual dramas become more prominent as the narrative progresses, but the rebellion is its point of reference. Mugo, Gikonyo, and Karanja betray the cause of freedom in their
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