Thinking Activity

Thinking Activity: Unit 1: Petals Of Blood

Hello everyone, i am Nidhi Dave a student of the department of English, MKBU. This blog is response of my Thinking Activity given by professor Yesha Ma'am. In this blog I'm going to discuss about the novel Petals Of Blood.

🔅About Author: 

Ngugi wa Thiong’o, original name James Thiong’o Ngugi, (born January 5, 1938, Limuru, Kenya), Kenyan writer who was considered East Africa’s leading novelist. His popular Weep Not, Child (1964) was the first major novel in English by an East African. As he became sensitized to the effects of colonialism in Africa, Ngugi adopted his traditional name and wrote in the Bantu language of Kenya’s Kikuyu people.

The prizewinning Weep Not, Child is the story of a Kikuyu family drawn into the struggle for Kenyan independence during the state of emergency and the Mau Mau rebellion. A Grain of Wheat (1967), generally held to be artistically more mature, focuses on the many social, moral, and racial issues of the struggle for independence and its aftermath. A third novel, The River Between (1965), which was actually written before the others, tells of lovers kept apart by the conflict between Christianity and traditional ways and beliefs and suggests that efforts to reunite a culturally divided community by means of Western education are doomed to failure. Petals of Blood (1977) deals with social and economic problems in East Africa after independence, particularly the continued exploitation of peasants and workers by foreign business interests and a greedy indigenous bourgeoisie.

Ngugi later published the memoirs Dreams in a Time of War (2010), about his childhood; In the House of the Interpreter (2012), which was largely set in the 1950s, during the Mau Mau rebellion against British control in Kenya; and Birth of a Dream Weaver: A Writer’s Awakening (2016), a chronicle of his years at Makerere University.

🔅About Novel:

The Mau Mau rebellion, as it is often called, which began in Kenya in the early 1950s, was a nationalist, anticolonial armed resistance against the British colonial state. The guerrilla movement called itself the Kenya Land Freedom Army; the British dubbed the movement “mau mau,” a meaningless name, to obscure the aims otherwise so clear in the resistance army’s name. Ngugi Wa Thiongío’s Petals of Blood examines, among other things, the betrayal by the postcolonial regime of the ideals of this anticolonial struggle that helped Kenya achieve its independence.

Set in the aftermath of Kenyan independence, revered Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o’s novel Petals of Blood (1977) follows schoolteachers Munira and Karega, and barmaid Wanja and her boss, Abdulla, as they cope with the rapid modernization of their rural village, Ilmorog. The novel examines the effects of the Mau Mau rebellion and the legacy of colonialism while criticizing the Kenyan government for reproducing the inequalities of the colonial regime. The title is taken from “The Swamp,” a poem by Derek Walcott.

✴️Write a note on the first chapter of the novel (Interrogation of all characters)

🔅Major characters:

• Munira - School teacher. 
• Wanja - Barmaid, Prostitute.
•  Abdulla - Shopkeeper.
• Karega - School Teacher.
•  Nyakinyua - Grandmother of Wanja.
• Kimeria - Businessman.
• Chui - School boy.
• Nderi wa Riera -MP, Politician.
•  Mzigo - Education Officer
•  Joseph - Son of Abdulla
•  Inspector Godfrey - An officer in charge of the murder investigation.
•  Mwathi wa Mugo - Ilmorog's local diviner.
• Mukami - Munira's beloved.
•  Ezekieli - Munira's father.
• Mariamu - Mother of Karega
• Cambridge Fraudsham - A strict, Christian headmaster.

Ans, The novel begins with a glance at its ending: three notable Kenyans—a teacher and two successful businessmen—have died in a fire. Inspector Godfrey, who believes that the police force is “the maker of modern Kenya,” investigates. His suspicion falls on the schoolteacher Munira.

From here, the novel moves back to the beginning of the story. Schoolteacher Munira arrives in the pastoral village of Ilmorog, to take up a position at the village school. Many teachers from the city have come and gone in Ilmorog, and the villagers assume that Munira won’t last. His new neighbors treat him with suspicion, and few children come to his classes. However, Munira befriends the owner of a local bar, Abdulla, a hero of the Mau Mau rebellion, who helps Munira to settle in the village. Munira also befriends Joseph, a young boy whom Abdulla has adopted. Eventually, Munira is accepted as one of Ilmorog’s own.

Another refugee from the city arrives, Wanja, the granddaughter of a respected Ilmorog elder. She begins working in Abdulla’s bar, helping him to expand the business. Soon, Munira finds himself falling in love with her. Munira and Wanja have a brief relationship, but Munira is married, and when Wanja discovers this, she is bitterly disappointed. She leaves the village for a time; when she returns, she breaks off the affair.

A former colleague of Munira’s, Karega, arrives in Ilmorog to question Munira about events at the school where both used to work. Karega ends up taking a position at the school. That year, the village suffers a long, dry summer and a poor harvest. Karega rallies the villagers and leads them to Nairobi to ask their Member of Parliament for help.

It is a long journey. On the way, Joseph grows very ill. As soon as the villagers arrive in Nairobi, they try to get help for Joseph. A minister turns them away, assuming they are beggars. Finally, they are admitted to the house of a rich man, only to be rounded up and imprisoned in the building. They are subjected to questioning by the house’s owner, Kimeria, an unscrupulous businessman who explains to the villagers that he and their MP are allies. Later, he blackmails and rapes Wanja.

The villagers go to meet their MP anyway. They find that he is an empty demagogue with no interest in their plight. However, a Nairobi lawyer takes an interest in their case, advancing it through the courts and attracting national press attention. As a result, journalists and charity workers pour into Ilmorog.

When the rains finally come, the villagers celebrate with ritual dances. A villager named Nyakinyua brews a powerful traditional drink made from the Thang’eta plant. All the villagers partake of the drink. Under its influence, Karega confesses to Munira that he had an affair with Munira’s older sister, Mukami. Munira and Mukami’s father forced her to leave Karega due to Karega’s brother’s involvement in the Mau Mau rebellion. This was the real reason for Mukami’s suicide.

A plane crashes in the village, miraculously killing no one but Abdulla’s donkey. Many people come to see the wreckage, and Wanja suggests they capitalize on this tourism by selling the Thang’eta drink in Abdulla’s bar. The drink becomes a notorious attraction of the village, and tourists begin visiting just to try it. Soon, Wanja starts a brewery making the drink.

Karega and Wanja start seeing one another. Seething with jealousy, Munira schemes to have Karega fired from the school. Karega is forced to leave Ilmorog.

The government begins building a new road­—the Trans-Africa road—right through the village. Workers arrive, and the village rapidly expands. Soon it is a town, New Ilmorog. The farmers of the old village are advised to fence their lands and mortgage them, so they can prove they own them. Banks offer them loans against their harvests to pay for this. When Nyakinyua dies, the bank moves to seize her land, so Wanja sells her brewery in order to buy Nyakinkua’s land. She opens a brothel catering to the new arrivals and is eventually forced to work as a prostitute herself.

Karega returns, telling Wanja that after his departure, he collapsed into alcoholism before finding a job in a factory, from which he has been fired. Though they still love each other, they cannot agree about how to live in the new Kenya, and Karega leaves again. Munira tries to rekindle their relationship, but Wanja simply asks him to pay. He does so, and they have sex.

Wanja comes up with a plan to rid herself of the men who have taken advantage of her. She invites them all to the brothel, including Karega and Kimeria. Her plan is to present Abdulla to them as her chosen partner. However, Munira sees Karega arrive and then leave again; in a fit of jealousy, he sets fire to the brothel. The other men die, while Wanja is hospitalized.

Inspector Godfrey charges Munira with arson and Munira is imprisoned.

Thank you