Heroism in 'A Grain of Wheat'

Paper Name    :-  The African Literature

Topic                 :-  Heroism in ‘A Grain of Wheat’

Name               :-  Avani N. Dave       

Roll No.            :-  2

Semester          :- 4

Date                   :-  08/03/14

Submitted to   :-  Department of English,

                                Maharaja Krishnakumr                                 

                                Sinhji Bhavnagar University

                                     There can be little question that Kihika, the rebel in Ngugi wa Thiongo’s A Grain of Wheat, is a hero. With respect to Mugo,however opinion may be divided. Mugo is a traitor who finally admits his treason. To be sure Mugo’s peers, the people of thabai are deeply puzzled by the sense of his acts.Yet  Ngugi’s choice of narrative form can direct the reader’s interpretation, for the novel proposes an expansion of the concept of heroism to include not only the magnanimous gestures of an exceptional man but also ironic self-discovery by the average man.

It is the struggle against the British. The Emergency and Mau Mau that create for Khihika the occasion to realize his ideals for both himself and his people. By lashing out at the enemy of his people, kihika proves himself to be a man of great deeds and noble qualities. He eventually becomes a martyr for Kenyan freedom. His bravery and death earn him the admiration of his fellows, and he becomes and inspiration for them as did Gandhi and Christ for him khihika is clearly a hero in the eyes of both the people of thabai and in those of the implied reader; it is through battle and the sword that kihika’s dreams come to fruition.

Just as Kihika dominates the prelude to the novel’s action (pre-independence) Mugo dominates the action itself, which starts when freedom has been won and independence is to begin before independence, Mugo, and orphan, lives with a cruel aunt. Unlike Kihika, he is lonely, introspective and taciturn. Yet he, too aspires to be part of the community. Mugo feels rootless when his aunt dies.

Whom could he now call a relation? He wanted somebody, anybody, who would use the claims of kinship to do him ill or good. Either one or the other as long as he was not left alone, an outsider.

He turned to the soil. He would labor, sweat, and through success and wealth force society to recognize him.

The challenges laid before Kihika and Mugo differ in several respects Kihika’s enemy is the British, a plain and external threat; his strategy is physical combat in which he risks his life. In contrast, Mugo’s enemy is his own fears and desires; his is and internal, mental struggle in which he may lose both his life and his fragile honor.  Hihika’s objectives are clear and straightforward the expulsion f the British-but Mugos are less obvious and the rewards less certain, for there will be no tangible laurels he Mugo true to himself at last admit his crime.

The other characters may grope for the meaning of Mugo’s startling revelation and of his contradictory dees, but this passage leaves the implied reader with a strong sense of Mugo’s heroism.

If Kihika’s heroism is achieved through brave deeds in physical combat. Mugo’s is attained through the seemingly unlikely medium of language-the public forum through which we discover ourselves. From his youth, Kihika is gifted with words and the power to move his listeners- mumbi, his friends or compatriots-with his beliefs and visions. In contrast, Mugo rarely speaks at all.  The narrator stresses Mugo’s shy silence by stating early on in the novel that Mugo had given only one real speech in his life, during a public meeting in which the returning detainees were presented to the people His voice, colorless, rusty, startled him. He spoke in a dry monotone, tired, almost as if telling of scenes hi did not want to remember As Mogo describes the nightmare of the prison camp and brings back to consciousness the memory of what has happened, he faces the truth of his experience. For a brief moment he achieves a kind of purity and truly awakens from his numbed existence. Suddenly he finds that he is no longer talking of thins as they were but rather things as he would have liked them to be of the dream of home and loved so dear to him who had none. Realizing the life, he stops abruptly leaving the audience suspended. This speech before the people of Thabai is the first occasion on which Mugo begins to articulate and thus to recognize the sense of his life. It is a bitter truth, one that be wishes to embellish and from which he finally turns away. The second and final such moment occurs on Uhuru day when Mugo admits his part in Kihika’s death: As soon as the first words were out Mugo felt light. A load of many years was lifted from his shoulders. He was free, sure, confident.

Language is the means of self-knowledge, a new heroism represented by Mugo.  Indeed all the characters in the novel who move towards self-discovery do so through the act of talking. Little action in fact takes place in the story. From the moment Mugo is introduced until the race on Uhru day, the story consists primarily of encounters in which the principal activity is an exchange of words. The leaders of the Party come to invite Mugo to speak; Gikonyo then confides in him; Mumbi, too, unburdens her heart to him, and so on. Yet the form which these words take is not dynamic dialogue so much as the voice of a character (sometimes rendered by the narrator) reconstructing aloud his or her past. By the same taken, the only main characters in the novel who never ease their troubled consciences and who continue to lead unfulfilling lives are those who have no meaningful communication: Margery and John Thompson and karanja In a Grain of Wheat silence is accompanied by introspection, inertia and self-centeredness which impede the integration of the individual into the whole. Speech implies sharing, energy and other directedness which offer a path to personal fulfillment within the social context. Words are the new deeds that enable Mugo and the others to unravel the sense of their experiences and heroically look at themselves for what they are. Language is the tool, par excellence, for the sounding of oneself; it is with Mugo that heroism shifts from bold deeds to truthful words.

 Now if both Kihika and Mugo can be viewed as heroes, they are quite different with respect to depth of character. Given both his ideals and his achievements, Kihika can be likened to heroes typical of romance or epic. Such figures are Northrop Frye tells us in An Anatomy of Criticism superior in degree to other men and sometimes to their environment as well like other warrior heroes in literature ( for example Beowulf, Roland, Shaka, Sundiata) Kihika is elevated above his companions and comrades. Of course, since A Grain of Wheat is highly mimetic and projects a replica of actuality, Kihika has no marvelous attributes, magic and supernatural powers. As these and other such heroes do. Ngugi makes the superiority of Kihika’s intellect and the intensity of his commitment quite believable. Yet Kihika remains, even in the realistic mode, and exceptional individual. His home is the forest which represents in many older narratives a world apart from reality in which time is of a different rhythm and nature is enchanted and volatile. This sylvan setting and the physical distance itself that separates Kihika from the village reinforce the distinction between him and his people. Furthermore, in the fashion of tragic heroes of romance and epic, his death marks the passing of time, of the old order changing and yielding to a new one  Kihika’s demise helps usher in the dawn of Kenyan independence.

Like the heroes of older narrative forms then. Kihika loses in resemblance to the reader what he gains in glory. His death locks him into the purity of his youthful idealism, a purity that makes him more appropriate to a narrative universe of absolute heroes and villains. Because Kihika is exceptional, he wanders in the shadows of the novel where, illuminated by little light, he has little depth. He is a static flat character who is not seen in the context of the workaday world. Kihika does not grow or change two fundamental requirements for mimetic novels such as this one. His perfection makes him seem inappropriate for the novel. These remarks however are not a negative judgment of  Ngugi’s art but refer merely to the workings of the narrative. Kihika is integral to the sense of A Grain of wheat. His virtue and portrayal distance him from the reader and thereby contribute to the more moving effect of Mugo’s victory.

Kihika sees himself as the arbiter of his own and his people’s destiny, but Mugo is suspicious of Kihika’s sense of control. Mugo feels that Kihika is a mere passive product whose freedom to choose is not of his own making but rests on Kihika’s because the latter, having all those things that everyone (especially Mugo)  desires and having done nothing (in Mugo’s eyes)to earn them, squanders them all for illusory notions of grandeur and freedom.

Through its juxtaposition of Kihika and Mugo then, A Grain of Wheat moves from an epic to a novelistic notion of heroism from bold, stirring deeds to a quiet, unsettling awareness of self. The text furthermore shifts its focus from the external threat to well-being, such as infamous colonial powers, to the more frightening internal menace of weaknesses, fears and doubts. Thus we find that the struggle for Kenyan independence in a Grain of Wheat produces an epic hero whereas the everyday world of success and failure produces a hero appropriate to the novel. The implication is not that noble actions are no longer needed-we have but to consider Mugo’s good instincts and bravery and his final acceptance of the consequences of his acts to know that the value of noble actions is not being challenged. Rather, the novel emphasizes that it is unquestionably valiant and indispensable to see oneself honestly. This theme looks toward the future rather than the past and is expressed most succinctly in Wangari’s admonition to her son Gikonyo:

          Let us now see what profit it will bring you, to go on poisoning your mind with these things when you  should have accepted and sought how best to build your life. But you, like a foolish child, have never wanted to know what happened……You are a man now. Read you own heart, and know yourself.

          Readers may decry such fiction because it fails to meet its potential, that is, to render its singular and indispensable insight into the poetic, dramatic, or mythological dimensions and possibilities of the human situation. Because Ngugi ambitiously obeys an aesthetic impulse to search for heroism in new and complex settings, A Grain of Wheat is on the contrary, a mimetic novel that does not yield to a glum naturalism. Ngugi’s fiction is more powerful, his sober vision more haunting because he never abandons this prerogative of narrative to seek in one stroke both truth and beauty.

However, most of the heroes in the novel have darker elements, character flaws, which give them, at least in Western eyes, a “trickster” accent in some places. More importantly, Heroes in this novel, whether normative or deviant, are of two differing strains. There are the obvious heroes such as Kihika, Gikonyo, and perhaps even Karanja. One of the novel’s best qualities is the fact that there are heroes who do not seem so at first but then redeem themselves later, such as Mugo. Yet the novel shows human nature as it truly is for each hero has his flaw and even his downfall. Therefore, an analysis is needed of both the obvious and secretive heroes with special attention paid to why they might be heroes as well as a look at their “dark” or deviant side.

While there are vibrant heroic characters that are illuminated throughout the course of the novel, there is a small section which describes a history of heroic people who stood their ground for the “Movement.”  The first heroes of the Movement were those who took up arms against the white man who desecrated their sacred places and preached a strange religion. Waiyaki was first to proclaimed a hero and a martyr (Ngugi 12). He tried to defy the white man and his “iron snake” and was buried alive for it (Ngugi 12). His heroic actions and death are described in these words, “Waiyaki’s blood contained within it a seed, a grain, which gave birth to a movement whose main strength thereafter sprang from a bond with the soil” (Ngugi 12). His actions were venerated and he was remembered as a man of great action whose death started a movement, thus making him, by definition, a hero.

Kihika is the first to really be known as a hero and stands as such in the novel. “Kihika, a son of the land, was marked out as one of the heroes of deliverance” (Ngugi 14). His heroism is defined by his words and actions throughout the book. In the beginning, even when he was a young man, he was known as a strong speaker and eventually a man of action. When he was younger, he dared to stand up and tell the preacher he was wrong about a certain interpretation of Scripture (Ngugi 85-86). After he left school, he found he had a new vision and that vision led him to speak about independence. “‘You ask for what is needed,’ Kihika was now saying. ‘I will tell you. Our people have talked for too long’” (Ngugi 87). When asked if he ever forgot politics, Kihika responded, “It is not politics, Wambuku, it is life. Is he a man who lets another take away his land and freedom? Has he a slave life?” (Ngugi 97). Kihika didn’t just give rousing speeches about what they should do to gain independence. He soon went to action when he and many others ran away to the forest to fight (Ngugi 101). Kihika soon became a freedom fighter but his end as a hero was quite dreadful. “Kihika was tortured. Kihika was hanged in public, one Sunday, at Rung’ei Market, not far from where he had once stood calling for blood to rain on and water the tree of freedom” (Ngugi 17). However this was not his true end. At the end of the novel we learn that he was betrayed by Mugo and hung (Ngugi 223). Kihika did, at one point, kill a man in cold blood but that action was seen by his own people as a heroic act; an act for the Movement (Ngugi 187). His heroism then was not sinister or in a trickster fashion. Kihika was a true hero who fought and died with words and actions for the independence of Kenya.

Gikonyo and Karanja are harder to discuss with regard to heroism since they both (Gikonyo not as much) get labeled as cowards at some point in the novel. Karanja has a harder case to prove with being a hero since he actually changes sides a few times and seems to have the most sinister heart out of all the characters. Gikonyo, as were many others, were brutally treated for their involvement with the Movement and were subsequently sent to concentration camps and beaten severely. During the six years in detention, Gikonyo remained steadfast to his party loyalties and never took the oath (Ngugi 107). Gikonyo stood firm as a normative hero, never wavering from his loyalty to Kenya and remaining defiant of the white man who oppressed him. However, upon being released, Gikonyo’s heroism took a downturn once he rejoined his wife Mumbi. He found she had a child with another man and would not even treat her justly or rightly as a husband should. While being a good loving husband doesn’t come under the usual definition of being a hero, husbands and heroes share the same selfless love for their wives or compatriots and remain true to them to the end no matter what the circumstances. In a way, Gikonyo abandons his heroism as a husband by shunning Mumbi and treating her like dirt (Ngugi 114-115).

Karanja, as a character, gets caught somewhere in the middle between Austen’s hero types. While other characters such as Gikonyo and Kihika are much more well defined in their political or national heroism, Karanja is never illustrated as speaking in public or having anyone really pay honor to him as others do to Kihika or Gikonyo. When they were younger, Karanja attended the same social circles as Gikonyo and Kihika but his only attitude toward Kihika was one of criticism. When they were at the train station, Karanja once commented on Kihika’s oratory, “You say one thing now. The next hour you say another” (Ngugi 94). Karanja never gives any sort of positive feedback to those who are known as heroes and in fact, he is never labeled as a hero. But is he an anti-hero? Karanja certainly displays less becoming characteristics especially that of siding with the forces that beat the Kenyan nationalists, but he never really becomes a true trickster. There is one incident which might be thought of as similar to being a trickster but I would not classify it so. This is toward the end of the novel when Karanja became a chief (Ngugi 147). He was “more terrifying than the one before him. He led other homeguards into the forest to hunt down Freedom Fighters” (Ngugi 147). Karanja has essentially become an antagonist but his “trickery” doesn’t occur until he tries to convince Mumbi to give into his wishes for love. He spares her several times and gives her gifts and finally in the end, when he tells her that her husband is coming home, he rapes her in her emotional “submissive gratitude” (Ngugi 150). This is the extent of his trickery; he overcomes a woman in her point of joy and emotional breakdown and rapes her. This act of rape is a pent up desire for her that he had six years prior. But she found love in Gikonyo and not him so he grew jealous until he could have revenge. While this is not textbook trickery, it certainly has some deviance and planning involved. Karanja is certainly no normative hero and not even quite an anti-hero. He is sort of a middle man whose flaws outweigh his good qualities.

Mugo is the last of the possible heroic characters and due to his presence throughout the novel, is perhaps the most important character yet. Moreover, his character is so well orchestrated and our perception of him changes throughout the book. He is also a character whose heroism seems nonexistent in the first part but later we come to realize that he may just be better than all the rest. During the first chapter and most of the book, we get the idea that Mugo is perhaps the most cowardly of all Africans. He constantly avoids talking to people and when they try to talk to him or confront him, he acts almost mad (Ngugi 1-2). In fact, throughout the entirety of the novel he seems mad. However, the people love him and think him to be this great hero (Ngugi 3 & 24). As a reader, I did not feel their favor for him was right or just. I merely thought that the African populace didn’t know Mugo as well as we did. After all, we have the omniscient narrator to tell us all. But just when one thinks there is no hope for this coward, Gikonyo comes to his house to talk to him and we realize why he seems mad. He was beaten several times for not taking the oath and suffering for his devotion to the freedom movement (Ngugi 27). Gikonyo also declares him to be a hero, “You have a great heart. It is people like you ought to have been the first to taste the fruits of independence” (Ngugi 68). This declaration really changes our view of Mugo from his lack of spine to realizing that he was beat so much for his heroism that he was changed forever. Mugo then becomes at that point a great hero. However he is not without faults since very shortly after this declaration we learn that just before men were sent off to concentration camps, he was the one who betrayed Kihika (Ngugi 223). While this act of betrayal might negate our Western ideas of heroism, he is praised for his act of courage to speak the truth. Karanja tells Mumbi, “he seems to be a courageous man” (Ngugi 228). He seems to be forgiven of that fault and though he is tried for it, others respect him for his bravery. Once again our impression of Mugo is different than it was previously. Mugo is redeemed a hero

Conclusion:

                              As one looks at the male characters in this novel, we find several heroes and perhaps one anti-hero. Mugo, Gikonyo, and especially Kihika are praised for their acts and words as they fought for Kenya’s freedom. Though they may not be quite similar to the Western heroes of old, still they stand for their cultural values and are loved and respected by others. Karanja does not fit into the mold of hero or anti-hero as well as other book characters, but nonetheless, he is never praised for his heroism and is hated for his betrayal and brutality toward his fellow native Africans. This novel helps Western readers understand the African sense of heroism as well as the realities of the human condition. No hero is really as pure as we’d like him to be but nonetheless they are still worthy of honor and devotion

Works Cited

Austen, Ralph A. “Criminals and the African Cultural Imagination: Normative and Deviant Heroism in Pre-Colonial and Modern Narratives.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute. 56.4 (1986): 385-6. JSTOR. Web. 12 November 2011.

Cantor, Paul A. “The Politics of the Epic: Wordsworth, Byron, and the Romantic Redefinition of Heroism.” The Review of Politics. 69.3 (Summer 2007): 375. JSTOR. Web. 12 November 2011.

Wa Thiong’o, Ngugi. A Grain of Wheat. Johannesburg: Heinemann, 1967. Print.