THE BETRAYED HOPE OF THE AFRICANS: AN EXAMPLE OF A GRAIN OF WHEAT

Obiora Eke, A. C. Nlemchi

Abstract


Ngugi has a passionate love for his country, Kenya as shown in his A Grain of Wheat as well as some other of his works. He has a tender feeling for his home country. He therefore wanted freedom for his people. The passion of this longing for freedom is echoed in Kihika’s war cry that they must kill and put to sleep the enemies of black man’s freedom. But the saddening thing is that when the long awaited freedom was achieved, it turned out to be a sham. The freedom turned out to give birth to the “man eaters”; the people of Kenya who have been set free, so to say, turned out to be enemies of themselves. Instead of people being their brother’s keepers in the wake of independence, many played the Biblical Cain: there were betrayals here and there. There was the dashing of the hopes of Kenyans with the dawn of Uhuru. That notwithstanding, the novel does not end on a pessimistic note; for no matter how dark the tunnel is, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.

Keywords


A Grain of Wheat, Black man freedom, man eaters, enemies of themselves and brothers keepers

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References


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