Assignment: African Literature

 

 Name:- Hinaba D.Sarvaiya.

 

 M.A. sem 4

Paper no:- The African Literature  

Roll no:- 09

Enrollment no:- 4069206420210032

Email ID:- hinabasarvaiya1711@gmail.com

Submitted by:- S.B.Gardi Department of English MKBU.

Batch:- 2021 to 2023

Neocolonialism in Ngugi Wa Thiong'o Novel Petals of Blood.

Introduction:-

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o is a Kenyan postcolonial writer whose works bear on the persistent impacts and ruin of colonialism on once-colonized nations. Although both his fiction and non-fiction works concentrate on postcolonial issues, especially political matters and exploitation of the masses in Kenya, they also question similar problems which would possibly come into existence in almost all of the once-colonized nations around the world and harass them acutely. The novels of Thiong'o, Petals of Blood emphasis on the writer's concerns about the emergence of local elites in the wake of independence and the role of colonial languages in mental colonization. For the writer, postcolonial period is very likely to amount to the outset of neocolonialism on the grounds that white colonizers are replaced with upper classes of the native population in order to initiate a new phase of exploitation. Thus, gaining political independence does not come to signify an anti-colonialist system; rather, it indicates a grim reality in which exploitative power passes into the hands of the native elites that work at the white man's service. The writer also raises the major role that colonial languages play in begetting minds which are disposed to be servants of the colonial system. Thiong'o asserts that acquiring a language expresses much deeper implications than simply being a tool of communication since language carries a reserve of collective memories and cultural background of a society. Using colonial languages  alienation of the native society from their local culture and adoption of Western values without questioning.

About Petals of Blood:-

Petals of Blood is a successful catalysis of the genre of the crime thriller and the art of novelization of 'high' literature. This fusion makes Ngugi a populist modernist on the one hand and the anti-canonical novelist on the other. The interrogative at each step associated with crime detective solving murder mystery gives Petals of Blood its mass appeal as a novel. Despite being written in English "20,000 copies were sold overnight in Kenya alone." 

The story opens like a detective novel with its three main characters- Munira, Abdullah and Karega-in jail, as suspects, being interrogated in the murder of three African directors-Chui, Kimeria and Mzigo, of the Theng'eta Brewery Ltd. The fourth suspect Wanja is convalescing in a hospital from burn injuries. Munira is the recording consciousness of the novel. Therefore, the structure of the novel is Munira's recollections as he sits in his cell, writing copious notes in order to clarify, to explain, to ascertain and to come to terms with himself as well as to satisfy the queries of the probing Chief Inspector Godfrey who shares half identity with Munira (as inspector's half identity is common with Godfrey Munira).

This way inspector Godfrey's interrogation of Munira becomes Munira's self-introspection and the whole novel becomes a direct interior monologue where Munira's self is inextricably woven with the external socio-political reality of Kenya. Petals of Blood emerges from Munira's prison diary almost narrating sequentially twelve years of history, from old Ilmorog to New Ilomorog since Uhuru. Though most of Munira's reminiscences are in sequential order, yet they overflow into the various historical periods, for example the time of 1895, when colonialism made its sly entry into Kenya etc. 

The novel is interwoven through two time frameworks-one in the present in which Munira writes his notes on what happened where, when and why, during his twelve day interrogation in the jail and the other is the historic time which is that of twelve years since Uhuru, which has brought Munira and others and Kenya and Africa to such a pass. The imprisonment of The central characters throughout the narrative symbolically suggest the manacled spirits and liminality of the people in Africa.

The titanic battle in Petals of Blood is not only for the homecoming of the wretched of Kenya alone or of Africa but of the whole world. Though nativism in the shape of Gikuyu patriotic songs and Swahili expressions is quite audible in Petals of Blood, The novel takes on a pan-nationalist and universalist perspective. 

Neocolonialism in Petals of Blood:-

Thong Petals of Blood might be handled through the same emphasis placed by Thiong'o on the potency of the colonial languages as regards putting out new alienated identities and minds. To illustrate, when imparting the school memories in the past, Karega complains of the fact the Western literature and English language are taught at school in place of their national historical achievements and literature by turning attention to the black headmaster's reprimand of the teachers concerning the insufficient education of English: Teach them good idiomatic English (Petals 173), which points out his adoption of the significance ofEnglish and his anxiety to impose it on the colonized students Karega continues to narrate the approach of the headmaster to Shakespeare whom he speaks in praise of since he attributes significance and perfection to this poet as is disclosed in the novel. He read a passage from Shakespeare. Those words are words of a great writer- greater even than Maillu and Hadley Chase." whoever heard of African, Chinese and Greek: mathematics and science?" (Petals 172). 

This specifies the belief that the Eastern nations have not been able to make any contributions to the scientific world whereas the Western science and literature as more estimable and praiseworthy subjects have to be instructed at each school in Africa. Karega reveals his discomfort caused by the subjects and fields of study at their school that are inculcated into them in order to make the Western figures and historical events absorbed well when he mentions it "Chaucer, Shakespeare, Napoleon Livingstone Western conquerors, Western inventors and discoverers were drummed into our heads with eren greater fury Where, we asked, was the African dream?" (Petals 173). 

In preference to the indigenous subjects and fields of African studies, the English language and other branches of Eurocentric studies are always chosen to enlighten the fresh and blank minds of the native students. As regards the intense effect of language on imposing a worldview on its users.  

Therefore, the educational system with English and the Western subjects carry the means of removing the African culture and civilization from the native students brains and cramming them with the so-called supreme European thinking With the colonial languages and Western studies taught at native schools, a new phase of colonialism which does not take in any violent and bloody actions forming the first phase emerges. 

Being aware of the possibility that the ex-colonized nations might enter the protests and nationalist struggles against the colonial system, the Western powers have endeavored to set up formidable barriers between the native peoples and these peoples civilization or indigenous culture with the help of the colonial languages and education that have enabled them to make the native peoples forget their local values and to make them overcome by an inferiority complex as well as deviated by the desire to mimic the European models. 

While accentuating the nationalist premises and discourses in order to delude the natives into the conception that he strains only for his society's advantage and well-being, Nderi, on the other hand, does not display any interest for the native citizens' anxieties about famine and poverty, only suspending the agency of solutions and pointing them to beseech assistance from other citizens in Ilmorog Turning to certain evasive expressions like "Thank you. My people of Ilmorog. This is the happiest day of my life since you gave me your votes and told me to go forward and forever fight as your servant in Parliament (Petals 182), his speech encompasses so-called sincerity and modesty which at first alleviate these people's apprehension, however, they rapidly notice their misunderstanding and being misled by Nderi whom they see as the only prospect of hope and concrete solution (Petals 182). These natives, as innocent and poor citizens who come near Nderi after a long travel merely in order to ask for his assistance, are arrested by the police since they are accused of prompting a protest and not against Nderi although they are not involved in such a protest which is triggered by a number of citizens in the streets being really bothered by Nderi's delusive and vain promises that he never stands by faithfully (Petals 183) Supposing these citizens as those who could pose an obstacle to his private and self-centered financial schemes, Nderi decides to exterminate them when dwelling on his profits as the writer puts it

KCO had originally been a vague thing in his mind. It had grown out of his behalf in his cultural authenticity which he had used with positive results in his business partnership with foreigners and foreign companies He Nderi wa Riera, was convinced that Africa could only be respected when it had had its own Rockefellers, its Hughes, Fords, Krupps, Mitsubishis KCO would serve the interests of the wealthy locals and their foreign partners to create similar economic giants! (Petals186)

Conclusion:-

As a black politician who is convinced that the European logic and styles are essential to be imitated and attained by such societies as themselves, Nden pursues the colonialist desires covering Kenya's transformation into a setting which is a quintessential European country where imperialistic ambitions are brought into action. He wishes to produce a native country that does not lag behind the modern and developed European countries. Rather than getting a handle on Ilmorog's sufferings and famine. 

Work Citation:-

Karagoz, Cengiz, and Sedat Bad. “Thiong'o's Criticism of Neocolonial Tendencies: Petals of Blood and Weep Not Child.” 16 June 2020, https://doi.org/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342199989_Thiong'o's_Criticism_of_Neocolonial_Tendencies_Petals_of_Blood_and_Weep_Not_Child. 

Nidhi. “Ngugi's Petals of Blood: A Novel of Praxis .” Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR) Www.jetir.org, vol. 3, no. 1, Jan. 2016, pp. 57–60., https://doi.org/https://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1601012.pdf. 

Thiong'o, Ngugi, Petals of Blood, New York Penguin Books, 1991

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