CHARACTER AND VOICE IN NGUGI WA THIONGOS A GRAIN OF WHEAT

Introduction This is a compelling account of the turbulence that inflamed Kenya in the 1950s and its impact on people's lives. Five friends and age mates make different choices when the Mau Mau rebellion erupts in colonial Kenya. Kihika joins the freedom fighters in the forest; Gikonyo supports the rebels, but is arrested and detained; Mumbi, Gikonyo's wife, works to keep family and home together in the village; Karanja chooses to support the more powerful British masters; Mugo ultimately betrays his friends and loses his life in a desperate attempt to stay alive and stay neutral. In this ambitious and densely worked novel, we begin to see early signs of Ngugi's increasing bitterness about the ways in which the politicians, not the fighters or their families, are the true benefactors of the rewards on independence. Characterization And Voice In Ngugis A Grain of Wheat Grain of Wheat is a great example of political as well as historical fiction. At times Ngugi states his political theories of the end of colonialism in Kenya more than creates in depth characters. However, wide range of heroes, villains, lovers and rival white black successes and failures give this book the wide perspective that helps to understand a complicated issue. By focusing on a small village of Thabai somewhere in Kenya rather than the metropolis of Nairobi or the heroics of Jomo Kenyatta, Ngugi shows how the struggle of decolonization has affected the vast majority of Africans especially the local rural farmer. Ngugi's hope for the future, evident in the title, persists through the horrors of war, racism, poverty and deception. He avoids the tendency of propaganda and the heroes ability to turn traitor on a whim is rare in the political drama. Uhuru starts as the
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protagonist but by the end the reader realizes that there is more to freedom that politics and sovereignty. It is the family hut that freedom is created and the hope for Kenya must struggle both against the continued oppression of colonial policy and the Movement's own checkered past. A Grain of Wheat is about the Mau Mau independence war. It tells the story of five principal characters who relieve, vividly, their experiences of the war in the four days leading up to the day of Kenyan independence of 12th December 1963.One of the most dominant themes that Ngugi tries to transmit through his masterpiece, A Grain of Wheat, is betrayal is betrayal. This latter is mainly depicted via five different characters : Kihika, Mugo, Gikonyo and his wife; Mumbi, and Karanja. Ngugi evokes complex responses toward Mugo. His betrayal of Kihika, the leader of the movement, is induced partly by his jealousy, partly because the disruption in the land threatens his determination never again to experience the destitution of his childhood. Kihika is brought up in the bosom of his family and friends. He also has the opportunity to go to school. All these encourage him to live for his holy target, Uhuru. Whereas, Mugo has none of these. He is orphan and left lonely to live with his heartless aunt, Waitherero. When his aunt passes away, he becomes a destitute person, filled with fear, hatred, and lack of self confidence, haunted by the image of his own inadequacy. Another reason for Mugos betrayal of Kihika is simply because he wants not to be drawn into the connection with other people. All of this is summed up in his confessional speech at the novels close : " I wanted to live my life. I never wanted to be involved in anything. Then he came into my life, here, a night like this, and pulled me into the stream. So I kiled him. (P161).

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Mugos betrayal of Kihika is, however, in some part mitigated by the suffering he experiences in the various detention camps he is put in for his bravery in rescuing Wambuku, Kihikas lover, in the trench. But the readers sympathy for him really proceeds from Ngugis skill in taking him into a mind that is collapsing under the burden of guilt it bears. Mugo eventually unloads this burden on Mumbi, Kihikas sister, who then shares his guilt, and withholds it from the rest of the community, easing his solitary penance as she does so. Furthermore , Ngugi conveys the theme of betrayal in Gikonyo and Mumbi .Both of them felt guilty, for both have broken their oaths: Gikonyo of loyalty to Mau Mau movement , and Mumbi the marital vow Gikonyo goes to prison with a firm faith in the useful outcome of the emergency : Gikonyo walked towards detention with a brisk step and an assurance born in his knowledge of love and life .This thing would end soon , anyway . In prison , Gikonyo builds up the image of Mumbi alive in his mind. She provides a source of inspiration greater than that of patriotism .His longing for her is so allconsuming that he betrays his oath of loyalty to the cause of freedom in order to return to her .When he comes back, he cannot reconcile himself to Mumbi's unfaithfulness and is haunted by visions of Mumbi responding passionately to Karanja's body . Although Mumbi commits adultery, she doesn't mean to betray her husband .Mumbi has been left unprotected in the midst of a desperate crisis , lonely and hungry .For six years she has lived for the day when he will return pick up the threads and make life begin afresh. Eventually, she gives herself to karanja at the time when he brings her the news of Gikonyo's release from prison. The sexual encounter became the ultimate extension of her supreme joy in hearing of her husband's release.
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Gikonyo is angry with his disaffection for her and therefore he doesn't want to listen to her excuses and decided not to open his heart for her any more .When his mother Wangari-sees that both Gikonyo and Mumbi are suffering , she says some words reducing his pain : see how you have broken your home .You have driven a good woman to misery for nothing , let us now see what profit will bring you , to go on piosoning 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. Or what woman Mumbi really is .

Moreover, Mugo's confession of his betrayal makes Gikonyo understand's his wife's so his decision to carve the stool for Mumbi indicates that he can forgive and forget the past and his love for Mumbi has returned : then he sank back to bed.He thought about the wedding gift , a stool carved from Muiri wood.I'll change the woman's figure.I shall carve a woman big big with child In addition, Ngugi gives another example of betrayal through Karanja. Karanja is among those men who traitorously choose to side with British colonialists. He joins the home guards instead of taking the oath of the Mau Mau movement. He becomes known for his cruelty in the treatment of his own people : That is when Karanja became a Chief. Soon he proved himself more more terrifying than the one before him. He led other home guards into the forest to hunt down the Freedom Fighters. It was also during his rule that even the few remaining fit men were taken from the village to detention camps. He became very strict with curfew laws and forced communal work. ( p143).
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Moreover, Karanja has an ongoing competition with Gikonyo that stems from both an attraction to Mumbi. Hence, while Gikonyo is at the detention camps, Karanja takes the opportunity to betray him by making love to his wife, Mumbi : One day Karanja sent for me to his house. It was on Thursday, i remember I went there and I swore that if he tried anything on me, I would get a piece of wood and strike him hardThen he said : Your husband is coming (p146). When Mumbi hears that her husband is coming, she becomes happy as if she is mad. Karanja takes the chance on making love to her, as he knows that she is not able to control herself, and she responds passionately to his desire. On the other hand, though, Wairimu, Karanjas mother, warns and advises her son not to follow the British, or he pays a heavy cost for his betrayal of his own people:

Dont go against the people. A man who ignores the voice of his own people comes to no good end. ( p222 ). When Uhuru Day (Kenyas independence) has come, it has produced freedom, freedom of an unexpected kind, for Kenyan people. But no such freedom comes to Karanja. He escapes the punishment that Genera R., Mau Mau leader, prepares for him, only to leave with the remembrance of the evil deeds he has done, forever Consciousof many angry eyes watching him in the dark ( p200). Ngugis master piece is a creativity of characters woven together by bond of traditional values that are the features typical of African village setting. Ngugi makes use of the first person and second person narrative technique to a microcosm of Khabai village. Ngg explores the choices people make in times of conflict and, above all, betrayal -personal, political, romantic, sexual. He is a wonderful story-teller, creating vivid, troubled characters, dramatizing the brutality and horror of the Emergency
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(imprisonment, torture, murder, and destruction of villages) as well as the nature of life in a small village, and bringing excitement and suspense to the novel. Conclusion A Grain of Wheat is a great advance in Ngugis development as a novelist, and this appears in the interrelated betrayals and their consequent effect on Ngugi's five characters. The latter had been involved in the events that led to Uhuru, and were slaves to the memories of their own personal inadequacies. Mugo becomes an outsider fraught with guilt, confusion, and a great remorse. Giconyo, despite Mumbis betrayal, he is able to forgive her, and reconsider their relationship. Whereas, Karanja decides to go to live in Githima in order to escape his punishment for his betrayal on the Uhuru Day. By so doing, Karanja is another voice in the dark that may be as catalyst to the hail hay of Khabai people.

Reference 1. A Journal by Blida Department of English Series Vol. 3, Derider Publication, United Kingdom, 2009
2.

A Grain of Wheat, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Heinemann Education, 1978

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