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The Hardships of African Men and Women in A Grain of Wheat by Nugugi
"God helps those who help themselves, it is said, with fingers pointing at a self-made man who has attained wealth and position, forgetting that thousands of others labor and starve, day in and day out, without ever improving their material lot (57)."
In the novel a Grain of Wheat written by Nugugi we explore in-depth the hardships and courage of African men and women who were forced to fight for their independence in the War of Independence. This book reveals to us the life of a man named Gikonyo. As a reader we learn that Gikonyo was through into a detention camp a poor and confused man. When released, Gikonyo is a new man with motivational and leadership abilities. Finding his true self in the camp and proving to be a true leader among his people. Although he is a new man after the camps, Gikonyo finds himself falling further apart from his beloved wife then he had ever been before.
The War of Independence, which occurred in 1952 through 1960, was referred to in the Grain of Wheat as the "Emergency". The Emergency became apart of many peoples lives when family members were put into detention centers because of their beliefs. Gikonyo believed independence was the only way to go, and because he had become such a good man in the camps he was elected the chairman of the local branch of the movement. This was because people believed that he had such high spirit that no matter what detention camp he was sent to his spirit could never be broken. Gikonyo fought for independence in the emergency, but he did not let the white man break him, keeping his eyes on the mountains and trees and thinking of his wife.
Gikonyo looked at the flags that lined the Uhuru highway and was filled with the felling that the city really belonged to him. This was just one example of how important their freedom was to him. Uhuru was something that he could always remember and nobody could ever ruin the memory of that. He hoped to celebrate Uhuru day and have a large celebration for the men who died for their cause. Gikonyo was a good man and never wanted to forget what people had done for him.
No one knows what will happen in his or her life whether it is a trivial family dispute or a civil war. Ishmael Beah and Mariatu Kamara are both child victims of war with extremely different life stories. Both of them are authors who have written about their first-hand experience of the truth of the war in order to voice out to the world to be aware of what is happening. Beah wrote A Long Way Gone while Kamara wrote The Bite of the Mango. However, their autobiographies give different information to their readers because of different points of view. Since the overall story of Ishmael Beah includes many psychological and physical aspects of war, his book is more influential and informative to the world than Kamara’s book.
In the novel Segu, Maryse Conde beautifully constructs personal and in depth images of African history through the use of four main characters that depict the struggles and importance of family in what is now present day Mali. These four characters and also brothers, by the names of Tiekoro, Siga, Naba, and Malobali are faced with a world changing around their beloved city of Bambara with new customs of the Islamic religion and the developing ideas of European commerce and slave trade. These new expansions in Africa become stepping stones for the Troare brothers to face head on and they have brought both victory and heartache for them and their family. These four characters are centralized throughout this novel because they provide the reader with an inside account of what life is like during a time where traditional Africa begins to change due to the forceful injection of conquering settlers and religions. This creates a split between family members, a mixing of cultures, and the loss of one’s traditions in the Bambara society which is a reflection of the (WHAT ARE SOME CHANGES) changes that occur in societies across the world.
Would you want to live with the bitter truth that your fellow kinships will eventually betray you? The people who were expected to provide freedom and liberty, end up trapping you back into the rabbit hole, from which it took decades to escape. Slavery has been an immense part of America’s past, an unforgettable past. A brutal era of suffrage through massive physical, psychological and unjustified pain for more than 200 years in the United States of America. Despite the conflict, you are always expecting your fellow race members to be supportive through the hardships being faced. Out of millions of people, they are the ones who will standup on your behalf and understand the torture you deal with, emotionally and physically.
When the Europeans arrived in Africa during the late eighteenth century the culture and the lives of the people of Africa are altered. Colonialism and Imperialism in Africa has adversely changed the way of life of the African people, and changed their culture, that had developed for so many years, unscathed by any distraction from the outside world. This dominant European influence has led to poverty in the African continent for the next 100 years, because of the institutions that were put into place by Europeans. In Things Fall Apart, it becomes clear that the Ibo culture responds in a distinct way to the European colonization; when compared to other villages and ethnic groups in Africa. These foreigners had such an enormous effect on the Ibo tribe that many of the clansmen decided to abandon the traditional ways or were too afraid to rise against the takeover of their tribe by the Europeans since the natives lacked the adequate technology to fight off the Europeans. The culture collision between Europe’s culture and the Ibo culture causes Nwoye’s sense of identity to be challenged and causes him to distance himself from his family and his tribe because of the introduction of Christianity and western ideals.
The book, a feminist anthem in its own right, presents to the reader, Nnu Ego, a love child from an open affair by a woman who refuses to be bound by the chains of marriage, is the reincarnation of a slave girl who was killed by her father before she was born. Nnu Ego’s mother, Ona is an unconventional Igbo woman. She chooses to have an affair with a wealthy local chief who proposes marriage to her. She refuses the marriage proposal, because “he married a few women in the traditional sense, but as he watched each of them sink into domesticity and motherhood he was soon bored and would go further afield for some other exciting, tall and proud female” (Joys of Motherhood 10). She chooses not to be an addition to his harem, but content to be his mistress as long as he meets with her in her father’s
One might say that throughout the world, there are dark ages. However, problematic times ultimately bring peace. It is no secret that there is war, dictatorship, and death throughout the world. In the novel “Beneath the Lions Gaze”, written by Maaza Mengiste, the author tells a story of a historically and violent movement taken place in the country of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1974. Yonus, a prominent student and his family go through unimaginable hardships facing death, starvation, and most importantly finding their true selves and what they stand for. In this essay the author will list the key passages in order of importance from greatest to least. Yonus a brother, father, and husband develops the theme of self-discovery, and unlocks the reader’s understanding of what finding ones purpose in life really is.
Chinua Achebe?s Things Fall Apart is a narrative story that follows the life of an African man called Okonkwo. The setting of the book is in eastern Nigeria, on the eve of British colonialism in Africa. The novel illustrates Okonkwo?s struggles, triumphs, and his eventual downfall, all of which basically coincide with the Igbo?s society?s struggle with the Christian religion and British government. In this essay I will give a biographical account of Okonwo, which will serve to help understand that social, political, and economic institutions of the Igbos.
With a socially imposed and personal devotion to attain a highly regarded status in his clan, Okonkwo’s life was one that valued traditional authority, customs, and kinship. As a protagonist, Okonkwo’s story exemplifies the altering role of the state as the marching boots of colonialism enter his village, Iguedo. In Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart, he illustrates the societal life of the Umuofia clan prior to the arrival of and the encounter with early colonizers - offering an Igbo account of the transformation of local institutions. Once wielded by elders and the spiritually divine, the power of control fell into the hands of foreigners. Worship of ancestors, the supreme deity Chikwu, and other Earth gods transferred to the God revealed in the Bible. The interactions between the institutions of rule, belief, environmental management, and trade are each delicately reliant on each other, so that in Iguedo the ability to rule fails to exist without belief, religious believes are derived from the environment, and the mercy of environmental conditions dictates agricultural trade. Through the life and death of Okonkwo, the novel presents how the experience of the Igbo and their interaction with the state witnessed unquestionable change.
Chinua Achebe was an influential Nigerian author during the 1900’s who was credited with his three essays which have been fused together into the book “Home and Exile”. In his stories he discusses things such as his own Igbo people, the problems with colonialization, the strength that stories can have and many more topics. A big part of his essays are on his thoughts of colonialism, the impact it has had on his home of Nigeria, and how stories written by others either helped justify colonialism or rejected it. Chinua argues that stories have their own power to fight, and while stories themselves do not have the ability to directly fight colonialism; they do, however with their power of words, stories can motivate and encourage people to stand up against colonialism. In proving this thesis to be a true statement, I will be providing evidence of the how, why and the extent to which stories can fight colonialism.
It is spoken of many times in the Bible to be compassionate towards those less fortunate than us. Now no one says we have to give up everything to give to the poor but different scenarios in the bible show such drastic measures because that is what it took to show their faith and show whether they truly believed in what they were doing. Giving everything might be your way of glorifying Him and showing selflessness but, it isn’t the way for everyone. Wealth does not show how blessed a person is, the way they go about their financial situation is. The one with little to nothing could have more faith than the rich man who seems to be so blessed. This is all just a matter of spiritual poverty and wealth. But the human eye cannot see such things, only the One with mighty power can see where we stand in our faith.
but he has to also help the poor from what Allah has bestowed upon him
Achebe, Chinua. “An Image of Africa.” EXPLORING Novels. Online Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center – Gold. Gale. Ascension Academy. 9 June 2008.
He explains that Ngugi as a student at Alliance high school and Makerere college was under the influence of colonialism and Christianity but when he was enrolled in the University of Leeds in 1960 he came under the influence of Fanon and Marx and found the means “to hit back at the white man” (121, Ibid.). As a result of which he not only favoured proletariats against growing economic exploitation of masses by post and neo-colonial state but also advocated the violent means of resistance. The Grain of Wheat (1967) ends at the beginning of neo-colonialism and the next novel Petals of Blood starts from the same. Hence from the former text onwards, Ngugi shows the working of Fanonist Marxist ideology. Likewise, Lisa Curtis observes that A Grain of Wheat stands apart from Ngugi’s “later novels in the way in which it universalises the human struggle for order and meaning in a changing world” (198, Ibid.). The past events of the African history of that of betrayal of the nation by the neo-colonists like Karanja in the novel determine the further struggle, in Walter Benjamin’s words “the fight for the oppressed past”. In his Concept of History, he stated that “the tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule”, and in the Kenyan context- the exceptional state of emergency, the Mau Mau war becomes the daily state of
In Chinua Achebe 's classic novel "Things Fall Apart," the development of European colonization 's lead to extreme cultural changes, leaving a lasting impact on the Igbo village of Umofia in West Africa. In the novel, Achebe displays the impacts of European colonization in both critical and sympathetic terms to provide the reader with both positive and negative factors of Imperialism to develop an unbiased understanding of what the Igbo culture and society went through. While addressing the hardship 's of life by showing the deterioration of Okonkwo 's character, the cultural and traditional changes of society, and the positive and negative impacts of imperialism, Achebe keeps touch on the overall theme of the novel, once a dramatic event
Having done the above analysis on my favourite text, “Anowa” by Ama Ataa Aidoo, I realise that my like for the text have heightened because the analysis of Anowa has given me a deeper understanding of Africa’s colonialism. I now know what actually led to our colonialisation (the betrayal) and how it began(the bond of 1844) through the personal lives of Anowa and Kofi.