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    A Study Guide for Ngugi wa Thiong'o's "Petals of Blood"
    A Study Guide for Ngugi wa Thiong'o's "Petals of Blood"
    A Study Guide for Ngugi wa Thiong'o's "Petals of Blood"
    Ebook55 pages42 minutes

    A Study Guide for Ngugi wa Thiong'o's "Petals of Blood"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    A Study Guide for Ngugi wa Thiong'o's "Petals of Blood," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Literature of Developing Nations for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Literature of Developing Nations For Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateNov 3, 2016
    ISBN9781535830812
    A Study Guide for Ngugi wa Thiong'o's "Petals of Blood"

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      A Study Guide for Ngugi wa Thiong'o's "Petals of Blood" - Gale

      1

      Petals of Blood

      Ngugi wa Thiong'o

      1977

      Introduction

      Petals of Blood is the fourth novel written by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who is more commonly known simply as Ngugi. The novel describes the inequality, hypocrisy, and betrayal of peasants and workers in post-independence Kenya. As with Ngugi’s other works, many of the events depicted in the novel have their basis in historical and social fact. The work is a damning indictment of the corruption and greed of Kenya’s political, economic, and social elite who, after the struggle for freedom from British rule, have not returned the wealth of the land to its people but rather perpetuate the social injustice and economic inequality that were a feature of colonial oppression. In addition to criticizing this neocolonialism, the novel is also a bitter critique of the economic system of capitalism and its destructive, alienating effects on traditional Kenyan society.

      The deeply political novel takes the form of a detective story. Three prominent industrialists in the town of Ilmorog in north-central Kenya have been murdered, and four suspects are questioned by the police. These four are the protagonists of the novel, whose interrelated stories are recounted against the background of Kenya’s past and present. The shifting perspectives and timeline of the novel reinforce the sense of dislocation and disorientation of the once proud community of villagers who now struggle against the indignities of the neocolonial world.

      The publication of Petals of Blood disturbed many of Kenya’s leaders when it appeared in 1977, but the government did not formally denounce the novel. However, less than a year after it appeared Ngugi was imprisoned for his play I Will Marry When I Want. That work makes even more explicit the comparison between post-independence Kenyan leaders and British rulers.

      Some commentators have faulted Ngugi for the novel’s heavy-handed treatment of its message, the intrusive authorial voice, and the outdated socialist solution he offers for his country’s ills. However, critics agree that Petals of Blood is an important contribution to world literature. Its admirers view it as an ambitious work that presents with artistic integrity Ngugi’s statement of his social and political philosophy, and find it to be a realistic portrayal of the postcolonial experience in Kenya.

      Author Biography

      Ngugi was born James Ngugi in 1938 in Limuru in the Gikuyu Highlands of Kenya. Like many of the dispossessed peasants in Petals of Blood, his father worked as a laborer on the estate of an African landowner. Ngugi’s mother was one of his father’s four wives, and Ngugi was one of about twenty-eight children in the family. After his primary school education at independent Kenyan schools, Ngugi attended Alliance High School, an institution that had many similarities to his fictional Siriana, with its western-biased curriculum and Christian teaching. During his high school years, many of his family members were involved in the Mau Mau uprising and the resistance movement. During the struggle, Ngugi’s parents were arrested and his stepbrother was killed by government forces.

      In 1958, Ngugi moved to Uganda to attend Makerere College, the only institution in East Africa at the time that conferred degrees. While at Makerere he began a marriage partnership with Nyambura, with whom he had five children. Also during his undergraduate years, he wrote his first novel, Weep Not, Child, and worked on what would later be published as his novel The River Between. He also wrote and produced a play, edited the student creative writing journal, and wrote newspaper articles. He completed a degree in English in 1963.

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