NGUGI WA THIONG’O’S FIGHT AGAINST COLONIALISM AND NEO-COLONIALISM IN THE TRIAL OF DEDAN KIMATHI AND THE BLACK HERMIT

NGUGI WA THIONG’O’S  FIGHT AGAINST COLONIALISM AND NEO-COLONIALISM IN THE TRIAL OF DEDAN KIMATHI AND THE BLACK HERMIT

ABSTRACT

This research work explores on a Fight Against Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism in Ngugi’s the Trial of DedanKimathi and The Black Hermit. Based on the analysis of the two novels as portrays by the author, colonialism and Neo-Colonialism has done more harm than good to the people of Kenya because it is the cause of the socio-economic crisis and the socio-political problems in Kenya. From the opinion of critics on the review of related literature, the study has shown that colonialism and Neo-Colonial is the cause of racial tension, political conflicts which the native of Kenya have suffered for over the years. From the findings, the researcher recommends that Ngugi’s novels should be taught in all the various schools in Africa as well as the African societies at large for them to see the evil of colonialism and Neo-Colonialism and to eradicate it for the betterment of African societies.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1              Background to the Study

Literature does not grow or develop in a vacuum. It is a given impetus, shapes, direction and even area of concern by social, political and economic forces in a particular society. The relationship between creative literature and these offers forces that cannot be ignored, especially in Africa, where modern literature has grown against the gory background of European imperialism and its changing manifestation: slavery, Colonialism, and Neo-colonialism. Our culture over the last hundred years has developed against the same shunting, dwarfing background of European’s people.

There is no area of our lives which has not been affected by the social, political and expansionist needs of European capitalism; from that of the reluctant African, driven by whips and gun powder to work on the cotton plantation of American. The rubber plantations of the Congo, the gold and diamond mines of southern Africa, to that of the modern African workers spending his meager hard-earned income to imported cars and other   goods (razor blades and coca cola) to bolster the same western industries that got off the ground on the backs of his peasant ancestors and on the plunder of a continent.

The concerns to which NgugiWaThiong’o gives his attention in the early period were numerous, he responded to most issues of topical public interest.

However, viewed in the historical perspective, his looks recorded the beginning of a coherent body of reformist thought which in later years veered considerably further to the left. They reflect the conciliatory humanist–a maralist orientation which dominated Ngugi’s mood at the time their common themes was to urge justice and fair play in human affairs. Ngugi wrote to urge the African to lift themselves above colonialism.

In his novel, “The Trail of DedanKmathi” the pre-colonial war of resistance against European intrusion and European slavery, through the anti-colonial struggle for democracy, to post-independence struggle against neo-colonialism. The focus of this play is on the peasant and workers Struggles before and after Constitutional Independence. The play “is not a reproduction of the farcical trial“ at Nyeri. It is rather an imaginative recreation and interpretation of the collective will of the Kenya peasants and workers in their resistance to six years of Colonial torture and ruthless Oppression by The British Ruling Classes and their continues determination to resist exploitation, Oppression, Discrimination, Colonialism, and Neo-colonialism.

1.2              Statements of the Problem

After the First World War, the number of white settler in Kenya increased rapidly because many of the demobilized Britain soldiers came to settle there. The fertile lower lands of central Kenya came to be the greatest attraction for the white settlers they took over these lands from indigenous Kenya’s farm owners and make them suffer indiscriminately. The white drove the native of Kenya from the land and still employed them as laborers on their own farms. The native farmers who form a large part of the African population came to realize that they were not better than slaves on their own land. Consequently, the above-mentioned problems motivated the researcher to research on the topic –Fight Against Colonialism and Neo-colonialism in Ngugi’sThe Trail of DedanKimathiand The Black Hermit.

1.3Purpose of the Study.

The purpose of this study is to investigate NgugiWaThiong’o’sFight Against Colonialism and Neo-colonialism in The Trail of DedanKimathiand The BlackHermit. The study will also discuss the contribution of NgugiWaThiong’o’sfight to the struggle of East African towards liberating and fighting for their loss of rights during and after colonialism.

1.4 Significant of the Study.

The study will be significant to students of English, lover of fiction, and other good researchers on the problem that played NgugiWaThiong’oover fighting for the people’s rights as a matter of colonialism and neo-colonialism by the Europeans.

1.5 Research Methodology

This research work will be approached mainly on NgugiWaThiong’o’snovels, The Trial of DedanKimathiand The Black Hermit.  The researcher will also add up materials from other writers, internet source and magazine for more relevance information on the fighting against colonialism and neo-colonialism in East African (Kenya).

1.6              Scope of the Study.

The scope of this research, however, will cover mainly on, The Trail of DedanKimathiand The Black Hermit, regarding the critical analysis of the two novels by NgugiWaThiong’o as well as other African writers based on Ngugi’sperception.

1.7              Bio-Data of the Author

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’ was born at Limuru Kenya, East Africa on 5^th January 1938. He was born of a parent who came from Kikuyu Eribe, a dominant EribeinKenya. His father was a peasant farmer. His mother was one of the many wives his father married. He first went to school from about 1946 to 1947. He started learning English in school four to five years later. That was when he was about the age of thirteen. He attended secondary school in Kenya. After his secondary education in Kenya, he entered the Makerere University, he worked for some months as a journalist with the Daily Nation Newspaper in Nairobi, the capital of the University of Leeds, where he studied for a higher degree, sponsored by the British Council. He read literature for his higher degree. In recent time, he had problems and threats from his home government in Kenya, because some of his looks have roused his peoples against social injustice perpetrated by their own leaders in a post – dependent on Kenya. NgugiWaThiong’o’spublished works include the following. Weep not Child (1962), the River Between (1964), a Grain of Wheat (1967), Petals of Blood (1977) and Devil on the Cross (1980). Dramainclude, the Black Hermit (1968), this time tomorrow (1970) and The Trail of DedanKimathi(1976).