This Presentation was presented as semester end presentation in MA English Semester 4 at the Department of English, MKBU

1. Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Department of English
Date: 2st April 2023
Sem 4। Batch 2022-24
Presentation on
Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Portrayal of the
Proletarianization of the Kenyan Masses
The African Literature
Presented by
Ghanshyam Katariya

2. Personal Info.
Presented by: Ghanshyam Katariya
Roll No. : 07
Semester: 4
Paper No. :206
Paper Name: The African Literature
Topic: Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Portrayal of the Proletarianization of the
Kenyan Masses
Submitted To: Smt. S. B. Gardi, Department of English, MKBU
Email i’d: gkatariya67@gmail.com
Date: 02/04/2024

3. Table of
contents
01
03
02
04
About the
Author
About
the novel
Mau Mau
Rebellion
Proletarianization
05 06
Character of
Abdulla
Wanja as
Symbol
07 Conclusion

4. About Author
● Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o was born in 1938 in Kenya, into a large peasant
family.
● He is a renowned Kenyan writer, novelist, playwright, and academic.
● Some of his notable works include the novels Weep Not, Child (1964),
The River Between (1965), A Grain of Wheat (1967), Petals of Blood
(1977), and Wizard of the Crow (2006).
● He was a central figure in the push to decolonize African literature and
championed the use of African languages in writing.
● For his activism and criticism of the Kenyan government, he was imprisoned in 1977 and later forced into
exile from 1982 to 2004.
● He has taught at various prestigious universities, including the University of Nairobi, Northwestern University,
Yale University, New York University, and currently holds a position at the University of California, Irvine.
● Ngũgĩ has received numerous honors and awards, including the Nonino International Prize for Literature and
11 honorary doctorates from universities around the world.
● He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences. (“ABOUT – Ngugi wa Thiong'o”)

5. About The Novel
● Petals of Blood is a novel written by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and first
published in 1977.
● Set in Kenya just after independence, the story follows four characters –
Munira, Abdulla, Wanja, and Karega – whose lives are intertwined due
to the Mau Mau rebellion.
● In order to escape city life, each retreats to the small, pastoral village of
Ilmorog.
● As the novel progresses, the characters deal with the repercussions of the
Mau Mau rebellion as well as with a new, rapidly westernizing Kenya.
● The novel largely deals with the scepticism of change after Kenya's
independence from colonial rule.
● It deals with themes including the challenges of capitalism, politics, and
the effects of westernization.
● Education, schools, and the Mau Mau rebellion are also used to unite the
characters, who share a common history with one another.

6. Mau Mau Rebellion
● From 1952 to 1960, the colony of Kenya was gripped by turmoil and bloodshed as
Britain struggled to maintain its hold on its African colonies. Various tribal factions
known collectively as the "Mau Mau" launched a guerrilla campaign against their
European oppressors. (Beyer)
● After the First World War, the process continued, and ex-soldiers were given what little
land remained, reducing the native ownership of land to virtually nothing. Organizations
were formed in protest, such as the East African Association (EEA) and the Kenya
African Union (KAU) (Beyer)
● Atrocities were committed by both sides. In 1953, the Mau Mau rebels herded men,
women, and children into huts in the village of Lari and burnt them, hacking with
machetes at those who tried to escape. (Beyer)
● British war crimes and abuses were legion. People were executed in villages, and
concentration camps were set up in which conditions were appalling, violence was rife,
detainees were denied access to medical aid, and women were regularly raped. (Beyer)
● By 1955, the detention camps began to produce results. Many detainees confessed and
gave information on their fellow Mau Maus. (Beyer)
● The official death toll among the Mau Mau is reported to be 11,503. This figure is,
however, most certainly wrong, and the real death toll is thought to be much higher. In
contrast, a total of 32 white Europeans are claimed to have been killed by the Mau Mau.
(Beyer)

7. Proletarianization
● The term originates in Karl Marx's theory of capitalism articulated in his book Capital, Volume 1, and
initially refers to the process of creating a class of workers—the proletariat—who sold their labor to
factory and business owners, who Marx referred to as the bourgeoisie or the owners of the means of
production.
● According to Marx and Engels, as they describe in The Manifesto of the Communist Party, the
creation of the proletariat was a necessary part of the transition from feudal to capitalist economic and
social systems.(Cole)
● In recent decades formerly agrarian societies like China, India, and Brazil have been proletarianized as
the globalization of capitalism pushed factory jobs out of Western nations and into nations in the
global south and east where labor is cheaper by comparison. (Cole)

8. Class struggle and Oppression
● Ngugi interprets the class struggle in the novel along the Marxist line. The struggle is a
result of the conduct of the power elite in their relationship with the lower classes. He
regards the Kenyan power elite,the businessmen, intellectuals, and the traditional
rulers, among others, as accomplices that have failed the Kenyan masses because they
are obsessed with wealth and property and forget the plight of the ordinary people,
thereby abandoning them to providence and charity (Chukwuyem)
● the mutilation of land by both colonial and post-colonial oppressors is done through
the aid of religion, cultural and educational institutions which perpetuate mental
slavery of the oppressed and buttress the interest of the oppressors. The choice lands
were shared only among the bourgeois at the expense of the poor. (Chukwuyem)
● Capitalism took over when colonisation bowed out of the scene. It was only a change
of drivers and not a change of direction.(Chukwuyem)
● The capitalists and their agents-Chui, Mzigo and Nderi-move in their development
projects: roads, banks, factories, distilleries and housing estates. These developments
quickly destroy the fabric of traditional Ilmorog.(Uwasomba and Anyidoho)

9. ● Abdullah, the introvert Mau Mau fighter, was totally betrayed by the country he fought for. e
independent Kenya failed to rehabilitate the one legged fighter who sacrificed his family and
land for the country (Amin)
● He represents the liberation battle for independence and social justice veterans. However, he and
those he represents, unfortunately, become outsiders in the very community for which they made
such great sacrifices.
● The force of Power and dehumanization tramp on and betray him, leaving him physically
traumatized, deeply frustrated, and financially impoverished (Ordu)
“No longer would I see the face of the Whiteman laughing at our effort… And the Indian
trader with his obscenities… kumanyokomwivi… he too would go. Factories, tea and
coffee estates would belong to us, Kenya people”
“I waited for land reforms and redistribution, I waited for a job‟ (Ngugi)
Abdulla as betrayed character

10. Wanja as Symbol
● The revolutionary role of women in this text can be seen firstly from Wanja,
one of the major characters. She is presented as a liberated, urbanised,
oppressed and exploited woman.
● Her role in the entire novel is that of a facilitator. Her life as a prostitute allows
her greater mobility in and out of the major events in the novel.
● She symbolises ruthless exploitation experienced by women of post-colonial
Kenya: unemployed, sexually harassed, uneducated, landless, and cut off from
the family. (Chukwuyem)
● Wanja, the extra ordinary struggling female character, like Kenya itself, has to
fight to stay alive and for whom destruction is never too far away. Being
humiliated by the society and the hostility of the world, she allows herself to
turn cruel like the surroundings. (Amin)

11. Conclusion
● We discover that the flower with the petals of blood belongs to a plant that grows wild in the
plains and is itself the victim of evil. The agents of corruption have destroyed its innocence.
The flower thus becomes a symbol of the entire society, potentially healthy, beautiful and
productive, but its potential is unrealized and destroyed by the agents of corruption and
death. (Olutola)
● Petals of Blood reflects the exploitation of Africans by the fellow Blacks. When Kenyans
were fighting for independence, they all had one voice and one common enemy. But with
the attainment of independence, the reality becomes that of a hen feeding on her laid eggs.
(Olutola)
● The Kenyan nation today is being built on the capitalist imperialist foundation, rather than
on her original communalism. The majority of Kenyan peasants live in a state of poverty.
The life of the urban poor is made worse by appalling housing conditions and poor urban
services. (Olutola)

12. References
“ABOUT – Ngugi wa Thiong'o.” Ngugi wa Thiong'o, 20 May 2018, https://ngugiwathiongo.com/about/. Accessed 2 April
2024.
Amin, Tasnim. “Fanonism and Constructive Violence in Petals of Blood.” Wikipedia, 2017,
https://www.worldwidejournals.com/international-journal-of-scientific-research-
(IJSR)/fileview.php?val=April_2017_1491834232__284.pdf. Accessed 1 April 2024.
Beyer, Greg. “The Mau Mau Rebellion: Anticolonial Upheaval in Kenya.” TheCollector, 10 July 2023,
https://www.thecollector.com/mau-mau-rebellion/. Accessed 2 April 2024.
Chukwuyem, Othniel Omijie. “Class Relation and Struggle inNgugiWaThiong'o'sPetals of Bloodand Festus Iyayi'sHeroes.”
Quest Journals, 11 July 2021, https://www.questjournals.org/jrhss/papers/vol9-issue7/Ser-3/E09073337.pdf.
Accessed 1 April 2024.

13. Cole, Lisa. “Proletarianization Defined: Shrinking of the Middle Class.” ThoughtCo, 3 July 2019,
https://www.thoughtco.com/proletarianization-3026440. Accessed 2 April 2024.
Ngugi, Wa Thiong'O. Petals of Blood. East African Publishers, 1977.
Ordu, Stanley. “Symbolic characters and class struggles in Ngugi’s wa Thiongo’s Petals of Blood.” Journal of Social, Humanity,
and Education | Journal of Social, Humanity, and Education, 22 February 2022, https://doi.org/10.35912/jshe.v2i2.831.
Accessed 1 April 2024.
Uwasomba, Chijioke, and Kofi Anyidoho. “The Politics of Resistance and Liberation in Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Petals of Blood and
Devil on the Cross.” Journal of Pan African Studies, 2006,
https://www.jpanafrican.org/docs/vol1no6/PoliticsofResistanceandLiberation_vol1no6.pdf. Accessed 1 April 2024.

14. Thank You