CHAPTER-II

Weep Not, Child:

The Theme of Education
 The analysis of the colonial encounter and its implications

becomes the primary consideration in the novels of African writers. In

other words, the contemporary African writer does not seem able to

avoid reflecting on, ... the fundamental transformation taking place in

the Africa of his generation, even when he has not personally been

involved in politics.1

In order to facilitate the emergence of a coherent picture of the

colonial encounter, the African novelist begins with the portrait of the

white men who, as individuals connected with the total phenomenon of

colonialism, become important in their novels. It is only in the evolving

relationship between the two that the colonizer emerges.

A pre and post colonial reality in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Weep Not,

Child is very common. The novelist’s tireless fight for the rights of the

landless and the exploited has contributed much to his fame. The novel

portrays the landless native’s struggle against the white settlers in pre­

colonial Kenya. There is a feeling of urgency and concern for a society

threatened with fragmentation. The dispossession of the poor man’s land

forms the major theme in this novel.

In Weep Not, Child Ngugi relates the story of a community that

crumbles because of exposure to the West. Ngugi’s supreme

23
achievement in the novel is in illustrating how individual families came

to be pulled in different directions as various members formed new

loyalties and rejected older ones within the traditional power structure.

The novel deals with the adolescence of a young boy Njoroge at the

time of the Mau-Mau rebellion in Kenya. It depicts the colonial

experience of the Kenyans and in this struggle between the colonizer

and the colonized, land becomes a significant part of the colonial

supremacy, and power. Deprived of their land the natives are reduced to

the status of landless labourers. Land is thus the biggest issue leading to

the crisis in the novel. Ngotho, the poor labourer, bemoans his

dispossession of the ancestral land with the stoicism and wisdom of a

religious saint. But his sons do not accept the dispossession of their

ancestral land with the same stoicism and fortitude.

Ngugi presents the variables adopted by the black people to

regain their land and the reasons as well as the circumstances that

ultimately lead to the failure in a dispassionate manner. Kathy Kessler

describes Ngugi’s world as a “complex and problematic historical

world.”2 Ngugi focuses on the failure of Mau-Mau rebellion due to the

treachery and infighting of the natives. The novelist’s commitment to

vindicate the Mau-Mau rebellion is distinctly visible in his writings.

Njoroge, the protagonist, and Kamaua, his eldest brother, think that

white people “left their country to come and rob us acres of what we
24
have.”3 Boro, the Mau-Mau activist, questions his father thus: “How can

you continue working for a man who has taken your land? How can you

go on serving him?” (27) Ngugi is confronted with the enormous task of

creating a national consciousness without resorting to propaganda. He

has to come to terms with two conflicting visions. He has his emotional

commitment to his group, his family of landless peasants. But as an

artist he never allows propaganda to annihilate the artist in him.

Ngugi establishes a composite overview of the Kikuyu society in

the first half of the novel, Weep Not, Child - based upon dozens of short

staccato-like scenes depicting Kenya under colonial domination prior to

the Mau-Mau revolt. The novel belongs to the period shortly after the

close of the Second World War. The events and sentiments which

emerge and culminate in the Mau-Mau rebellion are seen as they

influence the lives of the family of Ngotho; the families of Howlands,

and Jacobo, a Kenyan land owner. The events that the novel depicts are

seen mainly from the point of view of Njoroge, the youngest son of

Ngotho, from the time he steps into the school. The first chapter focuses

on his (Njoroge) story, and the two dominant motifs of this novel -

education and land:

Nyokabi called him. She was a small, black

woman, with a bold but grave face. One could
tell by her small eyes full of life and warmth
25
 that she had once been beautiful. But time and
bad conditions do not favour beauty. All the
same, Nyokabi had retained her full smile - a
smile that lit up her dark face.
‘Would you like to go to school?’
‘O mother!’ Njoroge gasped. He half feared
that the woman might withdraw her words.
There was a little silence till she said,
‘We are poor. You know that.’
‘Yes, mother.’ His heart pounded against his
ribs slightly. His voice was shaky.
‘So you won’t be getting a mid-day meal like
other children.’
‘I understand.’
‘You won’t bring shame to me by one day
refusing to attend school?’(p.3)

The educational theme is introduced first and will later be linked with

the land motif. Here the colonial, formal education is contrasted with the

education acquired through an awareness of the surrounding situation.

The main character, Njoroge, who is being formally educated and is not

aware of anything around him, is contrasted with his brothers who are

waking up to the situation around them and beginning to fight and resist

the colonial evil. In the contrast between these two attitudes to life,

Ngugi implies that colonial education is no substitute for the true

education attained in constant living interaction with the world. As the

26
opening scene continues, we are thrust immediately into Njoroge’s

mind, into his thoughts:

O mother, I’ll never bring shame to you.

Just let me get there, just le me. (p.3)

The concentration here at the beginning, as in much of the book, will be

on Njoroge and his changing attitudes toward the situation around him.

The communal element is also present in the recurrent motif of black

solidarity, reflected frequently in the African child’s inability to

understand the other ethnic groups: “You did not know what to call the

Indian. Was he also a white man?” (p.27)

The novel tells us how all the members of Ngotho’s family - his

sons Boro, Kori and Kamau by his wife Njeri and Njoroge by Nyokabi

become involved in the crisis and suffer the violence that it provokes.

Through these experiences Ngugi examines three separate themes.

Firstly, the appropriateness of a young Kenyan getting western

education, secondly, the influence of Christianity in the Kenyan context,

and thirdly, the causes and persuasion of the independence struggle.

Ngugi’s themes run more or less parallel, intervening in the life of

Njoroge, whose progress in the various schools he attends takes place as

the political situation in Kenya deteriorates to the point where Jomo

Kenyatta, the political leader is arrested and tried, found guilty and

imprisoned. At the same time a state of emergency is declared which led

27
a number of Kenyans, among them Njoroge’s elder brothers, Boro and

Kori, go into the forest to become freedom fighters. Consequently, the

British forces are poised against them, joined by white farmers who are

sworn in as political officers in the emergency. In the emergency,

violence and atrocities are committed on both sides as Mau-Mau

soldiers seek to drive Europeans from the land from which they have

alienated Africans, a land which by legend, law and custom becomes

rightfully their land. In fact, the land was given to the Gikuyu people at

the time of the creation of the earth, and Gikuyu and Mumbi the

archetypal forebears of the Gikuyu. Ngugi discusses the creation thus:

... There was wind and rain. And there was

also thunder and terrible lighting. The earth
and the forest around Kerinyaga shook ....
(P-27)
... God showed Gikuyu and Mumbi all the
land and told them, This land I hand over to
you. O man and woman it’s yours to rule and
till in serenity sacrificing only to me, your
God, under my sacred tree.... (p.28)

The novelist conveys two fundamental things in this passage. The land

is the source of life to the Gikuyu because it provides food. It is as

important as the material needs as well as spiritual that it satisfies.

28
 Jotno Kenyatta describes the Gikuyu belief thus:

Communion with the ancestral spirits is

perpetuated through contact with the soil in
which the ancestors of the tribe lie buried. The
Gikuyu consider the earth as the ‘mother’ of
the tribe, for the reason that the mother bears
her burden for about eight or nine moons
while the child is in her womb, and then for a
short period of suckling. But it is the soil that
feeds the child through a life time; and again
after death it is the soil that nurses the spirit of
the dead for eternity. Thus the earth is the
most sacred thing above all that we dwell in or
on it. Among the Gikuyu the soil is especially
honoured, and an everlasting oath is to swear
by the earth.4
Further, Kenyatta refers in his Facing Mount Kenya to the

systematic alienation of the land by the British, which was conducted by

the British dating from 1902: “a culture has no meaning apart from the

social organisation of life on which it is built.”5

The effect of this alienation process is described by Kenyatta in

these terms:

When the European comes to the Gikuyu

country and robs the people of their land, he is
taking away not only their livelihood, but the
material symbol that holds family and tribe
together.6
29
 Weep Not, Child is the artistic expression of the truth of this

assertion. Ngotho works on land, once the ancestral land of his

forebears, now owned by Howlands, and he lives on land, once his but

now owned by Jacobo. Ngotho accepts the circumstances silently

without protest and gets on because he is confident that the prophecy of

the Gikuyu sage, Mugo wa Kibiro, that the land will be returned to it’s

rightful owners, will certainly be fulfilled. He believes this despite the

experience of dealings he has had with whites and the example is his

father too had trusted in the prophecy.

Then came the war. It was the first big war. I

was then young, a mere boy, although
circumcised. All of us were taken by force.
We made roads and cleared the forest to make
it possible for the warring white man to move
more quickly. The war ended. We were all
tired. We came home worn out but very ready
for whatever the British might give us as a
reward. But, more than this, we wanted to go
back to the soil and court it to yield, to create,
not to destroy. But Ng’o! The land was gone.
My father and many others had been moved
from our ancestral lands. He died lonely, a
poor man waiting for the white man to go.
Mugo had said this would come to be. The
white man did not go and he died a Muhoi on
this very land, (p.29)

30
 Boro and Kori have been to war on behalf of the British. They

have seen a brother, Mwangi, Njoroge’s elder brother die in an alien

cause on alien soil. But, they draw different conclusions from their

experiences of fighting in Egypt, Jerusalem and Burma. They have met

members of other ‘subject races’ who have had similar experiences to

their own, and have learned of such movements in other parts of the

world to regain land taken from its hereditary owners by imperial

conquest. Boro and Kamau stand for that generation of Kenyans who

were moved to fight for the land when all other forms of appeal were

suppressed violently. Ultimately, they realize that mere passive waiting

will not win them back the land. Ngugi presents this situation in plain

terms:

Boro thought of his father who had fought in

the war only to be dispossessed. He too had
gone to war, against Hitler. He had gone to
Egypt, Jerusalem and Burma. He had seen
things. He had often escaped death narrowly.
But the thing he could not forget was the death
of his step-brother, Mwangi. For whom or for
what had he died?

When the war came to an end, Boro had

come home, no longer a boy but a man with
experience and ideas, only to find that for him
there was to be no employment. There was no
land on which he could settle, even if he had
31
 been able to do so. As he listened to this story,
all these things came into his mind with a
growing anger. How could these people have
let the white man occupy the land without
acting? And that was all this superstitious
belief in a prophecy?

In a whisper that sounded like a shout,

he said, ‘To hell with the prophecy.’
Yes, this was nothing more than a whisper. To
his father, he said, ‘How can you continue
working for a man who has taken your land?
How can you go on serving him?’
He walked out, without waiting for an answer.
(P-30)

The anger Boro expresses for his father for the first time explodes

his frustration about the inactiveness of the ancestors like his father who

allowed the whites to occupy their land without any protest and

violence. Their blind belief in the prophecy further irritates Boro’s

temper and he outwardly expresses the futility of life in an imperialistic

set up where youth like Boro had to suffer with the problem of

unemployment and are reduced to a state of landless labourers in their

own country. According to Ngugi, the ‘feeling of oneness which most

distinguished Ngotho’s household from many other polygamous

families’ was attributed to Ngotho, the centre of the home. The break up

of the home, which the novel dramatizes from this point onwards, and
32
the break up of the homes of Howlands and Jacobo becomes a metaphor

for the break up of Kenyan society, paving the way for it to be replaced

by new order i.e., a process not completed by the end of the novel.

Ngotho continues to work on the land for Howlands. Boro and

Kori go to work in Nairobi and participate in the Independence

movement. Howlands’ entire life is concentrated on the land. Although

his family is about the same size as Ngotho’s, we learn little of them

except that his wife, after an initial romantic response to Africa, comes

to find life almost intolerable and spends her time hiring and firing

servants in a futile attempt to work out her frustrations. As we are

aware, she has a daughter from overseas, and she, like Ngotho, has lost a

son in the alien soil on alien cause. She has another son, Stephen, about

Njoroge’s age with whom Njoroge has a fleeting moment of intimate

understanding. Howlands has come to Kenya after the First World War.

He is described as a ‘typical Kenya Settler’ thus:

He was a product of the First World War.

After years of security at home, he had been
suddenly called to arms and he had gone to the
war with the fire of youth that imagines war a
glory. But after four years of blood and terrible
destruction, like many other young men he
was utterly disillusioned by the ‘Peace’. He
had to escape. East Africa was a good place.

33
 Here was a big trace of wild country to
conquer, (p.33)

When Howland’s son, to whom he planned to pass-on the land, is

killed in the Second World War, his reaction is to turn wholly to the

land. In this backdrop Ngugi reveals most clearly the irony arising out of

the situation in the following lines:

Not that Mr.Howlands stopped to analyse his

feelings towards him. He just loved to see
Ngotho working in the farm; the way the old
man touched the soil, almost fondling, and the
way he tended the young tea plants as if they
were his own .... Ngotho was too much of a
part of the farm to be separated from it. (p.33)

Just as Howlands would have no idea that Ngotho might

experience guilt comparable to his own at the loss of a son, so Howlands

would have no idea of the force of the idea which binds Ngotho to the

land and, ironically draws from Howlands feelings which amounts to

affection towards Ngotho.

Shortly after this situation Ngotho attends a meeting, organized

by Boro, Kori and others, to organize a strike. Kiarie reminds the crowd

of people of their suffering under colonialism, of their alienation from

the land. His speech ends in the familiar arguments of Moses to

34
Pharaoh: ‘Let my people go,’ noting the analogy between Moses and

Jomo, the Black Moses, sent by God to liberate the Kenyan people.

Jacobo is the fourth representative figure in the novel. When the

emergency is in force, Howlands enunciates a policy of divide and rule,

gets the blacks to fight each other so that the white man will be safe. At

this stage Jacobo represents that small number of Africans allowed to

own and farm land, and thus accumulate wealth. But their position

depended on the good will of the whites and thus people like Jacobo,

both pitiable and contemptible, become their flatterers. Further, such

people become agents of division within the African community. Boro

and his colleagues fall in line about the reasons for reclaiming the land

but they lack consensus over how to do this. Jacobo and his accomplices

help perpetuate this disarray. Ngotho’s action in the strike further

alienates him from Boro who holds his father responsible for the failure.

Thus, it marks the beginning of the decline of Ngotho and his family.

Ironically, Ngotho registers his protest against the victimization of

Africans by Africans as is prompted by his clear recognition of the truth

of Boro’s claims. It is equally an irony that the revolution which Boro

brings about to retrieve the land for the peasantry has the effect of

alienating completely the last generation of genuine African peasantry,

symbolized by Ngotho, from the land. The latter’s nadir occurs after the

35
ill-fated strike which fails because Ngotho, on impulse attacks Jacobo

and provokes a rioting. He is fired from his job. His reputation

destroyed, he remains a supplicant on the farm of Nganga, a

compassionate farmer.

It is against this background of deepening stress that Njoroge

grows from boyhood to adolescence. When the novel opens his mother
t
asks him ‘would you like to go to school?’ and he becomes breathless

with the fear that she may go back on her words. But she does not go

back and we see how Njoroge’s school career progresses and how he

persistently does in the school better than others. As we are aware, he

makes a close relationship with Mwihaki, the daughter of Jacobo. He

begins to contemplate an important mission for himself in paying

attention to discussions in his father’s hut about the problems in the

country.

Njoroge listened to his father. He instinctively

knew that an indefinable demand was being
made on him, even though he was so young.
He knew that for him education would be the
fulfilment of a wider and more significant
vision - a vision that embraced the demand
made on him, not only by his father, but also
by his mother, his brothers and even the

36
 village. He saw himself destined for something
big, and this made his heart glow, (p.44)

Njoroge accepts the teaching of the missionaries and his immature

mind elaborates a dream comprising of education and Christian

teaching, exploiting the analogy between the two religious forces that he

is exposed to:

His belief in a future for his family and the

village rested them not only on a hope for
sound education but also on a belief in a God
of love and mercy, who long ago walked on
this earth with Gikuyu and Mumbi, or Adam
and Eve. It did not make much difference that
he had come to identify Gikuyu with Adam
and Mumbi with Eve. To this God, all men
and women were united by one strong bond of
brotherhood. And with all this, there was
Rowing up in his heart a feeling that the
Gikuyu people, whose land had been taken by
white men, were no other than the children of
Israel about whom he read in the Bible, (p.55)

But the dream is stalemated and is reduced by the false

consolations offered out of the Bible to account for the chaos:

Turn to the Gospel according to St.Matthew,

Chapter 24, and beginning to read from line 4.
There was a shuffle of leaves.
Let’s begin to read ....

37
And Jesus answered and said unto them: Take
heed that no man deceive you.
For many shall come in My name, saying, I
am Christ; and shall deceive many.
And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of
wars: See that ye be not troubled: for all these
things must come to pass, but the end is not
yet.
For nation shall rise against nation, and
kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be
famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in
diverse places.
All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Then they shall deliver you up to be afflicted,
and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all
nations for My name’s sake.
And then shall many be offended, and shall
betray one another, and shall hate one another.
And many false prophets shall rise, and shall
deceive many.
And because iniquity shall bound, the love of
many shall wax cold.
But he that shall endure unto the end, the same
shall be saved....
He read on. But when he came to verse 33, he
stopped and stared at all the people in the
church. Then he raised his voice and went on:
Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not
pass till all these things be fulfilled.....

38
 It was as if darkness too had fallen into the
building and there was no one to light the way.
(p. 102)

This is followed by a ruthless murder by the Christian police of

the revivalist, Isaka, who professes his Christian faith. He is beaten and

shot, almost before the eyes of his young Catechists, but the dream does

not satisfy Njoroge. Its weaknesses are probed by Mwihaki in one of

their meetings. Mwihaki’s disillusionment is juxtaposed to Njoroge!s

faith. She is a foil to Njoroge throughout the novel. She experiences

despair as the horror of the emergency spreads over the land. When he

makes clear his ‘vision’ to her she angrily reacts, and out of fear says

thus:

You are always talking about tomorrow,

tomorrow. You are always talking about the
country and the people. What is tomorrow?
And what is the people and the country to
you? She had suddenly stopped what she had
been doing and was looking at him with
blazing eyes. Njoroge saw this and was afraid.
He did not want to make her angry. He was
pained. He looked at her and then at the plain,
the country beyond stretching on, on to the
distant hills shrouded in the mist, (p.120)

39
Njoroge’s faith is in his belief that:

If you knew that all your days life will always

be like this with blood flowing daily and men
dying in the forest, while others daily cry for
mercy; if you knew even for one moment that
this would go on for ever, then life would be
meaningless unless bloodshed and death were
a meaning. Surely this darkness and terror will
not go on for ever. Surely there will be a sunny
day, a warm sweet day after all this tribulation,
when we can breathe the warmth and purity of
God .... (p. 121)

Njoroge’s words offer optimism of a kind and are a reflection of

his duty to prepare himself for his role after the troubles have been

passed. But Mwihaki has struck a chord of doubt in him and

momentarily his faith, couched in vague abstractions, looks thread bear.

On the other hand, the speech offers an ironic force indicating Njoroge’s

ultimate disillusionment. At this moment, the dream is ironically given a

death blow. Police officers come to take Njoroge away to his village

from his school. Jacobo has been murdered, Ngotho has confessed the

crime and Njoroge has been denounced as an oath taker. Ngotho has

been afflicted and Njoroge is threatened with the same punishment.

Howlands, now a maniacal District Officer, turns the full fury of his

40
hatred against Ngotho for whom he once held a special affection. In his

opinion Ngotho is the most treacherous of the Gikuyus.

Ngugi brings the novel swiftly to a close. Boro comes out of the

forest to kill Howlands but not before he and his father, in one of the

genuinely moving scenes in the novel, he expresses reconciliation thus:

Forgive me, father - I didn’t know - Oh, I

thought - Boro turned his head.
The words came out flatly, falteringly. It’s
nothing. Ha, ha, ha! You too have come back
- to laugh at me? Would you laugh at your
father? No. Ha! I meant only good for you all.
I didn’t want you to go away -
I had to fight.
Oh, there - Now - Don’t you ever go away
again.
I can’t stay. I can’t. Boro cried in a hollow
voice. A change came over Ngotho. For a time
he looked like the man he had been, firm,
commanding - the centre of his household.
You must.
No, father. Just forgive me.
Ngotho exerted himself and sat up in bed. He
lifted his hand with an effort and put it on
Boro’s head. Boro looked like a child.
All right. Fight well. Turn your eyes to
Murungu and Ruriri. Peace to you all - Ha!

4 S.K.U.L I B R A R Y
Acc. No..!.?.P9M......
Call.No,.............. ...... .
 What? Njoroge look ... look - to - your -
moth -
His eyes were still aglow as he sank back into
the bed. For a moment there was silence in the
hut. Then Boro stood up and whispered, I
should have come earlier ....

In a sense the spirit of the family is revived and Ngotho, even in

death, is once again the centre of the home.

Ngugi takes the opportunity, just before Boro Kills Howlands, to

examine the circumstances which have converted Howlands from an

introspective farmer who takes more consolation from his work on the

land than his family, into a brutal killer who only half understands the

forces which sweep around him and who, in the midst of his brutal

behaviour, finds repugnant the system which has cast on him on the role

as mentioned below:

He now knew maybe there was no escape. The

present that had made him a D.O. reflected a
past from which he had tried to run away. That
past had followed him even though he had
tried to avoid politics, government, and
anything else that might remind him of that
betrayal. But his son had been taken away ....
It was no good calling on the name of God for
he, Howlands, did not believe in God. There
was only one God for him - and that was the

42
 farm he had created, the land he had tamed.
And who were these Mau Mau who were now
claiming that land, his god? Ha, ha! He could
have laughed at the whole ludicrous idea, but
for the fact that they had forced him into the
other life, the life he had tried to avoid. He had
been called upon to take up a temporary
appointment as a District Officer. He had
agreed. But only because this meant defending
his god. If Mau Mau claimed the only thing he
believed in, they would see! (p.87)

When Boro confronts him with the reasons for fighting the war,

Howlands reveals that he does not comprehend that Africans have any

rights in any respect.

I killed Jocobo.
I know.
He betrayed black people. Together, you killed
many sons of the land. You raped our women.
And finally you killed my father. Have you
anything to say in your defence?
Boro’s voice was flat. No colour of hatred,
anger or triumph. No sympathy.
Nothing.
Nothing. Now you say nothing. But when you
took our ancestral lands -
This is my land. Mr Howlands said this as a
man would say, this is my woman.

43
 Your land! Then, you white dog, you’ll die on
your land.
Mr.Howlands thought him mad. Fear
overwhelmed him and he tried to cling to life
with all his might. But before he could reach
Boro, the gun went off. Boro had learnt to be a
good marksman during the Second World
War. The Whiteman’s trunk stood defiant for a
few seconds. Then it fell down, (p.145)

Njoroge works in a shop owned by an Asian for a time. He does

the job with slackness and is removed from it. At his last encounter with

Mwihaki he asks her to escape from Kenya with him to Uganda - just as

she had sought him to do in the past. This time it is she who refuses, and

echoing Njoroge’s words, speaks to him of ‘duty’ and ‘responsibility.’

Of course, Mwihaki may do this but not Njoroge. He attempts to hang

himself but is saved from doing so by his mother. The novel ends on a

gloomy note:

But as they came near home and what had

happened to him came to mind, the voice
again came and spoke accusing him: you are a
coward. You have always been a coward. Why
didn’t you do it? And loudly he said, ‘why
didn’t I do it?’ The voice said: Because you
are a coward. ‘Yes’, he whispered to himself.
‘I am a coward’. And he ran home and opened
the door for his two mothers, (p. 154)
44
 Weep Not, Child is a small novel with few complexities either of

plot or in the creation of characters. There is a symbolic quality in the

novel. Ngugi admits having had a certain symbolism in mind when he

wrote this novel. For example, he says, that he saw Jomo Kenyatta as a

kind of saviour or Black Messiah. But he admits that they are not such

kind of saviours, but they are symbols of certain forces.7

In the same manner, Njoroge conceives an analogous symbolic

role for himself, seeing the similarity between Jomo and Moses and his

own potential in relation to it. All of the characters and situations,

though without doubt real, present something more.

Boro, the Mau Mau activist attains a symbolic unity of purpose in

the double murder of Howlands, the white settler and Jacobo, the rich

black settler. Ngugi skillfully exposes the world of conflict between the

white settlers and the black people, but at a deeper level, the battle is

diversified and directed against their own brothers. The final

dispossession of the land transpires through Jacobo, who comes to

represent Njoroge, the image of all which has robbed him of the victory

when the door to success had been opened.

The small village of Ngotho is a microcosm of Kenya at the time

of the emergency with the principal characters - Ngotho, Njoroge,

Howlands, Boro, and Jacobo, representing the various points of view.

45
Certain scenes have symbolic reference. The most notable of these

references is when Howlands, threatens to afflict Njoroge same as in the

case of Ngotho. After his torture at the hands of the white men, on

suspicion of being a Mau Mau agent, however, Njoroge begins to wake

up to his surrounding reality. Not yet completely ready to face the

world, and disappointed and grieved at having been unable to persuade

his loved one to escape with him, Njoroge determines to commit

suicide, for he believes that he has nothing left to live for:

God meant little to him now. For Njoroge had

now lost faith in all the things he had earlier
believed in, like wealth, power, education,
religion. Even love, his last hope, had fled
from him.

Just as he is about to put his head into the noose to hang himself,

however, he hears the voice of his mother and feels a strange relief. As

he follows her home, he is tormented by feelings of guilt “the guilt of a

man who had avoided his responsibility for which he had prepared

himself since childhood.”

In finally facing reality and rejecting death, Njoroge takes his

place as a man in the world, and accepts responsibility for his actions.

Implicit in this attitude is the message that the waking up to reality and

the call of responsibility are the only true education that man can have.

46
The final ironic twist to the situation, however is that while Njoroge

believes that he is a coward who cannot face the thought of death, it is in

his very rejection of death and his apparent cowardice, that he displays

his strength and courage. The rise of the individual in society, and his

role as a vitally involved member and participant in its affairs forms,

therefore, an important theme in the African novels.

In Ngugi’s novels, it is noticeable that though Ngugi makes no

distinctive stylistic innovations and maintains a fairly neutral mode of

expression throughout, there is a conscious use of technique to deepen

the realism of the content. In the novel, Weep Not, Child, the creation of

the character of Njoroge seems to be very weak in the entire work of

Ngugi because Njoroge, as we are aware, ‘had always been a dreamer, a

visionary who consoled himself faced by the difficulties of the moment

by a look at a better day to come.’ This attitude reveals to us a flaw in

the character and by implication in his creator also. Throughout the book

very often the novelist retreats into vague phrases, a measure of his

inability to control, at the age he is, something like his destiny. Often

throughout the novel he seemed to be powerless to act and does not

want to contemplate the possible consequence of certain hard facts

which he had to face. The novelist gives Njoroge to do more than what

youth of his age can do and more to understand than a youth with his

limited intellect.
47
 If the point of view of the novel is incomplete to a full

examination of the theme, then it can be seen how much more will be

gained if we see the events of the novel through Boro’s eyes. This

disinterestedness that Ngugi achieves in rendering the events of the book

is noteworthy. Njoroge’s point of view is limited. He never grows to

intellectual maturity. His Messianic dream of saving his people in time

of trouble by means of education is vaguely defined and the large

charity found in the sacrifice of Christ is equally vaguely apprehended

which is founded on adolescent romanticism. In this way, it is

vulnerable and even it crumbles when pressure is applied, and pressure

of a kind which he finds difficult to withstand.

Njoroge is delicately moulded and we watch him grow from

boyhood into adolescence with a compassion similar in kind to the

emotion which prompted Ngugi to create him. Equally we feel no great

pity when the boy’s dream melts. We share his fear in the forest when

the teacher is murdered by colonial troops and sense how the horror and

the pain of this affliction maddened Howlands to threaten him. But this

is not an idyll, not a tale for children. So, these are the events taking

place in the society in which Njoroge lives. The dream of education is

another weakness in the book. The suggestion is made that Njoroge’s

acquisition of western education is the means to a better future i.e., of

acquiring the understanding of the white man and thus of achieving

48
what he has achieved of regaining the lost land. But very little is made

of this. It seems, Nyokabi wants Njoroge to be educated so that she will

be able to feel the same as the Howlands’ woman or Juliana, the wife of

Jacobo:

That was something. That was real life. It did

not matter if anyone died poor provided he or
she could one day say, ‘look I have a son as
good and as well educated as any can find in
the land.’ (p. 16)

While Ngotho is prepared to say that ‘Education is everything’ it

is the land that is everything and education is useful only if it can serve

the purpose of regaining the land. Kamau and Kori contribute to

Njoroge’s education but say little about why they do so. It is simply

assumed that readers know and nothing more needs to be said.

The question of the value and the kind of education which is best

for African people is something which is of greater concern. It is the

central theme in The River Between, where the discussion is more

clearly focused than here. In this novel, we find the beginning of the

analysis which will consume many pages in Petals ofBlood.

Finally, the novel examines various attitudes toward ‘duty’. Every

character acts out of a sense of commitment to an idea. Ngotho and

Njoroge’s positions change as a result of their experiences but not those

49
of other principal characters. Ngotho gives his life in order to save his

son’s. Ngotho’s reversing the attitude makes him bluntly reject the oath

when Boro sought to administer it to him at the beginning of the

emergency. This is an explicit example of his adherence to the ways of

tradition and custom which he followed religiously through out his life.

In Ngotho’s mind, Boro had ‘no right to reverse the custom, tradition for

which he and his generations stood.’ Howlands expounds the morality

of paternal colonialism in conjunction with a belief in his right to the

land. His obsession with the land is so great that the violence he gives

expression to finally rebounds thus:

He had remembered himself as a boy, that day

so long ago when he had sat outside his
parents’ home and dreamt of a world that
needed him, only to be brought face to face
with the harsh reality of life in the First World
War... Mr.Howlands could now remember
only drinking to make himself forget. He
cursed horribly.

And this Ngotho. He had let him go home

more dead than alive. But still he had let him
go. Howlands had not got the satisfaction he
had hoped for. The only thing left to him was
hatred. What had made him release Ngotho
was a notebook that had been found behind the
lavatory from where apparently Jacobo had

50
 been shot. The notebook had Boro’s name. At
first Mr.Howiands had been unable to
understand. But gradually he realized that
Ngotho had been telling a lie, in order to
shield Boro. But Boro was in the forest.
Slowly he arrived at the truth. Ngotho too had
thought that it was Kamau who had done the
murder. He had taken on the guilt to save a
son. At this Mr.Howiands’ hatred of Ngotho
had been so great that he had trembled the
whole night, (p. 144)

Ngugi’s correlation of history with myth is problematic. Carol

Sieherman has referred to historians who object both to Ngugi’s

carelessness with details and to his promoting myth as history.8 The

writers seeks to discover not what has happened but ways in which

things are felt to happen in history. The intermixing of history with myth

helps in precipitating reconciliation between the estranged son, Boro,

and his father on the death-bed. Ngotho’s parting words have a historic

and mythic undertone. “All right, Fight well. Turn your eyes to

Murungu and Ruriri” (p.124). Boro, the dispossessed son of a

dispossessed father, would certainly remember the parting words of his

father and derive the moral strength to wage war in future from

Murungu and Ruriri.

51
 Ngugi’s novel depicts the hopes and aspirations of the landless

Kenyans in the pre-independent Kenya. The noel refers to what may be

described as the ‘oppositional’ or ‘confrontational’ phase when the

imperialist power posed the main threat to the native in the pre-colonial

era. The peasant in post-colonial Kenya is still poor, landless and

exploited. The novelist emphasizes the need to make the readers to look

again at contemporary Kenya and shows the necessity of collective

commitment. Ngugi adroitly uses history and myth for this purpose. The

real fight is certainly not against an outsider but against the enemy from

within. Ngugi’s portrayal of Mr.Howlands, the white settler, is most

dispassionate. The whiteman loves the land as his own and the thought

of leaving the country of his choice is far from his mind.

Ngugi makes an attempt to alleviate the effect of a depressing

series of historical and political events, by projecting them through the

mind of a central consciousness, Njoroge, the protagonist of the novel.

By concentrating on the members of the Ngotho family, the novelist

ensures that interest centres not on political matters, but on the

relationships, and on the effects on the characters of the pressure of

events. In fact, the novel is not a propagandist work entirely designed to

put the African case against the white settlers. The author’s balanced

view point takes into account the weaknesses of the Africans themselves

as well as the Europeans.

52
 The repossession of land became synonymous with political

freedom in Kenya. This kind of struggle becomes central to the novel,

Weep Not, Child. Land is not only held to be of much greater

importance than money or cattle but it is apparent that it has spiritual

associations. Ngotho’s inspired story about the origin of the land makes

this point very clear:

And the creator who is also called Murungu

took Gikuyu and Mumbi from his holy
mountain. He took them to the country of
ridges near Siriana and there stood them on a
big ridge before he finally took them to
Mukuruwe wa Gathanga about which you
have heard so much. But he had shown them
all the land - yes, children, God showed
Gikuyu and Mumbi all the land and told them,
this land I hand over to you. O Man and
woman it’s yours to rule and till in serenity
sacrificing only to me, your God, under my
sacred tree... (pp.27-28)

In this story of Creation, Gikuyu and Mumbi, the legendry

ancestors of the Kenyans, are the East African counterparts of the

biblical Adam and Eve. The land which was given to them by God is

seen as part of a covenant between God and his people who are brought

together to rule and till the land. With the result people observe the

alienation of the land, and its annexation by an alien people, not only as
53
God’s punishment for their sins, but as an alienation from their God and

ancestors. Hence, it is essential to recover the land from alien white

settlers. The spiritual significance of the land explains the reverential

awe with which Ngotho treats it. To him, land is something more than a

commercial asset. It is the link with his God and his ancestors. He

cultivates this land to bear fruit more than anyone else can do it.

Howlands, who is more interested in profit, regards Ngotho more than

any other African. It is interesting to compare Ngotho’s attitude to the

land with that of Howlands. The latter loves the land in his own way,

with the satisfaction of possession and subjugation. Towards the end of

the novel Mr Howlands is adamant to say, ‘this is my land’ just like a

man would say ‘this is my woman.’ On Ngotho’s part he has deep

respect and regard for the land as a sacred one to which he attributed

spiritual associations with his ancestors.

Among the natives, there is a general unanimity about the need to

recover the land, but they are without a ‘modus-operandi’. The members

of the past generations are aware of the prophecy that a leader will one

day emerge to lead the people to freedom. They are perfectly prepared

to wait for its fulfilment. But the younger people who are much more

militant in their attitude, demand immediate action. Boro, Ngotho’s son

is typical of this attitude. His character has been completely altered by

the course of events. He is uprooted from his home and his traditions
54
and his attention is drawn to the western world for participation in the

Second World War. His experiences are traumatic because he lost his

favourite brother, Mwangi. Thus his eyes are opened to the sordidness

of western civilization, with all its squalor, immortality. Hence he

returned home to find that the ‘inferior’ people have become his

masters, and that he is completely alienated from his traditional land. He

is disillusioned and disenchanted. With the result, Ngotho’s policy of

waiting for the fulfilment of the prophecy seems to him absolutely

absurd.

Apart from sentimentalizing the Africans, Ngugi also shows that

their problem is made all the more intractable because of their lack of

unity. For instance, Jacobo is quite prepared to betray his people to

become Mr Howlands’ chief informer in order to safeguard his material

prosperity. In addition to this, there is also a paralyzing lack of

agreement about the best possible means for achieving the desired ends.

The novelist skillfully analyses the causes of the travails of the people

and locates them not merely in the acts of intimidation committed by the

whites, but in the Kenyans’ personal weaknesses. This is also apparent

from the examination of the characters of Ngotho and Njoroge. Ngotho

is truly a tragic figure, though he seems to be magnificently impressive

at the beginning, in the long run he degenerates to utter ruin. His

catastrophe is caused by a combination of the forces ranged against him,

55
and his own personal weaknesses. At the beginning he is quiet self-

confident. His home is renowned and respected throughout the village as

a place of peace, and his son Njoroge admires him for providing security

and stability that are needed in these hard times.

In spite of his acknowledged pre-eminence, Ngotho is not only a

man of action but a traditionalist who would rather wait for the

fulfilment of the prophecy than take up arms against his arrogant rulers.

Thus, he is contrasted with his son, Boro, who is openly scornful of the

prophecy and of his father’s inaction. Circumstances however force

Ngotho to take a stand. He plans a strike in spite of his personal

misgivings about its success. Thus, his indecision, his conspicuous

weakness, is revealed. The scene in which he and his wife discuss brings

out their attitude towards the strike in clear terms:

What’s black people to us when we starve?

Shut that mouth. How long do you think I can
endure this drudgery, for the sake of a white
man and his children?
But he’s paying you money. What if the strike
fails?
Don’t woman me! he shouted hysterically.
This possibility was what he feared most. She
sensed this note of uncertainty and fear and
seized upon it.
What if the strike fails, tell me that!

56
 Ngotho could bear it no longer. She was
driving him mad. He slapped her on the face
and raised his hand again, (p.60)

With unblemished feminine intuition, Nyokabi lays her finger on

Ngotho’s doubts.

In the course of the strike Ngotho, in a characteristically

unpremeditated act, rouses the crowed to physical violence against

Jacobo without caring for the consequences. It is the only occasion in

the novel when he acts decisively, but it is a gross miscalculation, and

the consequences are disastrous. The strike marks the beginning of

Ngotho’s downfall, because from then onwards he is exposed to a

number of humiliations. He loses his job and his house, and has to face

Boro’s wrath. A practical and calculating activist, Boro blames his

father’s irrational action for the failure of the strike and its

consequences. It is a measure of how far Ngotho has degenerated, when

Boro attempts to force him to take the Mau Mau oath. Ngotho is further

humiliated by the arrest of his wife Njeri and his son Kori when he fails

to save them. Finally, he feels that he is much afflicted and literally

loses his manhood. The affliction is a symbolic culmination of the

gradual loss of his manly self-assurance and dignity.

Whatever it may be, like most tragic heroes, Ngotho redeems

himself in the reader’s eyes before his death. Thinking that Kamau was

57
the murderer of the arch-traitor Jacobo, Ngotho confesses to the murder

in order to save his son. It is a great act of sacrifice. In that way, the old

man rises once more in our estimation. On his death bed, he rises to his

former stature, and even the contemptuous Boro returns to his father’s

bed side and acknowledges his worth, and, in tears, he asks for his

forgiveness.

However, Ngotho is not the hero of the novel, but his son Njoroge

becomes the hero. It is through his eyes and especially from his point of

view that we see the details of the story. Truly for the most part the story

seems to emerge from the consciousness of the hero, which accounts for

the novel’s apparent simplicity. Ngugi attempts to keep the reader close

to the consciousness of this naive boy, in some early scenes he captures

and dramatizes the enthusiasm with which the boy responds to the

lessons at his school.

Ngugi’s presentation of Njoroge proves his intelligent objectivity.

He intended to demonstrate that the solution to the country’s problems

did not lie in education. It merely gives people an excuse to shrug the

responsibilities of the present, by dwelling on the hopes of better days to

come. At the start of the novel Njoroge is seen as an introverted child,

very sensitive and very much tied to his mother’s attitude. He is also

passionately attached to the idea of education as a panacea for the

58
country’s ills. He sees himself as destined to play a very important role

in the process of redeeming his country:

Njoroge listened to his father. He instinctively

knew that an indefinable demand was being
made on him, even though he was so young.
He knew that for him education would be the
fulfilment of a wider and more significant
vision - a vision that embraced the demand
made on him, not only by his father, but also
by his mother, his brothers and even the
village. He saw himself destined for something
big, and this made his heart glow, (p.44)

Ngugi is perfectly aware that this vision is just day-dreaming and

he seizes upon the opportunity to laugh at his hero’s idealism thus:

Njoroge did not want to be like his father

working for a white man, or, worse, for an
Indian. Father had said that the work was hard
and had asked him to escape from the same
conditions. Yes, he would. He would be
different. And he would help all his brothers.
Before he went to sleep he prayed, ‘Lord, let
me get learning. I want to help my father and
mothers. And Kamau and all my other
brothers. I ask you all this through Jesus
Christ, our Lord, Amen.
He remembered something else.

59
 ... And help me God so that Mwihaki may not
beat me in class; and God ....
He fell asleep and dreamed of education in
England, (pp.49-50)

To some extent Njoroge seemed to have delusions of grandeur,

and singles out Old Testament characters. For example, Moses for his

favourite heroes. He feels himself playing the role of a redeemer after

completing his education. He is confident that one day he would use all

his learning and equip himself to fight the white man, and he would

continue to work which his father has initiated.

Whatever it may be, reality catches up savagely with Njoroge,

when the consequences of the Mau-Mau rebellion pursue him even to

the school where he had thought that he would be immune from

violence. But unfortunately, neither his religious faith nor his knowledge

are effective protectors against the menace of the times. Teacher Isaka

and other Christians are destined to die even when they carry their

Bibles, and Njoroge himself is brutally tom in school and tortured. His

cry ‘I am only a school boy, affendi’, merely serves to arouse even

greater sadism from his tormentors.

Njoroge had not only indulged in visions of an educated life, he

had also placed implicit faith in the Bible, and had believed with an

optimism that the world is governed by equity and justice. But later in

the novel, he is continuously exposed to a number of shocks which

60
reveal the anti-thesis between the world as it really is, and the world as

he had imagined. His ideals are shattered, his illusions exposed, and his

family and aspirations become futile. To give vent to his feelings he

turns to Mwihaki and proposes that they should escape to Uganda.

Mwihaki is meant inter-alia to serve as a foil to Njoroge, to put his day­

dreaming and his basic immaturity in perspective. Once, in their childish

mutual passion like the Romeo and Juliet love affair, she had suggested

to Njoroge to run away, demonstrating her own immaturity at that stage.

Njoroge had an objection, not because he was more mature and more

aware of responsibilities but because such a course would have

disturbed his visionary plans. After several years, Njoroge revives the

same proposal to Mwihaki, who has become his last anchor in a rapidly

disintegrating world. But the girl demonstrates how much she has

grown since their childhood days by refusing Njoroge’s proposal. As a

consequence of her father’s death she remembers the responsibility

imposed upon her.

She wanted to sink in his arms and feel a

man’s strength around her weak body. She
wanted to travel the road back to her
childhood and grow up with him again. But
she was no longer a child.
Yes, we can go away from here as you had
suggested when -

61
No! no! she cried, in an agony of despair,
interrupting him. You must save me, please
Njoroge. I Love you.
She covered her face with both hands and
wept freely, her breast heaving.
Njoroge felt sweet pleasure and excitedly
smoothed her dark hair.
Yes, we go to Uganda and live -
No, no. She struggled again.
But why? He asked, not understanding what
she meant.
Don’t you see that what you suggest is too
easy a way out? We are no longer children,
she said between her sobs.
That’s why we must go away. Kenya is no
place for us. Is it not childish to remain in a
hole when you can take yourself out?
But we can’t. We can’t! She cried hopelessly.
Again he was puzzled. As a child Mwihaki
had seemed to be the more daring. She saw the
hesitancy in him. She pressed harder.
We better wait. You told me that the sun will
rise tomorrow.
I think you were right.
He looked at her tears and wanted to wipe
them. She sat there, a lone tree defying the
darkness, trying to instill new life into him.
But he did not want to live. Not this kind of
life. He felt betrayed.

62
 All that was a dream we can only live today.
Yes. I have a duty, for instance, to my mother.
Please, dear Njoroge, we cannot leave her at
this time when -
No! Njoroge. Let’s wait for a new day.
(pp. 150-51)

Mwihaki has developed fully from childhood, through

adolescence to emotional and psychological maturity, and realizes that

adulthood imposes responsibilities. On the other hand, Njoroge forgets

that he has ‘two mothers’ and that his father on his death bed had asked

him to take care of them. As all that hope has vanished, he plans only

the alternative of escape i.e., suicide. But even here his courage fails

him:

This time the voice was clear. And he

trembled when he recognized its owner. His
mother was looking for him. For a time he
stood irresolute. Then courage failed him.
And later:
But as they came near home and what had
happened to him came to mind, the voice
again came and spoke accusing him: you are a
coward. You have always been a coward. Why
didn’t you do it?
And loudly he said, why didn’t I do it?
The voice said: Because you are a coward.

63
 ‘Yes’, he whispered to himself. ‘I am a
coward.’
And he ran home and opened the door for his
two mothers (pp. 153-54).

The best sentence which is also the last sentence of the novel, has

been taken as an indication of Njoroge’s long-delayed growth into

maturity and consequent acceptance of responsibility.9 The overall

effect here is of cowardice. The protagonist realizes that his withdrawal

to commit suicide, itself is an act of cowardice. This was not due to a

belated awareness of his duties, but due to lack of strength of nerve.

There is no justification for believing that Njoroge would develop into a

Mugo or Kihika, because the evidence suggests that he will merely

continue to be a passive, weak, introspective and sensitive boy.

The main weaknesses of Weep Not, Child is the choice of Njoroge

as the central consciousness or centre of the lyrical consciousness. Not

because Njoroge is passive and ineffective to be at the centre of the

novel’s events, but because a young, inexperienced boy is not the best

vehicle to demonstrate that an obsession with education as a panacea is

escapist. It is common for young boys to dream, and have illusions

about the future, and we can hardly expect them to understand the

complexity of national affairs. But the same tendency in an adult would

have been more complacent.

64
References

1. Clive Wake, “The Political and Cultural Revolution,” Protest and

Conflict in African Literature, ed. Cosmo Pieterse and Donald
Munro (London; Heinemann, 1969), p.45.

2. Kathy Kessler, “Rewriting history in fiction: Elements of Post­

modernism in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Later Novels,” “Ariel”, 25:2
April 1994, p.76.

3. James Ngugi, Weep Not, Child (London: Heinemann Educational

Books, 1964), African Writers Series, p.43.
All further page references are to this edition.

4. Jomo Kenyatta,FacingMount Kenya (London: Martin Seeker

and Warburg 1938; Heinemann Educational Books, 1979), p.21.

5. Ibid., p.24.

6. Ibid., p.317.

7. Reinhard Sander and Ian Munro, ‘Tolstoy inAfrica’Ba Shiru,

Vol.5, (1973), p.26.

8. Sicherman, Carol M. “Ngugi wa Thiong’o and the Writing of

Kenyan History.” Research in African Literature, 20:3 (1989):
pp.342-70.

9. Ikiddeh, I., ‘James Ngugi as Novelist,’ African Literature Today

2, Heinemann Educational Books (1969), pp.3-10.

65