The Politics of land in Weep Not Child
As a novelist Ngugi made his debut with Weep Not Child (1964), which he started to write while he was at school in England. It was the first
novel in English to be published by an East African author. The story entails the plight of the African people. Weep not Child is a story about a young boy, Njoroge, as he grows up amidst the Mau Mau war and the conflict between the African natives and the British colonial rulers. The book is in essence about the hopes and dreams of a young boy coming into being and affected by the outside world and how the outside world changes a person.
Two small boys stand on a rubbish heap and look into the future. One boy is excited, he is beginning school; the other, his brother, is an apprentice carpenter. Together, they will serve their country - the teacher and the craftsman. Those who get their education, the intellectual ones, are looked upon as saviours of the African land. Njoroge, the dreamer and accomplished student, must decide where his loyalty lies. In Kenya, those who receive education are looked upon as intellectual saviours of the land. The ironic aspect of the education is that it is being handed down from British rule. Njoroge, the youngest of four brothers, wanted nothing more than to receive an education and provide for the welfare of his family. Njoroge takes his education seriously and excels to the next level. Due to the fact that Njoroge is at a so-called “age of innocence” he has the opportunity to get schooling. The brothers before him have already made their tracks in the roles they are going to take in life. But this is Kenya, and times are against them.
In the forests, the Mau Mau are waging war against the white government, and the two brothers, Njoroge and Kamau, and the rest of their family, need to decide where their loyalties lie. For the practical man, the choice is simple, but for Njoroge, the scholar, the dream of progress through learning is a hard one to give up. The story is based entirely on the existence of the family of Ngotho in which their views and ideas are clearly expressed. The roles in which men and women accept are very evident throughout the entire book. Ngotho felt responsible for whatever happened to this land. He owed it to the dead, the living and the unborn of his line, to keep guard over this shamba. The land sloped gently to rise again into the next ridge and the next. Beyond, Ngotho could see the African Reserve. Ngotho was puzzled. Would the prophecy be fulfilled soon? Would these people ever go? It was said that they would eventually return the way they had come.
Also, feelings towards the different cultures; which resulted in certain stereotypes helped in portraying the entire atmosphere in which each culture saw the world through its own eyes. In the beginning of the book, the author explained the atmosphere which is upheld throughout the book. The Black, Indian, and White people all have something in common, they want and need power. Once they obtain this power, they will do anything to keep it and make sure lower class people never reach the status, which they have worked so hard for.
Conflicts have a vast impact upon the development of the plot in Weep Not Child. Weep Not Child is a novel by an African writer, Ngugi. The plot of this novel is generally about a boy and the hardships he goes through in the course of his life. Conflict is one of the main themes of this novel, and it helps in the development of the plot. The characterization of the people in the novel are mainly a result of the situation they are present in, which is mostly due to the conflicts surrounding each character. In the novel, conflicts have come in a variety of forms, e.g. political, cultural, and class struggles. The most noticeable conflict present in this novel is the political conflict. It can be seen that this novel is set at the colonial times; this was when the British were ruling over Africa.
“Later, our fathers were taken captives in the first Big War to help in a war whose cause they never knew. And when they came back? Their land was taken away for a settlement of the white soldiers.” Here it is seen that Africans dislike the British ruling them, and taking over their lands. Africans were controlled by their rulers; forcing them to speak European languages—they attempted to teach children (future generations) that speaking the foreign language was good and that native languages were bad by using negative reinforcement. Ngugi argues that colonization was not simply a process of physical force. Rather, "the bullet was the means of physical subjugation.”
Weep Not, Child is a powerful, very moving story about the effects of the Mau Mau war on the lives of ordinary men and women. Its author, Ngugi, is one of Africa's most influential and exciting writers, and this, his second novel, is one of the best-known novels in Africa. The novel also addresses the political conflict that was occurring in Kenya in the 1950s. The author incorporates a description of the power of the white rulers, the bitterness of the Africans at being enslaved on their own land and their attempt to rise up against the tyranny, and finally deals with the poor relations between the blacks and Indian merchants, who are looked down upon by the black community. It is a very powerful story; dealing with Njoroge's life, his thoughts and his feelings but due to the length of the novel (136 pages) one only gets a fairly superficial explanation of the historical and cultural context of the book. Also, this novel is a book in translation, so some of the sentence and grammatical structure can be a bit tricky at times. I will explore each of these conflicts in further detail, and prove that conflict plays a key role in making this story remarkable. Conflict is a major issue in this novel.
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