Graduate Program

English

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

2007

Thesis Director

Michael Loudon

Thesis Committee Member

Anne Zahlan

Thesis Committee Member

Jyoti Panjwani

Abstract

This thesis analyzes Ngugi wa Thiongo's critique of the colonial influences on the Church, the British educational system and the Kenyan middle class in and around the time of Kenya's State of Emergency of the 1950s. Specifically, I examine these colonial legacies through his two children's books Njamba Nene and the Flying Bus and Njamba Nene's Pistol. More than simply exploit the poor, all three condition the people into a state of submissive acceptance of British superiority. The middle class, a self-replicating product of the first two, is of particular concern to Ngugi because, in this case, Kenyans exploit Kenyans for their own for personal gain. This study also explores how the protagonist Njamba Nene, literally translated from Gikuyu as "Big Hero," embodies an alternative perspective to the submission nurtured within these institutions. Njamba Nene is presented as an ideal, a Kenyan who balances traditional and Western religious beliefs; whose pragmatic education serves him in the classroom, in the forest and on the front lines; and whose sacrificial actions help his people and give his life greater purpose.

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