Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Grain of Wheat, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Colonialism
The Individual vs. the Community
Guilt and Redemption
Christianity
Gender and Power
Summary
Analysis
Gikonyo comes home in a foul mood. Mumbi notes that he has changed recently; where once he was merely distant, now he is hostile. When Gikonyo pushes Mumbi’s son to the ground, a fight erupts between them. Gikonyo calls Mumbi a “whore” and hits her hard in the face, twice. Wangari arrives and stands between them, furious at her son, and castigates him until he leaves in a fury. However, Gikonyo’s anger is not truly towards Mumbi; she only happened to be the closest and easiest person to take it out on. The MP whom he had met with to receive a loan and buy land had swindled him, stealing the land out from underneath him and purchasing it for himself.
Once again, in contrast to Mumbi’s decency and the compassion she shows to Mugo (now and in the future), Gikonyo’s own rage appears childish. This underscores not only the weakness of the story’s male characters compared to the female characters, but also their general lack of decency. Gikonyo does not even possess the wherewithal to handle his own anger and actions.
Themes
To distract himself, Gikonyo goes to speak with Warui about the Uhuru celebrations. To Gikonyo, Warui seems happy and contented, even though he is a widower, and Gikonyo wonders if this is because he has lived a full and purposeful life. Privately, though, Warui is plagued by his own pains, most notably that his two sons have both sided with the British because of their power and wealth. In spite of this, Warui puts his hope in “the spirit of the black people” and believes that figures such as Harry Thuku or Jomo Kenyatta are imbued with “mystical power,” and that Mugo must be such a man as well. However, Gikonyo then announces Mugo’s refusal to lead, so they both elect to go meet with him once again.
Warui’s belief in “the spirit of the black people” and the mystical power of their great leaders again demonstrates the dynamic role of religion and spirituality in Gikuyu society. Although Christianity seems to have a fairly wide reach within Thabai, Warui mixes such ideas with his own ancestral beliefs and feelings about the Movement. This dynamic approach sharply contrasts with the spiritual practice of the missionaries or Rev. Jackson before his death, which is far more rigid in its orthodoxy.
Themes
Mugo has just fled his meeting with General R., Mumbi and Koina, gripped by an “irrational terror.” Somehow, Mumbi’s story hx broken through his cold, dispassionate shell and made him start to feel things again. As he walks through the village, rather than seeing mere objects that don’t concern him, each hut and person seems meaningful. What happened to Wambuku feels meaningful and tragic. Mugo revisits the part of the trench where he once worked, remembering how, as others cowered while Wambuku was being beaten to death, he found himself oddly compelled to reach out and stop the hand striking her. He was quickly arrested and accused of taking the oath, and sent to various detention camps soon after. All these feelings and reflections unnerve Mugo and he decides to return to his hut, to the safety of the “limbo” he formerly lived in.
This marks an important transition in Mugo’s character arc, from disconnected, isolated individual to one who relates to and engages with his community and all that has happened to it. Despite Mugo’s emphasis on detachment, the fact that he intervened to try to save Wambuku, though knowing it would certainly bring punishment on his own head, indicates that some part of him already believed in his responsibility to the people around him. Although Mugo never feels like a hero—outside of his occasional messianic fantasies—he does commit heroic acts, in his own way.
Themes
As he walks, Mugo meets Warui in the street, who has just left a small gathering of people around the old woman’s hut. Mugo secretly dislikes Warui, though he cannot understand why. Warui tells him that the old woman has twice seen her son, Gitogo, back from the dead and entering her hut, so now she keeps her door always open so he may return. Although it sounds absurd, Warui claims he once saw a man come back from the dead himself when he was young. Mugo is disturbed by the thought of meeting the dead again and walks on. Though he tries to drive such thoughts and his guilt over Kihika from his mind, it keeps returning. Mugo wonders why, when Christ was crucified—like Kihika was “crucified”—everyone blamed Judas, who was only “a stone from the hands of a power more than man.” In his hut, Mugo has a brief vision of blood dripping down the walls, and he wonders if he is going insane.
Mugo explicitly recognizes himself as Judas in relation to Kihika’s Christ-figure. Mugo’s pondering of why Judas should be to blame indicates that once again, the novel will take a unique approach to the traditional structure of Christ narratives, with particular interest in redeeming Judas Iscariot. Warui’s claim of seeing a resurrection as youth also seems to play into this imagery, though this is not explored further. However, Mugo’s fear at even the thought of Kihika’s resurrection suggests an interesting question: had Judas lived to see Christ’s resurrection, would he be relieved or terrified?
Themes
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In the evening, Mugo tells Gikonyo and Warui that his mind is “not well” and he cannot speak. The two tell him to reconsider and then leave him in peace. Warui tells Wambui about Mugo’s refusal, and together they spread the word through the village. “The man who had suffered so much had further revealed his greatness in modesty. By refusing to lead, Mugo had become a legendary hero.”
At the same time, Gikonyo walks home, his rage at the world beginning to return, intending to beat Mumbi to vent his anger. When he arrives, Mumbi is gone, but Wangari is waiting for him. She tells him that Mumbi has gone back to her parents’ house and that Gikonyo is a “foolish child” who never bothered to discover what truly happened to Mumbi, and will never “what woman Mumbi really is.”
Gikonyo is blinded by his assumptions about Mumbi and women in general, thus unable to see the true potential that Mumbi has and the quality of her character. Gikonyo’s ignorance, assumptions, and low view of his wife—when she is the morally superior character—exemplifies the inequality between men and women in Gikuyu society.
Themes
