Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Petals of Blood, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Colonialism and Capitalism
Education
Gender, Sexuality, and Exploitation
Religion, Hypocrisy, and Delusion
Land and Nature
Summary
Analysis
Two years after that conversation in Wanja’s brothel, after Munira has been in jail for 10 days, Inspector Godfrey reads through Munira’s written account of events and asks what the phrase “a new earth, another world” means. Munira explains that after he heard Karega say those words, they kept haunting him. He no longer enjoyed Theng’eta. He couldn’t make sense of the world’s evils and horrors that Wanja revealed in her story—how could she try to escape Kimeria, only to reencounter him in new and horrible ways? How could Abdulla fight for independence only to lose his store and become a drunkard?
Though Munira can be self-involved, sexist, and cruel, his speech to Inspector Godfrey reveals that he notices and cares about injustices around him, such as Kimeria’s abuse of Wanja and Abdulla’s poverty and addiction after fighting for Kenya’s freedom. Because Munira does care, Karega’s words about “a new earth, another world” resonate with him. After hearing them, he can no longer drown himself in Theng’eta—representing disillusionment with capitalist exploitation of Kenya’s land and people.
Themes
Munira began attending the Rev. Jerrod Brown’s Anglican church, but it seemed to him the same as church before Independence. He wanted to stand and accuse the Reverend of having turned him away as a starving traveler and demand spiritual food from him, but he thought the Reverend might be “stingy” with that too. Feeling that he had added to “Wanja’s degradation and the evil of the world,” he wanted forgiveness, wrote a letter to his wife Julia telling her to continue steadfast in faith, and then tore it up.
Munira’s renewed interest in religion suggests he has interpreted Karega’s words about “another world” religiously. Yet he cannot find comfort in the nearest established church, as it is conservative with a reverend who’s a “stingy” hypocrite. Nor can Munira figure out how to make amends for his own poor behavior in the past. Knowing he's been cruel to Wanja and cheated on his wife, he writes out some religious advice for his wife but rips it up—suggesting that he is frustrated with his own hypocrisy but doesn’t know how to move beyond it.
Themes
One day, news arrived that the lawyer had been assassinated. Horrified, Munira, Karega, Wanja, Abdulla, and Njuguna gathered and talked about the event. Munira wondered aloud why anyone would assassinate a good, charitable, unprejudiced man like the lawyer.
Since Nderi wa Riera vowed revenge on the lawyer earlier, readers can guess that he organized the assassination. The lawyer was assassinated while trying to achieve economic reform within the existing political system. His death suggests that when a political system is corrupt or violent, you cannot reform it from within—because if you have any chance of succeeding, powers invested in the status quo will kill you.
Themes
Munira stopped going to church, feeling an abrupt loathing for the Rev. Jerrod Brown. The next Sunday, he went walking—and came upon a religious group, dressed in white and playing drums, led by his erstwhile lover Lillian, preaching about “a new earth, another world” that included no social hierarchies and that didn’t require “good works: just acceptance, in faith.” Stunned by Lillian’s transformation, Munira converted to her new Christian sect.
Lillian’s group uses language similar to Karega’s: “a new earth, another world.” Some Christian denominations, such as Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, believe doing good works is important to salvation. Others, like many Protestant denominations, believe in salvation only by religious faith—a doctrine often called “justification by faith alone.” It is this doctrine that Lillian refers to when she talks about entering the new world solely through “acceptance, in faith.” Since this new world requires no action on the part of believers to come about, this “new earth” is likely an afterlife, not a better political system on earth—which is presumably what Karega meant when he talked about “another world.”
Themes
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Inspector Godfrey has listened to Munira’s story with interest. But now, signaling boredom, he sits back and asks why, if Munira had this religious conversion, he kept palling around with sinners like Karega, Wanja, and Abdulla rather than his fellow Christian Lillian. Munira says he was trying to convert his sinner friends. When Godfrey asks whether Karega also talked to the workers about a new world, Munira says he was trying to save Karega from that. Godfrey, getting excited, asks what Munira wanted to save Karega from. Munira says he wanted to save Munira from the sin of “pride,” specifically of thinking he has the power to “change this world.”
The rationale for believing in “justification by faith alone” is that human beings, evil and powerless, can’t earn salvation —but if they have faith in God, he may give it to them for free. Munira’s belief that Karega has no power “to change this world” and that it’s culpable “pride” to believe otherwise is, therefore, a religious belief. Through Munira’s religious beliefs, the novel is suggesting that religion—or at least a certain kind of Protestant Christianity—convinces people they are powerless and makes them passive in the face of injustices
Themes
Deeply annoyed by Munira’s response, Inspector Godfrey asks how, specifically, Karega planned to change the world—other than by spouting “communist nonsense.” What other evils might Karega be involved in? Munira says he wanted to save Karega from Wanja—he saw the two of them meeting at her hut about a week before the fire. After Munira says this, Inspector Godfrey gets excited and rushes for the door. Munira yells at Godfrey to stop and asks what he’s done with Karega. Godfrey calls Munira a “fool” and leaves.
Munira’s desire to “save” Karega from Wanja—by implication, from a sexual relationship with her—hints that his religious conversion has aggravated his misogyny and ambivalence about sex. Inspector Godfrey’s annoyed conviction that Munira is a “fool” suggest that enforcers of the capitalist status quo don’t really care about justice or religion. They only care about maintaining order.
Themes
Karega, jailed the same day as Munira, is angry because the authorities “banned” a strike the workers were planning and used Chui, Mzigo, and Kimeria’s murder as a pretext. Since he’s only ever been arrested once before, during Ilmorog’s delegation to the city, he’s reminded of the lawyer who saved them. Despite the lawyer’s psychic investment in “property,” “social power,” and “authority”—he believed his education, involvement in the Independence struggle, and wealth made him a better advocate for the poor, because no one could criticize him for anything, including self-interest. Karega believes he was a great man and mourns his death.
The banned strike makes clear that the brewery workers don’t benefit from the murders, though they were struggling against the victims. The police have used the murders as an excuse to prevent workers from protesting—which illustrates, yet again, that the police are enforcers of the capitalist status quo. Karega thinks the lawyer was a flawed reformer because he saw his Eurocentric education, wealth, and social status as assets, not realizing that powerful people would still kill him if he got too close to effecting real change.
Themes
Karega barely remembers who he was when he first met the lawyer—he was so obsessed with Africans’ past, not realizing that “the glory of their present strife and struggles” was equally important if not more so. In any case, the old world is gone. As soon as he returned to Ilmorog, he noticed it had completely changed in the 10 years since he first visited the town. He’s seen this economic development and increasing poverty in many places; he believes private land ownership is wrong, just like one child “monopoliz[ing]” their parents’ time is wrong, and so he’s decided to struggle in solidarity with other workers.
Karega was interested in Africans’ past in part because his Eurocentric education refused to teach African history. Now, having witnessed more examples of the exploitation of the poor in post-Independence Kenya, he has become more interested in “present strife and struggles” related to anti-capitalism. When he compares private land ownership to a single child “monopolizing” parents, it suggests both that people have a special, familial relationship with their land of origin but, precisely because of that special relationship, they shouldn’t exploit the land or take individual ownership of it.
Themes
Karega rejects Wanja’s dog-eat-dog philosophy and resolves to fight oppression “until a human kingdom came,” thinking that if Abdulla can choose Joseph to be his brother, he (Karega) can choose all workers and all the oppressed.
The phrase “until a human kingdom came” is an allusion to the Lord’s Prayer, which Jesus Christ teaches his disciples in Matthew 6:9 -13 and Luke 11:2 – 4. The prayer includes the wish that God’s “kingdom come.” Karega’s wish that a human kingdom come means he wants not a heavenly afterlife but a political utopia in this world. His intention to fight for the world he wants contrasts with Munira’s passivity, further emphasizing that religion hinders political action.
Themes
After his return to Ilmorog, Karega worked for six months in Theng’eta Breweries. He observed how workers from different linguistic and ethnic groups were divided against one another, and how male workers looked down on and sexualized female workers. Once Karega had determined “his line of attack and approach,” pamphlets showed up all over Ilmorog arguing that workers should be united in that they were both parents to machines and children of machines. The main question was whether the workers, who produced machines, would get to control the products of their labor—or whether non-working owners would: “Every dispute was put in the context of the exploitation of labour by capital, itself stolen from other workers.”
Karega’s observations suggest that prejudice against women or people of other ethnicities and language groups divides workers, hampering effective political action for economic justice. The phrase about Karega’s “line of attack and approach,” coming directly before the political pamphlets show up, indicates that he wrote the pamphlets. Karega’s belief that all “capital”—in this context, the wealth produced by workers’ labor that employers have kept for themselves after paying workers’ wages—is “stolen” comes from Marxist theory and shows Karega’s allegiance to Karl Marx’s (1818 – 1883) critique of capitalism.
Themes
Though only a few people knew who was writing the pamphlets, the pamphlets’ content persuaded the workers by itself. The brewery workers went on strike and formed a union. The Board of Directors accepted the union, believing they could defang it, but fired Karega due to his history. Afterward the union elected him to a paid position, Secretary-General. After the brewery workers unionized, many other groups of workers in Ilmorog unionized as well. Worried employers tried to undermine worker solidarity: they stoked workers’ ethnic and religious differences, promoted some workers to managers, and allowed other workers to buy a few shares in the company.
The rapid unionization of workers in different industries suggests that workers already wanted better conditions when they read Karega’s pamphlets—the pamphlets simply gave voice to their sense of injustice. The tactics that the employers use to break up the unions suggest that economic elites consciously try to instill racism, religious bias, and other forms of prejudice in workers to keep them from banding together for economic justice.
Themes
In Karega’s view, more dangerous than the employers was Lillian’s evangelical Christian sect, which preached equality among all men but encouraged its members to treat the world as a Satanic delusion and to bow out of worldly fights. Many workers converted; some, expecting an apocalypse, left the union. Karega tried to convince religious workers they could participate in both religious and worldly movements, using the Gospel passage “Give unto Caesar,” but he secretly believed “religion, any religion, was a weapon against the workers.”
Apocalyptic religious beliefs entail that the current world will pass away. Thus, they disincentivize political action to improve the current world. Karega tries to manipulate workers with apocalyptic beliefs into staying in the union by alluding to an incident in the Gospels (Matthew 22:15-22, Mark 12:13-17; Luke 20:20-26): Jesus, asked whether Jewish people should pay taxes to the Roman Empire, replies that they should give to Caesar (the Roman Emperor) what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God. Though readers have interpreted this incident in various ways, Karega claims it means that Christians should participate in secular political life. His secret belief that “religion, any religion, was a weapon against the workers” echoes the oft-cited Karl Marx quotation, “Religion is the opium of the people,” suggesting religion is a “painkiller” to cope with oppression, which by alleviating people’s pain keeps them from fighting oppression.
Themes
As Munira kept trying to convert him, Karega discovered that Munira’s religious movement receives funding from American churches that makes its congregations tithe, believes communism is Satanic, and “warned of the immediate second coming of Christ to root out all the enemies of freedom.”
While Munira seems earnest in his new beliefs, his group’s ties to anticommunist, jingoistic U.S. churches that believe Christ will “root out all the enemies of freedom” implies that hypocritical American conservatives are using religion to advance a pro-capitalist agenda globally.
Themes
Out of nowhere, one week before the fire, Wanja sent Karega a note insisting that he meet her at her hut. Now Karega, in jail, wonders how she’s doing and whether she’s healing from the fire.
By reminding readers that Wanja was injured in the fire, the novel also alludes to Wanja’s previous experiences with fire: her aunt’s death-by-arson and her own narrow escape from arson by sexist vigilantes when she was dating a Somali man. These reminders of misogynistic arson prompt readers to wonder whether the murdered men were the real target of the fire—or whether Wanja was.
Themes
After leaving Karega alone in jail for three days, Inspector Godfrey interrogates him. Godfrey establishes Karega’s brother (Nding’uri) died during independence; Karega was expelled from Siriana for participating in a strike while Chui was headmaster; Chui, Mzigo, and Kimeria had voted not to grant Karega’s union’s request for increased wages at the brewery; and Mzigo fired Karega from teaching. Godfrey also asks whether Karega and Wanja restarted a “cordial relationship” after Karega moved back to Ilmorog; Karega claims that he and Wanja haven’t “really” interacted for two years.
Inspector Godfrey is implying that Karega has multiple possible motives for murdering Kimeria, Chui, and Mzigo: Kimeria was involved in Karega’s brother’s death; Chui expelled him; Mzigo fired him; and all three men are paying Karega’s former lover Wanja for sex. Inspector Godfrey’s blatant suspicion that Karega is the murderer suggests that his status quo-bias and dislike of anti-capitalist protestors prevent him from investigating dispassionately.
Themes
Inspector Godfrey plays a recording of Karega talking at the last union meeting about “a New World.” Karega is horrified that a union member has betrayed them. When Godfrey demands that Karega admit who committed the murder, Karega responds “acidly” that the police should have their own methods of figuring it out.
Inspector Godfrey seems to believe that Karega’s “New World” means a world without Kimeria, Chui, and Mzigo, when in fact Karega wants a world in which workers are not exploited. The Inspector’s inability to understand Karega’s ideals and his excessive suspicion prompt Karega to reply “acidly”—that is, with cutting sarcasm.
Themes
Inspector Godfrey interrogates Karega for the next eight days, sometimes depriving him of sleep before demanding answers. After Karega has been in jail 10 days, he tells Godfrey that he doesn’t know who committed the arson and that he wouldn’t assassinate people, since it’s “the system that needs to be changed” rather than particular people within the system.
Sleep deprivation is a form of torture. Inspector Godfrey’s torture of Karega again emphasizes that in corrupt systems, the police don’t care about protecting the people or finding justice but about preserving the status quo. Karega’s belief that murder is ineffective because “the system needs to be changed” implies that unless the system does change, other exploitative elites will just take Chui, Mzigo, and Kimeria’s places.
Themes
Inspector Godfrey asks whether Karega knew Wanja was having sex with Chui, Mzigo, and Kimeria. When Karega admits he does, Godfrey asks whether Karega saw Wanja after the lawyer’s assassination. Karega admits he did but says it wasn’t “really a meeting.” Then Godfrey asks whether Karega met Wanja a week before the fire. Karega admits that he did but refuses to talk about it because “it’s personal.” When Godfrey asks whether Abdulla attended the meeting, Karega denies it. Godfrey calls Karega a liar, hits him repeatedly in the face, and orders another policeman to take him downstairs for torture.
From Inspector Godfrey’s questions, it isn’t clear whether he believes Karega killed Chui, Mzigo, and Kimeria out of jealousy or that Abdulla, Karega, and Wanja conspired to kill the men together. In either case, he clearly has a misogynistic view of Wanja’s sexuality as a destructive, magnetic force. Inspector Godfrey’s physical abuse of Karega and his call for more torture emphasize, once again, his corruption and indifference to real justice.
Themes
Abdulla has been in jail for nine days of interrogation, statement-taking, and some physical abuse. Yet he’s relieved: another person has enacted his “wishes and fantasies,” thereby “sav[ing] him.” The only thing he worries about is Wanja’s hospitalization. Mainly he thinks about his own history: his revolutionary ideals, which he lost as a shopkeeper and which Karega briefly revived and then dashed by leaving Ilmorog, and his happiness in Joseph’s educational success.
Like Karega, Abdulla has suffered physical abuse in police custody—emphasizing that in corrupt political systems, the police tend to be violent enforcers of the status quo. When Abdulla thinks that someone else acted out his “wishes and fantasies,” it implies he wanted to kill Chui, Kimeria, and/or Mzigo—and would have, if the murderer hadn’t “sav[ed]” him by doing it first. His thoughts about his history suggest that engaging in capitalism (as a shopkeeper) damaged his ideals and that he believes in education’s value despite the dubious politics of schools such as Siriana.
Themes
Abdulla has also found happiness in Wanja despite his dashed revolutionary hopes. She “accepted him” without “pity,” and their business made Abdulla wonder whether their work and intelligence might be enough for success—whether that possibility might fulfill the revolutionary promise. It seemed to him that her strength was responsible for Ilmorog’s economic development. Yet when they had to sell their business to buy Nyakinyua’s land, it broke something in her and led to ruin.
Abdulla believes that Wanja is so strong, hardworking, and smart that if anyone could escape poverty in a capitalist system, she could. That his and Wanja’s business failed due to capitalist exploitation of Wanja’s grandmother Nyakinyua implies that poor people simply can’t succeed under capitalism—the system is unjust and rigged.
Themes
After Abdulla and Wanja were forced to close their business, Abdulla wondered whether Nding’uri was “cursing” him for not taking revenge on Kimeria—but Abdulla has no opportunity to kill Kimeria, as Kimeria often has intermediaries handle his Ilmorog businesses. A week after their business closed, Abdulla went to Wanja’s brothel and asked her to give up the brothel and marry him—they could live on the money he saved from selling their business. Wanja refused, saying that Abdulla was her friend but “from now onwards it will always be: Wanja First.”
Inspector Godfrey has tried to establish that Karega has motives for killing Kimeria, Chui, and Mzigo. But Abdulla too has a motive to kill Kimeria, who caused Nding’uri’s death by betraying him to colonial police during Kenya’s struggle for independence. Wanja’s reaction to the loss of her and Abdulla’s business is to double down on succeeding in an economically and sexually exploitative society. This reaction leads to loneliness and selfishness, epitomized in the phrase “Wanja First.”
Themes
After Abdulla tries and fails to run other businesses, he becomes a roadside fruit vendor and a drunk. At a local bar, he spies on Kimeria—not planning to kill him, just marveling at his luck. At night he talks to the dead Nding’uri about the “wisdom” of Kimeria, Mzigo, and Chui’s exploitative behavior—and of Wanja, having sex with Kimeria again “because of money.” Once Wanja gives him money in the street, and he tears it up—though he later regrets it, since he’s aware she’s paying Joseph’s tuition.
Abdulla, like Wanja, reacts to failing within the capitalist system with despairing cynicism: he calls willingness to exploit others “wisdom” and praises Wanja’s decision to have sex with her abuser for “money.” Yet when he tears up Wanja’s money, it isn’t clear whether he resents her for succeeding or refuses to take money that she earned by submitting to Kimeria’s abusive sexual pursuit. If the latter, it suggests Abdulla retains some idealism. His recognition that she is paying Joseph’s tuition reminds readers that under capitalism, getting a prestigious education often requires a wealthy adult supporter—another way that education can perpetuate economic inequality.
Themes
Abdulla and Munira were drinking buddies—until Karega came back and Munira had his religious conversion. Abdulla, who believes in “no other worlds,” thinks Karega’s political ideals and Munira’s religious ideals are stupid. In jail he explains this to the police to convince them he no longer wants revenge—but he omits that on one occasion, his desire for revenge returned as “an irresistible force.”
Karega believes the world can change through political activism, while Munira believes it can change through God’s power. Abdulla, in his cynical despair, believes that “no other worlds” are possible—that no good change can occur. Previous passages suggested that Abdulla did not commit the murders; when this passage states that his desire for revenge was at one point “irresistible,” it suggests that he did take vengeful action, though it wasn’t murder.
Themes
Abdulla lies because a week before, he got a letter from Joseph saying he’d come first in some school results at Siriana, and he decided to go tell Wanja as an apology for rejecting her money. Walking to Wanja’s, he ran into Karega, who told him Wanja was at her hut. When Abdulla arrived, Wanja was crying, but Joseph’s results made her happy again. Then Abdulla “took her and she did not resist,” which made him “feel the old world roll away.”
Joseph is doing well in Siriana; perhaps he will break the cycle of expelling students for justified protests against racist administrators. The way the novel describes Abdulla’s sexual encounter with Wanja is odd. He initiates sex—he “took her”—while she doesn’t “resist” but doesn’t seem to participate. That her mere passive nonresistance doesn’t bother Abdulla implies that despite his respect for Wanja, he sees her in sexual contexts as an object to be taken rather than an active participant. Though the passage does not reveal how Wanja viewed the sex, Abdulla finds it transformative: it makes “the old world roll away.” Sex with Wanja means to him what activism means to Karega and God means to Munira.
Themes
After sleeping with Wanja, Abdulla was so overjoyed he stopped drinking. The next Saturday, she invited him to meet her at the brothel. He thought, “a woman is truly the other world.” On Saturday, to pass the time until evening, he walked around Ilmorog—and saw cars belonging to Kimeria, Mzigo, and Chui, presumably there to vote on the Theng’eta Workers’ Union’s demands. At the thought Kimeria might visit Wanja, Abdulla lost his sense of self, comparing himself to a dog, his own donkey, “Mobotu being embraced by Nixon,” and “Amin being received by the Queen after overthrowing Obote.” He hurried home and abruptly concluded he had to kill Kimeria.
Mobotu Sese Seko (1930 – 1997) was president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo/Zaire from 1965 to 1997. At times he championed friendly relations with former European colonial powers and with the U.S., including during Richard Nixon’s presidency (1969 – 1974). Idi Amin (1925 – 2003) was the dictator of Uganda from 1971 – 1979. Early in his rule, he had friendly relations with the U.S. and the UK, the latter of which had colonized Uganda prior to its independence. Using these comparisons to African leaders aligned with Western and colonial powers, Abdulla implies that if he lets Kimeria live and continue exploiting Wanja, he is no better than Africans who have collaborated with oppressors.
Themes
Guessing Kimeria, Mzigo, and Chui would go to the bar after their vote, Abdulla walked there. He saw the men arrive. After Chui and Mzigo left, Abdulla called out to Kimeria and asked whether Kimeria remembered him. When Kimeria claimed he did and tried to buy Abdulla a drink, Abdulla refused the drink and asked whether Kimeria remembered detaining Ilmorog’s delegation at his house. Kimeria claimed the detention was a joke. Abdulla asked whether Kimeria remembered “another joke [he] once played on Nding’uri.” Frightened, Kimeria pulled a handkerchief and a gun from his pocket, blew his nose, and put both objects back in his pocket. Abdulla laughed and left the bar.
When Abdulla approaches Kimeria threateningly, he mentions both Kimeria’s detention of the Ilmorog delegation—when Kimeria coerced Wanja into unwanted sex—and Kimeria’s betrayal of Nding’uri to the British colonial police. This indicates that Abdulla wants revenge on Kimeria for collaborating with colonizers and for abusing Wanja—and thus that Abdulla sees collaboration with colonizers and sexual abuse of women and girls as equally deserving of punishment.
Themes
Abdulla walked to Wanja’s brothel carrying a knife and some matches. While he waited for Kimeria, he heard the news coming from a nearby hut: the Board of Directors had voted not to increase brewery workers’ pay. Abdulla saw Kimeria’s car—and then fire coming from the brothel. Screaming started. Moving as fast as he could, he approached the fire. While other onlookers debated what to do, Abdulla broke a window, reached in, unlocked the brothel door, and entered. He found a body, and—not knowing or caring whose it was, even if it was Kimeria’s—pulled it out of the building before collapsing. The crowd then carried both Abdulla and the person he’d rescued to greater safety.
Fire represents shame and repression (political or sexual) erupting into violence. Abdulla brings matches to the brothel because his hatred of Kimeria, a collaborator with colonizers and a sexual abuser, is so intense that it too could lead to out-of-control violence in the form of arson. Yet when Abdulla sees the brothel on fire—a fire he didn’t set—he tries to save whoever is inside. Abdulla’s actions reveal that he is more altruistic and heroic than he is vengeful.
Themes
After Abdulla has spent 10 days in jail, Inspector Godfrey enters his cell in a fury. Godfrey admits that Abdulla has been truthful, even admitting that he wanted to kill Kimeria. Now Godfrey demands to know whether Abdulla conspired with Karega at Wanja’s. Abdulla denies it, saying he and Karega disagreed about the relative importance of wage-laborers, farmers, unemployed people, and small businessmen. Godfrey, not caring, interrupts to ask whether Abdulla went to Wanja’s. Abdulla says he visited her hut. When Godfrey asks whether Karega was there, Abdulla admits he doesn’t know—Karega told him Wanja was in her hut, but Abdulla never asked how Karega knew.
Inspector Godfrey doesn’t care about Abdulla and Karega’s substantive disagreements about economics and politics. This indifference hints that he doesn’t really care whether Abdulla or Karega might be right—he only cares about preserving the status quo from any change Abdulla and Karega might try to bring about. Thus, once again, the novel emphasizes that in corrupt societies like hyper-capitalist post-Independence Kenya, the police care about order and stability but not justice.
Themes
When Inspector Godfrey asks what Abdulla and Wanja talked about, Abdulla says it’s “personal.” After incredulously repeating the word “personal,” Godfrey demands to know why Abdulla is protecting Karega. Abdulla says he isn’t. Godfrey tells the other policemen to “give [Abdulla] medicine.”
Abdulla thinks his conversation with Wanja is “personal” because it led to sex. Inspector Godfrey seems to consider the whole category of the “personal” ridiculous and focuses once again on pinning the murders on Karega. When Abdulla refuses to lie about Karega, Inspector Godfrey orders his underlings to give Abdulla “medicine,” a euphemism for torture. Inspector Godfrey’s obsession with blaming Karega, a union organizer, and his repeated decision to torture detainees show his pro-capitalist bias and his indifference to justice.
Themes
After Wanja has spent 12 days in the hospital, the hospital lets Inspector Godfrey see her. Due to the obvious terror the fire has caused Wanja, Inspector Godfrey doubts her involvement in the crime—yet he has discovered Wanja asked Mzigo, Kimeria, and Chui to come to her brothel the night of the fire, asked Abdulla to come as well, and gave the prostitutes and the guard a vacation day. He asks Wanja whether she suspects anyone of setting the fire. Wanja says no—fire has always haunted her family, from her aunt who was burned to death to the fire that drove her away from the bar where she used to work.
Wanja has experienced arson motivated by misogyny and political zealotry before: her cousin’s husband’s murder of her aunt and her own experience of nearly burning to death after vigilantes set her apartment on fire for avoiding the KCO oath and dating a Somali man. She interprets fire as a symbol of a cultural climate where misogyny and repression explode into violence. Because it’s a widespread phenomenon, she doesn’t know whom to blame.
Themes
When Inspector Godfrey asks whether she saw Karega and Abdulla the week before the fire, she admits that first one and then the other visited her. When Inspector Godfrey says both men refused to talk about the “personal” nature of the visits, Wanja claims that the visits were personal but not secret in any way. For Karega’s visit, she dressed down, eschewing makeup and wearing only a little jewelry. When he arrived, it reminded her of the past, and she felt an agonized joy. As she made him tea, he wondered how someone so beautiful could have killed her infant and become a brothel owner.
Wanja’s joyful reaction to Karega’s visit suggests that she still loves him. Karega’s musings, by contrast, show his harsh negative judgments on Wanja due to the infanticide she committed as a girl and her decision to do sex work—even though she made both decisions in reaction to the exploitative economic system Karega is fighting. Moreover, Karega finds it shocking that someone as beautiful as Wanja could do bad things, which suggests he has unreal, sexist expectations about attractive women’s behavior.
Themes
Karega asked why Wanja kept the hut, and she said she didn’t want to forget Ilmorog before the Trans-Africa Road. When he questioned the utility of that, Wanja pointed out Karega used to think the past was important. He replied that the past was important only insofar as it informed the present; he wasn’t interested in returning to a past “world dominated by slavery to nature.” When Wanja recalled how Karega used to listen intently to stories by Nyakinyua and other elders, Karega offered condolences for Nyakinyua’s death—which he blamed on the “system of eat or you are eaten” Wanja espoused.
Karega has rejected his interest in history for history’s sake because he doesn’t want to encourage nostalgia for a “world dominated by slavery to nature.” That is, he thinks that despite current capitalist inequalities, the present world is in some ways better than the past because technology has improved, protecting human beings from nature’s dangers. When Karega blames Nyakinyua’s death on capitalist self-interest—the “system of eat or you are eaten”—he may be right, yet it seems insensitive of him to blame Wanja’s grandmother’s death on a worldview he attributes to Wanja.
Themes
Wanja said Nyakinyua always believed Karega would come back to Ilmorog. They discussed him on Nyakinyua’s deathbed, and Nyakinyua worried that when Karega came back, Wanja wouldn’t be there to greet him. When Wanja said she wouldn’t leave Ilmorog, Nyakinyua didn’t answer.
The conversation between Wanja and Nyakinyua suggests that Nyakinyua wasn’t worried that Wanja would leave Ilmorog before Karega came back. Rather, she was worried that Wanja’s hyper-capitalist embrace of sex work would change Wanja so much that she wouldn’t be herself when Karega came back.
Themes
Shortly before Nyakinyua’s death, Wanja asked her how Wanja’s grandfather died. Nyakinyua told her her grandfather was haunted by Kenya’s colonization. When the colonizers first came, he was too young to fight. Later, when the time came to fight for independence, he was too old. He hoped his son, who’d fought in World War II, would want to fight—news of India and China excited him—but his son fled instead. One day, a man arrived in Ilmorog asking them to give up Ole Masai’s resistance group. When they wouldn’t, he ordered two young men shot and insisted two old men volunteer to dig their graves. Wanja’s grandfather volunteered, went into his hut, came out with a gun, and pulled the trigger on the intruder. The old gun didn’t fire, and Wanja’s grandfather was hanged—but Nyakinyua was tremendously proud of him.
India was a British colony from 1858 until 1947, when it became independent. China became a communist republic in 1949 after the Chinese Communist Party defeated the nationalist Kuomintang party in the Chinese Civil War. Wanja’s grandfather found both India’s independence from Britain and China’s turn to communism exciting, which implies that he wanted Kenya to be independent from British colonialism—and that he wanted Kenya to be a communist, not capitalist, state. This again implies that colonialism and capitalism are related oppressive systems. That the man who invaded the village ordered two young men shot to force civilians to collaborate with the hunt for freedom fighters emphasizes the colonizers’ violence.
Themes
Wanja asked Karega how she could let the bank repossess Nyakinyua’s land after hearing that story, even if it drove her to sex work. Karega reached out to her but then felt there was no point and took his hand back. He told her her grandfather’s “tendency to act alone” could be a lesson to her—and immediately regretted his “tone” and “triteness.” They both felt their relationship was finally and completely over.
Wanja wanted to save her grandmother’s land because her grandfather died there fighting colonialism; her emotional link to the land drove her to sex work. Though Karega may be right that “act[ing] alone” doomed Wanja’s grandfather, he realizes he’s been insensitive (used the wrong “tone”) and reacted with political platitudes (“triteness”) to Wanja’s raw emotion. While the novel may agree with Karega’s political views, it represents him as flawed in how he treats people when expressing those views.
Themes
Wanja told Karega she’d asked him to visit him in order to warn him: KCO elites, including Mzigo, Chui, and Kimeria, had decided to assassinate him like they assassinated the lawyer. They were trying to build up an organization based on tribal strife to consolidate their power. Karega replied that workers and the Kenyan people were too aware of their economic oppression by international white interests and Black elites to be fooled by the stoking of intertribal tensions now.
Here Wanja asserts what readers may already have suspected: the KCO, the pro-capitalist organization which Nderi wa Riera founded, ordered the lawyer’s assassination. This assertion emphasizes that violence, not the people’s preference, has kept capitalism the reigning economic system in Kenya. Karega’s response suggests that capitalists from white colonizer countries and Kenyan economic elites allied to oppress Kenyan workers after independence.
Themes
Karega thanked Wanja for the warning and claimed it grieved him she was siding with “KCO and Imperialism.” Infuriated, Wanja replied that she had fought them too, in her way—and as for her present circumstances, Karega brought them about by abandoning her. Abruptly softening, she asked him to stay the night—and then pleaded with him to impregnate her. Karega rejected her, arguing that they couldn’t beat people like Kimeria by imitating them and that Wanja had chosen her side. He left her in the doorway, where a little later Abdulla found her.
As Wanja is trying to protect Karega from the KCO, his claim that she supports the “KCO and Imperialism” seems ungrateful. Yet it is true that, as a brothel owner, she’s a capitalist employer who exploits the sexuality of the girls she employs for money. When she begs Karega to impregnate her, it suggests that their estrangement has destroyed their former, non-transactional relationship. Whereas before Wanja wanted Karega for Karega alone, she now wants him for what he can give her (a baby) and is willing to give him sex in exchange.
Themes
After sleeping with Abdulla, Wanja decided Joseph’s education was the one good thing she’d accomplished—but also that Karega was right about her, since though Kimeria impregnated her as an adolescent, she’d also “chosen” and had killed her baby. She decided to change—starting by bringing Kimeria, Chui, Mzigo, and Abdulla to the brothel, telling them that Abdulla was “her rightful man,” and revealing all Kimeria’s crimes. That night, as the men arrived, she put each one in a separate room and told each one she was cooking him dinner. Kimeria came last. She greeted him with a knife she’d been using to chop vegetables. Wanja has told all of this to Inspector Godfrey—except the fact that she stabbed Kimeria to death before the fire started.
Wanja still believes in education despite knowing about Karega and Munira’s bad experiences at Siriana, perhaps implying that education in general is good, though particular educations and schools can be bad. Wanja’s belief that she had “chosen” when she committed infanticide implies that being exploited, oppressed, or harmed does not excuse harming other innocents. Victims have moral agency and can be held responsible for what they do. Wanja’s plot to tell her rich clients that Abdulla is “her rightful man” suggests that she wants to leave sex work and perhaps close her brothel—which suggests, in turn, that Wanja sees being a sex worker and employing sex workers as participating in a morally bad form of capitalist exploitation. As fire symbolizes eruptions of repression and shame into out-of-control violence, Wanja stabbing Kimeria right before the fire starts implies that she didn’t plan to kill him—rage simply overcame her.
Themes
In the jail, Inspector Godfrey asks whether Munira knows Chui. Munira repeats that he knew Chui at school and explains that while he saw Chui around Ilmorog, he didn’t talk to him until one night when the Ilmorog Golf Club opened. After Munira reminded Chui who he was, Chui kept trying to get Munira to drink, but Munira stuck to ginger ale. Chui claimed people could get drunk on ginger ale and told a story about a woman who’d drunk ginger ale opening the front door, seeing a “ghost,” screaming, and passing out.
The woman who saw a “ghost” at Chui’s front door likely actually saw Munira, when he approached Chui’s house seeking help while Ilmorog’s delegation was traveling to Nairobi. That Chui tells this story without any awareness of its relevance to Munira illustrates how ignorant capitalist elites are about regular people’s lives and problems.
Themes
Then Inspector Godfrey asks whether Munira knows Kimeria. Munira says he only knows what Kimeria did to Wanja and to Karega’s brother (Nding’uri). Godfrey asks whether Karega ever talked about bringing about the new world; Munira begins to explain that he doesn’t believe in Karega’s vision but suddenly cuts himself off. Godfrey’s demeanor abruptly changes. He asks what Munira was up to on the hill the day after the fire. Munira, examining Godfrey’s face, asks whether he knows. Godfrey says he’s going to charge Munira with arson and triple homicide. Then he asks why Munira did it. Munira claims he did it to save Karega.
Inspector Godfrey has spent much of the book seeking to blame Karega for the fire, which symbolizes out-of-control violence. At some point, however, he realizes that Munira, not Karega, set the fire. Munira’s guilt suggests that the real violent threat isn’t Karega’s political progressivism but Munira’s new religious zealotry. Given that Munira speaks of ‘saving’ Karega, it seems likely that he committed the arson due to some quasi-religious motive.
Themes
In a flashback, Munira follows all his friends around, Wanja, Abdulla, and Karega, hoping to save them. When he sees Karega entering Wanja’s hut, he concludes they’ve been having a secret affair. He hears a voice telling him that Wanja is “Jezebel” and that he needs to save Karega. The next week, he sets fire to the brothel, walks up the hill, and watches the fire make a flower, “petals of blood,” against the sky. As he watches, he feels he has transformed himself from an “outsider” to a being united with God’s command.
Jezebel is an Old Testament Biblical figure, the non-Israelite wife of Israel’s King Ahab. She convinces Ahab to persecute God’s prophets and worship idols. Though Munira initially wants to save all his friends, including Wanja, he decides to kill her once he believes she and Karega are having sex. This shows his misogyny: he casts Wanja as a temptress from whom Karega must be “saved.” Given that Munira’s desire to kill Wanja may spring not only from religious delusions but also repressed jealousy and desire, the fire represents how misogyny and repression lead to out-of-control violence. Ironically, Munira helps Wanja in trying to kill her: he destroys the evidence that Wanja killed Kimeria (burning the body). Moreover, by killing three of the Kenyan elites who have been exploiting poorer Kenyan people, Munira opens a space of possibility for change. That possibility is why the fire looks like flowers, “petals of blood,” which represent the potential of Kenya’s people and land.
Themes
