Flowers/Theng’eta
In Petals of Blood, flowers—in particular, the flowering plant Theng’eta—represent the potential of Kenya and Kenya’s people, which capitalist oppressors exploit. In the first major scene involving flowers, the schoolteacher Munira takes his students…
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Fire
In Petals of Blood, fire represents how repression and shame can lead to oppressive violence—with unexpected consequences. Fire appears early in the book, in a newspaper article explaining that three Kenyan businessmen, Mzigo…
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Siriana
In Petals of Blood, the boys’ high school Siriana represents how British colonial education indoctrinated Kenyan students in racist, Europe-centric, and capitalist beliefs and how successive generations of Kenyan students educated this way must…
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