2. ● Presented by – Nehalba Gohil
● Class – M.A
● Semester – 4
● Roll no – 15
● Enrollment no – 4069206420210009
● Batch Year – 2021- 23
● Submitted by – Smt S.B . Gardi Department of
English M.K. Bhavanagar University
3. About Author
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, original name James
Thiong’o Ngugi, born 5, January , 1938,
Limuru, Kenya, Kenyan writer who was
considered East Africa’s leading novelist. His
popular Weep Not, Child (1964) was the first
major novel in English by an East African. As
he became sensitized to the effects of
colonialism in Africa, Ngugi adopted his
traditional name and wrote in the Bantu
language of Kenya’s Kikuyu people.
4. Patals of Blood
The puzzling murder of three African directors of a
foreign-owned brewery sets the scene for this fervent,
hard-hitting novel about disillusionment in independent
Kenya. A deceptively simple tale, Petals of Blood is on
the surface a suspenseful investigation of a spectacular
triple murder in upcountry Kenya. Yet as the intertwined
stories of the four suspects unfold, a devastating picture
emerges of a modern third-world nation whose frustrated
people feel their leaders have failed them time after time.
5. Fanonism and Constructive Violence in Patals of
Blood
The novel at first demonstrates the disillusionment about the loss
of the ideal of independence and the destruction of hope about
betrayal about the triumph of corruption over humanity.
Ngugi's suggested way of redemption though violence as a
constructive force to correct the neocolonialist society echoing the
view of Fanon who considers there is no other way than violence
for the decolonization and this is rather a cleansing force for
colonized people which redeem their inferiority complex.
6. Fanonism
In wretched of the Earth Fanon presents the vision of violence as
a constructive force. He says national liberation, national
renaissance, the restoration of nationhood to the people
commonwealth whatever may be the heading used or the new
formulas. Introduced decolonization is always a violent
phenomenon and the Naked truth of decolonization evokes for us
the searing bullets and bloodstained knives which emanate from
it.
7. Kenyan History of Violence
Nagugi was very much influenced by Mau Mau . It was a war that
touched the popular imagination and was forever to change the
fate of Kenya and many other countries under British rule . For
the first time the peasants the Wretched of earth were taking the
war to a highly sophisticated country with a long military history.
This situation continued up to 1963 when Kenya was finally
independent.
8. Constructive Violence in Patals of Blood
● In the novel Kenya Nagugi writes about the Kenya that nobody
can take away from him is the Kenya of working class of all
nationalities and their heroic struggle against domination by
nature and other humans over the countries
● Here we see the face of Kenya whose face is reflected in
Iimorog the centre of action for the novel
● Nagugi choose a barren drought stricken part of Kenya where
neocolonialism put the interests of foreigners and abandons
the people who had suffered and died for the land.
9. The Protagonists Concerning Violence
● Petals of Blood is so bloody deep and detailed that by the time
it ends nobody cares for the fate of the three petty preys
whether it was Wanja Karega , Munira or Abdullah who has
killed them.
● Wanja the extra ordinary struggling female character like
Kenya itself has to fight to stay alive and for whom destruction
is never too far away. Being humiliated by the society and the
hostility of the world she allows herself to tern cruel like the
surrounding
● She described the reality of neocolonial situation in a plain
formula you eat somebody or you are eaten. You sit on
somebody or somebody sitson you .
10. Conclusion
In this novel Ngugi finally exposed some optimisms by means of
constructive violence. All the Protagonists actively take part or
provide salient support in the violent act of purification Wanjas
pregnancy Joseph’s school rebellion Karegas fate in renewed
strikes and feature generation with the spirit of purification and
courage from the parent involved in freedom fighting and Social
revolution will be born to restore the serenity.
11. Works Cited
● Tasnim Amin, Fanonism and Constructive Violence in Petals of
Blood, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH:
VOLUME-6 | ISSUE-4 | APRIL 2017
● Wa Thiong'o, Nagugi . "Petals of Blood Penguin Random house ." 22
Feb. 2005. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/295517/petals-of-
blood-by-ngugi-wa-thiongo/. Accessed 10 Mar. 2023.
● Tikkanen, Amy . "Nagugi wa Thing 'o books and facts ." Encyclopedia
Britannica . 26 Feb. 2023. www.britannica.com/biography/Ngugi-wa-
Thiongo. Accessed 10 Mar. 2023.
