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Karanja
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
Mumbi visits Gikonyo in the hospital, but he pretends to be asleep and ignores her. She returns home, angry and resolved never to see him again, but her mother Wanjiku convinces her she must persist. The next morning, they go to the hospital together. Gikonyo cannot look at the two women for a long time, but when he does he also speaks, timidly, almost shamefully. Gikonyo reflects that Mugo showed the greatest bravery of all, since so much was offered and yet he elected to sacrifice it and speak the truth. Thus, no one at he meeting could condemn him unless they too would “open [their] hearts naked for the world to look at.” Mumbi is touched by Gikonyo’s words, but realizes that she should have gone immediately to see Mugo. She rushes to his hut and then to General R.’s hut, but neither of them are there. Mumbi checks Mugo’s hut again in the evening but it is still dark, seemingly untouched since the night she was there.
Mugo’s sacrifice of wealth and power redeems him, changing him from a Judas-figure to an alternative Christ-figure. By showing the bravery to give himself up the mob and stepping to his own death, Mugo the coward becomes the brave and noble figure everyone in the village already believes him to be, fulfilling the Christ role they had thrust upon him, though in a markedly different way than any expected. Once again, the author takes the pieces of the Christ narrative and rearranges them in a particularly novel way, offering Judas redemption and the chance to give back to his people.
Themes
The night that Mugo confessed his crime to Mumbi, he lays awake all night, haunted by the look of “horror and scorn” in her eyes, feeling that he has lost her trust, which suddenly means far more to him than he ever realized. Mugo’s mental anguish is exacerbated by the celebrants surrounding his hut, singing his praises. However, when he awakes on the morning of the ceremony, Mugo’s pain is gone. Though he does not know why, he has the absolute resolution to confess before the gathering, and this resolve gives him peace. However, as Mugo speaks before the gathering, his peace dissolves and he realizes that he is now, for the first time, responsible for “whatever he had done in the past, for whatever he would do in the future.” Walking away from the gathering, Mugo knows that, after his brief connection with Mumbi, he wants to live, and plans to walk to Nairobi and begin a new life there.
Mugo’s sudden peace and reprieve from his agony, even though he is about to do something terrifying, confirms that confessing before his village is the only way for him to redeem himself and relieve his crippling guilt. However, even after confessing, Mugo nearly attempts to escape the consequences of his actions and the necessary sacrifice of his life. Paralleling Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, Mugo has his own brief period of doubting what he must do and wondering if there might not be an easier way, a happier ending for him.
Themes
However, the rain drives Mugo to enter the old woman’s hut to take a brief shelter, since her door is always left open. She is happy to see him, apparently believing that he is her dead son Gitogo, “come to fetch [her] home.” When Mugo looks at her face, he sees not the old woman but his long-dead aunt, and realizes with shame that the only family he has ever had has been gone for years. In light of this, nothing else in the world seems to matter. Mugo returns to his hut and waits until General R. and Koina arrive to take him to stand trial, privately and secretly, where Wambui will be the judge. Mugo consents without resistance. General R.’s voice holds no anger, no bitterness.
The revelation that the strange connection Mugo has felt to old woman since the first chapters of the story is her mistaking him for her lost son is poignant, especially because the situation is then reversed, and Mugo sees his dead aunt in her. Though it wasn’t what he thought, Mugo and the old woman do share a connection—both have lost their single family member in the world, making them both tragic figures with seemingly nothing left to live for. The extent of Mugo’s redemption in the eyes of his community is demonstrated by the fact that even General R. and Lt. Koina, close comrades of Kihika, feel no anger towards Mugo. They only act to fulfill their duty to his memory and to justice.
Themes
