Gender and Power Theme Analysis

A Grain of Wheat’s male characters are notably weak and indecisive save for a rare few, while its female characters present themselves as confident, capable, and proud. Although women are socially disempowered in Gikuyu society, Ngũgĩ’s depiction of his female characters argues that they are just as strong as men and often stronger, succeeding when men fail or are gripped with indecision.

In A Grain of Wheat, Gikuyu women occupy a lower social stratum than men, as demonstrated by the lives of Gikonyo’s mother and his wife, Mumbi. Gikuyu society is polygamous, meaning that a single man often has many wives, which can lead to oppression and mistreatment of women with no recompense. This is illustrated by Gikonyo’s mother’s hardship: after growing tired of his mother, Gikonyo’s father, who has many wives, simply forces her to leave, wandering homeless with her young son where she will most likely die. However, through the determination of Gikonyo’s mother, the two of them survive, also indicating her strength. Although the men in Gikuyu society have the ability to cast off their wives whenever they please, their wives do not enjoy the same freedom. After Gikonyo strikes his wife, Mumbi, Mumbi leaves him. Although she is not immediately forced to return to her abusive husband, Mumbi’s own father shames her for defying Gikonyo, saying, “In our time, a woman could take blow and blow from her husband without a thought of running back to her parents.” This deference to an abusive husband over the safety of his wife demonstrates that Gikuyu society possesses much of the same gender inequality as British society in that era, where women are socially disempowered.

Despite the inequality between men and women, the Gikuyu remember times when they were ruled by women, proving that there is nothing inherently weaker about their women than their men. When the British missionaries arrive and tell the Gikuyu about their English queen, the concept of a matriarch resonates with them, echoing their own history. The author recalls that Gikuyu society was once dominated by warrior women, who kept their men in subjugation to serve their “whims and needs.” However, the men staged a revolt by fooling all of the women to become pregnant at the same time, thus weakening the warriors enough for the men to overcome them. That the men could only overcome the women through treachery, and not strength, again suggests that Gikuyu women are just as powerful as their men.

The story’s female characters are consistently the strongest, exercising their own forms of power and succeeding where men fail in the struggle for freedom. Aside from Kihika, nearly every male character in the story is crippled by either cowardice or indecision, often both. As a prisoner in the detention camps, Gikonyo caves to the pressure and confesses to being a freedom fighter, spending the entire novel living in shame and unable to even admit his own cowardice, following the “line of least resistance.” Karanja betrays his country and works for the whiteman, presenting the image of power and confidence before his countrymen but secretly cowering in fear of any white person, unable to approach them or speak his mind. Even the ruthless John Thompson is revealed to be a coward, unable to make decisions under pressure—such as when he witnesses a dog attack one of his employees but cannot summon the willpower to stop it—or admit his own weakness to his wife or his colleagues.

On the contrary, the female characters most often demonstrate strength. When most of Thabai’s men are fighting with the Mau Mau in the jungles or imprisoned in detention camps, Mumbi and her mother-in-law “put on trousers” and set about rebuilding new homes for themselves after the homeguard burn theirs down. Njeri, a woman who is in love with Kihika, follows him into the forest and wages war on the British until she is killed. However, no character in the story is more powerful than Wambui, an old Gikuyu women who smuggles messages and weapons beneath her dress to aid the Mau Mau. During a political meeting, Wambui climbs onto stage, grabs the microphone from the male speaker, and declares that their success thus far has been due to the work of Gikuyu women, not men, and that the men ought to “come forward, wear the women’s skirts and aprons and give up their trousers to the women.” Wambui and the other female characters’ strength depicts a legacy of powerful Gikuyu women who, though socially disadvantaged, nevertheless demonstrate incredible strength and capacity.

Ngũgĩ’s glowing portrayal of the women in his country suggests that like Wambui, the author completely “believe[s] in the power of women to influence events, especially where men had failed to act, or seemed indecisive.” Despite their lower standing in Gikuyu society, women are revealed as a forced to be reckoned with and a major contributor to Kenyan independence.