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Flowers/Theng’eta
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, Chui, and Kimeria, have died by arson in the Kenyan town Ilmorog. The book then flashes back to the earlier lives of various people of interest in the murder. The novel reveals that Ilmorog’s schoolteacher Munira, after paying for his first sexual experience as a teenager, felt so much shame and religious guilt that he built an effigy of the sex worker’s house and set it on fire. When he failed to put the fire out completely, the resulting blaze nearly burned down a barn. This incident links sexual repression and shame to fire and its out-of-control consequences. Later, Ilmorog’s barmaid Wanja tells Munira that her cousin’s estranged husband—who used to beat her cousin and steal her cousin’s money, until her cousin left him—set her aunt’s hut on fire and killed her by arson while trying to murder his wife. Wanja’s story connects the symbol of fire, representing sexual repression, to the violent oppression of women. The novel thus implies that men’s sexual repression or shame leads them to attack women. The novel’s climax bears out this implication. Though the police suspected that the labor organizer Karega may have killed the businessmen, Munira eventually confesses that he burned down the brothel where the businessmen died because he wanted to kill Wanja, his ex-lover and the brothel’s manager. Munira was trying to “save” Karega, another ex-lover of Wanja’s, from her sexual attractions, which he believed to be demonically powerful. Munira expresses his religiously inflected fear and hatred of Wanja’s sexuality by trying to set her on fire—again, fire symbolizes the violent outbursts that sexual repression can occasion. Yet Munira’s fire kills three businessmen, not Wanja, so that fire also symbolizes how uncontrollable and unpredictable such violence can be.
Fire Quotes in Petals of Blood
The Petals of Blood quotes below all refer to the symbol of Fire. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 2
Quotes
He stole a matchbox, collected a bit of grass and dry cowdung and built an imitation of Amina’s house at Kamiritho where he had sinned against the Lord, and burnt it. He watched the flames and he felt truly purified by fire. He went to bed at ease with himself and peaceful in his knowledge of being accepted by the Lord. Shalom. But the cowdung had retained the fire and at night the wind fanned it into flames which would have licked up the whole barn had it not been discovered in time.
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Get the entire Petals of Blood LitChart as a printable PDF.
Fire Symbol Timeline in Petals of Blood
The timeline below shows where the symbol Fire appears in Petals of Blood. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...policeman tries to see Wanja, but a doctor prevents the visit, claiming Wanja is hallucinating fire and yelling about her aunt. When the policeman suggests they record Wanja as evidence “in...
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Chapter 2
...burned the woman’s house in a little grass effigy and abandoned the effigy still on fire—which almost caused a barn to burn down.
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Chapter 3
In the hospital recovering from the fire, Wanja flashes back to the same day—the day they celebrated Joseph going to school. In...
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...beer bottle cap shoots from Munira’s hand and knocks over a lamp, starting a small fire. After Abdulla puts it out, he leaves without telling his story. Then Wanja asks Karega...
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...house. Then they all heard screaming, ran outside, and saw that Wanja’s aunt was on fire, as was her hut. Very likely, the cousin’s husband had set the hut on fire...
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...Buddhist. She admits that some of her memories make her want to set herself on fire—to be purified. When Munira protests, Wanja continues talking as if he hasn’t spoken, saying her...
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...she sometimes wanted to self-immolate, that was only a manner of speaking—she’s too scared of fire to do that to herself. Abruptly, Munira asks what happened to Wanja’s baby. Wanja bursts...
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Chapter 5
...went home with a “regular,” a rich Somali man, only to find her apartment on fire—apparently someone had hoped to burn her and the Somali man alive. Wanja wanted to inform...
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...go drinking. They bar-hop and eventually end up back in a Limuru bar. Munira, feeling “fire-tongues of desire” for Wanja, wants to have sex with her right there—but then they both...
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...he suddenly notices Wanja—and they stare at one another, rapt, in a way that causes “fire-tongues of stinging nettles” in Munira’s belly. Wanja tells Karega to come back to Ilmorog; he...
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The Journey
...Both Wanja and Karega wish death on Kimeria; Karega fantasizes about setting his house on fire.
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Chapter 8
...and suggests he worships money. Wanja’s father begins beating her mother. Her mother yells about “fire” and her “only sister.” When her father says the fire was God’s punishment, Wanja’s mother...
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Chapter 12
...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...
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Out of nowhere, one week before the fire, Wanja sent Karega a note insisting that he meet her at her hut. Now Karega,...
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...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...
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...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...
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...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...
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...of this to Inspector Godfrey—except the fact that she stabbed Kimeria to death before the fire started.
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...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...
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...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...
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Chapter 13
Someone knocks on the door of Wanja’s hut—and Wanja’s mother enters, saying “fire again!” Both women cry. Wanja’s mother explains that she only learned what Wanja suffered because...
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