The Theme of Disillusionment and Betrayal in Ngugi WA Thiongo’s Petals of Blood and Weep Not Child

ABSTRACT: This research study is set to expose The Theme of Disillusionment and Betrayal in Ngugi WA Thiongo’s Petals of Blood and Weep Not Child.  Ngugi see disillusionment and betrayal as two concepts that have affected many Kenyans over the years.  He is also examined as Kenya influential writer whose novels exposed the ugly treatment of the poor Kenyan peasants with social injustices and deprivations and economic rights by the rich. In the two novels, Ngugi portrayed the problems and challenges experienced by the poor people of Kenyans in the hands of the colonizers how their land were seized at the same time employ them as laboureres while paid with low wages that cannot carter for the family. The study also shows that some of the Kenyan peasants also went through political oppression, depression and humiliation in the hands of Kenyan political leaders who took power from the colonizers.  Apart from subjugation, political disillusionment, humiliation and oppression also play a major theme in the two novels. It was therefore recommended that Ngugi’s novel should be added in the school curriculum so as to teach the younger generation to desist from actions that promote or encourage societal ills such as poverty, social injustice, corruption, discrimination, exploitation and dehumanization.

The Theme of Disillusionment and Betrayal in Ngugi WA Thiongo’s Petals of Blood and Weep Not Child

The study has also shown that Ngugi is regarded as Kenya’s most renowned writer whose creative writings portray how the Kenyans suffer poverty. These instances are seen in life of the characters in the two critical works how they suffered of poverty, humiliation, discrimination, oppression and dispossession in the hands of the Europeans and tortured innocently. The study also shows that these blacks were subjugated, humiliated, oppressed exploited and eventually tortured to death. In conclusion, the research exposes the effects of colonialism and post-colonial   disillusionment of the people of Kenya because of the corruption that prevail after independence. The social status of the poor becomes worst under the post-colonial government.

The Theme of Disillusionment and Betrayal in Ngugi WA Thiongo’s Petals of Blood and Weep Not Child

While in Violence, Iyayi pictures a society with two classes of people the rich and poor, the oppressive forces fighting against the poor to submerge them in perpetual state of poverty, discrimination, social injustices and disillusionment. According to the study the poor masses are dominated and neglected without care as seen in the lives of the characters under investigation. The study therefore recommends that, literature should be a compulsory subject for all Nigerian students because it mirrors the events, incidents and episode of every society and it would also serves as an avenue for eradicating immoral and political crisis in every society of Africa.