Depictions of the Land and Nature: Postcolonial–Ecocritical Reading of Ngugi’s The River Between

Abstract

In my thesis, I discuss how Ngugi wa Thiong’o uses nature to perform social critique and as a symbolic tool in his novel The River Between. I analyse the novel as postcolonial literature, using the theoretical framework of postcolonial ecocriticism to analyse how nature is depicted in Ngugi’s work. I use Huggan and Tiffin (2010) as my most important theoretical source, as it directly discusses postcolonial ecocriticism. In my thesis, I also discuss the social, cultural and political context behind the events of The River Between, and touch upon Ngugi’s personal life as a source of inspiration for his works.

In the analysis, I discuss the different depictions of nature and how Ngugi’s critique and symbolism is present in those. The elements of nature that I analyse are the two ridges upon which the villages are built, the land of the Gikuyu, the Sacred Grove present in the novel, Mount Kerinyaga (Mount Kenya), the Honya River, and the sun.

In my analysis I argue that Ngugi uses the depictions related to the land serve as critique towards colonization. Ngugi is criticising colonialism and the loss of culture and disunity it created for the Gikuyu. I also present two different arguments: one arguing for the existence of hybrid thoughts, and another which is direct critique against them, arguing that hybridity in itself denotes submissiveness towards colonization. I also argue that the depictions of the river and the sun are mainly critique against unicentricity, which is reoccurring in Ngugi’s works.