The Eco—psychological Crisis in the Inner World of the Characters in Ngugiwa Thiong'o’s Works

【Abstract】：Psychological descriptions are filled with each Ngugiwa Thiong'o’s works. This paper aims at analyzing the main characters of Ngugiwa Thiong'o’s novels from the perspective of ecological criticism. Many ecological elements could be found in the psychological conversations in the stories. Taking an example of the novel “the Grain of Wheat” this paper tries to discuss two main characters in Ngugiwa Thiong'o’s works who could represent the people in the post revolution periods. According to those studies， we could see the ecological crisis exists in Africa including the social relations， nature of the country and the inner-minds of the people， and the hope for reconstructing a new world. The purpose of this thesis is to arouse more ecological works in literary area and appeal for human’s ecological consciousness.

【The key words】： harmony; deconstructing ego-centralism; ecological psychology

1.Introduction

The author Ngugiwa Thiong'o， who was born in a peasant’s family in Limuru， is good at making his novel on the basis of history of his nation and his homeland. He had obtained the bachelor’s degree of English linguistic Literature in Uganda， and the master’s degree had been given to him in the University of Leeds in Britain. He works in the University of New York City and lives in the United States because of his healthy problems. He sticks to his points that the literature works should rear his native people and make them mature， which prompted lots of African works about the native problems. Among the late works of Ngugiwa Thiong'o， he focuses on the theme of the historical remains left by the capitalism in the post colonial countries. The work “Most characters in the Grain of Wheat died after the Liberate war. Their victory fruits are stolen by the greedy political leaders. This novel only covers the four days before the ceremony of the Independent Day， but the ten years of the history is presented to the readers through the lots of flashbacks and the descriptions of the inner-minds of the characters. The question is given at the first part of the novel： Who is the betrayer？ ， which attracts the reader to find the answer through the following readings. The psychological description is highlighted in this novel. The various thoughts and attitudes from the people after the liberation are presented in this novel， through which we could find the picture of the society and people’s life statement at that time.

2. The men who decided to go to the grave lonely--Gikonyo

2.1 "The conflicts in his heart after finding the baby

“But the sun did not bring relief. Early in the morning the child shrieked for attention， Mumbi lit the fire and again held the child to her breast. The child went on whimpering， tearing into gikonyo’s nerves. Smash the child on to the floor， haul the dirty thing in to silence， he thought. Without attempting to rise from the bed， he did not want to see Mumbi’s eyes， nose – and yet now that face had pleasantly tortured him in fetention.”（Ngugiwa Thiong'o： 104）

These descriptions of gikonyo’s psychological world have presented his anger after he found mumbi has born a baby for his “friend Karanja. “ Smashing the baby” is the desire of the character’s id which is that he must destroy all of the distort relations in the family. The desire of destroy hade behind the back of human being’ s heart. When the impulsion has been depressed for a certain time， he would let it burst into some abnormal actions in the men’s daily life. He choose to make the desire controlled so that he would let the family life seems like a harmony one， although it is not. The inner-mind conversation represented the conflict between his id and his superego. "Every minute the breath of the two women has troubled his sleep. For 6 years he has waited for this day. The voice of the breath embodies the women’s deep sleep which represents the harmony life state before the arriving of Gikonyo. Munmbi did not change her attitudes to her family life after the coming back of Gikonyo and the cold attitudes from her husband.

“Could the valley of silence between him and the woman be now crossed？ To what end the crossing since he would reach the other side to find a woman who had hardly waited for him to disappear round the corner.” （Ngugiwa Thiong'o： 114）

He thought the action to recover the relationship with his wife is useless and the possibility of obtaining the harmony relations in the family is hard to achieve. He chooses to make the silence as a normal one. He began to find many excuses to find the existence of the silence has ever been in the old days. In the factory， he has no words to communicate with his mother. He know his mother would handle the affairs because of the confident from the identification of a mother， which reflects the woman’s instinct to create a world without conflicts.

2.2 Analysis of his loneliness from the perspective of Ecological psychology

Ecological psychology is a term claimed by several schools of psychology with the main one involving the work of James J. Gibson and his associates， and another on the work of Roger G. Barker， Herb Wright and associates at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

As the Baker argued in his classic work \"Ecological Psychology\"that human behaviour was radically situated： in other words， you couldn't make predictions about human behaviour unless you know what situation or context or environment.” （Baker，1968： 46）

According to Baker， the family life of Gikonyo has been replaced by the silent communion. He wants to give the silence a reason to continue. But he will be tortured by the vigorous picture of what the family life used to be. He decided to make the silence to dead. And he wants to make everything in his life invisible and silent to be heard. From the aspect of Freud’s theory， we may know the superego hiding in the back of his own heart is to recover the relations between the woman and him which reflects the fact that he wants to create a new life after his escaping from the detention. "From the words we find the decision which Gikonyo has made. He chooses to make a balance between the destroying and the recovering. For a time he would find himself as nothing exist in the society. But the author gives the hope to Gikonyo and leaves the chance to recover the relations of Gikonyo. The race between Gikonyo and Karanja and the attitudes to her husband from Mumbi illustrates the author’s willing that he wants all the unbalanced family would has the chance to retrieve their harmony relations， which reflects the ecological ideas the ecological critics prompts.

3. The traitor Mugo who deconstructed his ego-centralism

Given that Gibson's tenet was that \"perception is based on information， not on sensations\"（Gibson 1966：21）， the analysis on the inner-mind of Mugo should be started with the information which he has achieved. The Bible’s spreading has been the most outstanding one. “So in Harry Thuku， people saw a man with God’s message： go into Pharaoh and say in to him： let my people go， let my people go.” “God helps those who help themselves.” These words reflect the ideas which is planted into the African people including the author himself that human being could only be the center of the world and could have the power to conquer everything existing in the world. Those ideas from the Bible have a deep effect on the minds of Africans.

3.1 The Bible’s influence on Mugo

According to the novel Christa explains what the Goddess is. The Goddess embodies three things： “first， the goddess is a divine female， a personification who can be invoked in prayer and ritual; In the second place， it is a symbol of life， death， and the rebirth-encouraging us to see the changing phrases of our lives as holy; and third， the goddess is a symbol of the legitimacy and beauty of the power to create but also to limit and destroy when necessary. （Merchant， 1987： 309）Mugo， being seen a hero in the heart of other Kenya’s people， has burden a weight cross. "At the first chapter， his family state is introduced into the reader as a broken one. His aunt treats him badly. The resentment of Mugo to his aunts is obvious through the word of the aunt. “You even could kill your mother， right？” The daughters of his aunt seldom come back to the house where they lived. So Mugo lost the communication with others and to express his demands to his family membership. Even when the aunts died， they just came back to the house to bury the body of his mother.

3.2 Analysis of Mugo’s psychological change from the perspective of ecological psychology

“God called upon Abraham to offer an only son…I am important， I must not die. To keep myself alive， healthy， strong- to wait for my mission in life- is a duty to myself， to men and women of tomorrow. If Moses died in the reeds， who would ever have known that he was destined to be a great man？”（Ngugiwa Thiong'o; 106）

The desire to be a hero like Moses and build his own house urges him to betray the freedom warrior Kihika. Those reflected his selfish and distorted values. Ecological psychology opposes any centralism including the cultural， consumptive and religious models， calling on people to change the views to build a ecological ego. Obviously Mugo is lost in his distorted ego-centralism.

“Look at him！ Look at him- the man who thought he would be our chief. Ha！Ha！ Ha！” Githus’s laughter and voice only sharpened the prop found silence at the market place. People sat on with bowed heads for a minute or so after Mugo and Githus had gone. Then they rose and started talking， moving away in different directions， as if the meeting ended with Mugo’s confession. （Ngugiwa Thiong'o P219）

The people who aim at punishing the sin of the traitor have vanished after a short time. The meeting is held to punish the traitor who was thought to be Karanja for a long time. After the “Judas” show up in front of the public， they just “bent down and avoid the traitor’s eyes”， and they ended the meeting without any actions. We see the natural descriptions after the meeting.

As for the ecopsychology， it contains the ecological unconscious and the ecological ego. The ecological unconscious is the natural instinct of human being， which is always suppressed. Omitting the suppressing for the ecological unconscious and constructing the perfect ecological ego is needed for Mugo and all the people.

After admitting his sin， Mugo would be rescued from the conflicts in his inner-minds and he would relieve the suppressing of the ecological unconscious. He used the sentence “This thing has eaten into my life all these years” to describe his life after he blurted out the secret to the whites. To build a perfect ecological ego is the following task for him and all the people. His confession has brought the balanced estate in his spirits and also predicts a new world’s coming.

4.Conclusion

Through the studies above， many ecological elements are involved in the psychological descriptions in the novel，which reflects the humanity thoughts behind "Ngugiwa Thiong'o’s works.Meanwhile，through revealing the environmental and spiritual crises， Ngugiwa Thiong'o criticizes the anthropocentrism and human’s utilitarian attitude to nature. By rereading those novels，we detect the importance to build a harmonious ecosystem， the harmony relationships between man and nature.Only when the harmonious relationships are built can a harmonious ecosystem be realized. At the end of the novel， Ngugiwa Thiong'o gave us a hope by describing the confession of the traitor， believing that men could change themselves to make the world better. The information that men could rebuild a new world full of love and harmony is converted into the psychological conversations in those works.

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