Cultural Identity Crisis And Reconstruction: An Interpretation Of A Grain Of Wheat

As a diasporic writer who spent his university life in Britain and now lives in America, Ng(?)g(?) wa Thiong'o owns a hybrid cultural identity in the contemporary world literature. He writes novels in English, and is skillful in expressing the history of his own nation. A Grain of Wheat, Ng(?)g(?)'s masterpiece, was published in 1967. He reproduced the heroic scene of the Gikuyu people's independence movement and their perennial fights against colonists by using the narrative way of flashback and parenthetical reference. A Grain of Wheat shows Ng(?)g(?)'s profound concern for cultural identity. By using a combination of theories such as Orientalism, the Other and the Third Space, this thesis tries to manifest the cultural identity crisis Gikuyu people faced during the British colonial period and how they reconstructed their cultural identities in anti-colonial struggle.This thesis is composed of five chapters.Chapter One is Introduction which consists of four parts. First, it briefly introduces the author Ng(?)g(?) wa Thiong'o's life, his writing experience and the novel A Grain of Wheat. Then it elaborates the literature review including both foreign and domestic researches. After sorting out former studies about this novel, it points out the purpose and significance of this thesis. The fourth part is about the theoretical framework which will be used in this thesis, including post-colonialism and cultural identity.In Chapter Two, the first part uses Edward Said's Orientalism and the Other theory to analyze Africa's image in the eyes of “the Other”. The second part shows the fact that Africa also owns the Other images in the world's “mainstream” culture.Chapter Three demonstrates the cultural identity crisis that protagonists in the novel have suffered, which includes the living condition of Gikuyu people after having been invaded and their emotions of loss and confusion under the collision of two different cultures, and so on.Chapter Four includes three parts. The first part shows Gikuyu people's awareness of their identity crisis. Then it indicates the efforts that the protagonists and Gikuyu people have made during the process of identity reconstruction. In the last part, the thesis presents the results and the new concept of culture reconciliation in the process of identity reconstruction.Chapter Five is the conclusion, which summarizes the whole thesis and highlights the ideal of cultural identity that Ng(?)g(?) would also have as a diasporic writer at the same time. And in the context of globalization, this thesis will help to draw public attention to Ng(?)g(?)' and his works.