The Construction Of National Discourse In The Dilemma Of Native Diaspora

Ngugi wa Thiong’o(193 8-)is one of the most celebrated writers in Kenya and an icon of postcolonial literature.Petals of Blood,Ngugi’s fourth full-length novel,is widely regarded as his most mature work.Through the experiences of the four main characters and the historical changes in the remote village of Ilmorog,this novel of Ngugi reflects the hardships of the post-independence Kenyan people from multiple perspectives,deeply indicts that the ghost of colonialism still haunts the local people,and explores the plight of the Kenyan and even African people in greater depth than his previous works.Ngugi has been delving into the issue of the native diaspora in Africa since his debut novel,and this delving achieves its pinnacle in Petals of Blood.In addition to more in-depth descriptions and analyses of the native diaspora phenomena,he also considers solutions to the problem it presents.In order to analyze Ngugi’s investigationof the ways to subvert the colonial discourse and escape from the dilemma of the native diaspora in this novel from the perspectives of story and narrative strategies respectively,this thesis examined the specific manifestations and underlying causes of the growing problem of the native diaspora in the post-colonial period starting from the perspective of the native diaspora in the novel,by drawing on post-colonial theory and narrative criticism.The thesis is develop in three chapters.The first chapter reveal the reasons why the Kenyan people in Petals ofBlood still faced the problem of the native diaspora after independence and the process by which this dilemma intensifies.Due to the colonial discourse’s extensive effects and the new bourgeois rulers’ exploitation of it,the indigenous Kenyans continued to experience conflicts between colonial and indigenous discourses despite the country’s independence,Kenyans yet were left dislocated by the colonial discourse system.This not only made them continue to be homeless in the geographical sense,get their living space further squeezed,thus they were still marginalized as "the other" and "dependency",but also in the spiritual sense,they were still in the "diasporic" context brought by the conflict between the two discourses.This context was created during the colonial era,meaning that with the invasion of the colonizers,the aborigines were torn and confused about their identity as they wavered between the native and the West.With the strong confidence brought by the development of the national independence movement,they also believed that they would survive as new Kenyans,but the reality that the colonial discourse continued to manipulate the country after independence was at odds with their conceptions,further plunging the indigenous people into an identity crisis and exacerbating the problem of the native diaspora.The second chapter analyze Ngugi’s exploration of the problem of the native diaspora in the novel at the story level.Faced with the dilemma of diaspora,the first action taken by the protagonists in the novel was to "find their roots".In the remote village of Ilmorog,they traced back the traditional discourse and identity of their people and obtained a brief refuge,which reflected the spiritual support of the traditional discourse for the indigenous people.Unfortunately,as the land of Ilmorog was plundered by foreign capitalists and black rulers,they were once again plunged into hardship and on the verge of spiritual collapse.However,the novel did not end with the complete victory of the colonizers and bourgeois rulers.Ngugi explored the class,racial and ethnic issues in post-independence Kenya in greater depth and expressed them through the characters,revealing that behind the appearance of class antagonism in the novel were still racial and ethnic issues brought about by the colonial discourse,and ultimately expressed the desire to construct a new authority of national discourse by inheriting the traditional national discourse and introducing the ideas of class struggle and national revolution.The third chapter of the thesis use narrative theory to analyze how Ngugi’s desire to subvert the authority of colonial discourse and build a national discourse system was expressed through diverse narratives.Since the most distinctive feature of this novel is its multi-voice character through the use of different narrative voices,this chapter focused on narrative voices and explored how Ngugi uses narrative skills to give voice to the marginalized groups under the colonial discourse and undermine the authority of the dominant voices through the analysis of three types of narrative voices in the novel:personal,authorial and communal,and thus to reflect the awakening of the subjective consciousness of the oppressed.As a classic text that has not yet received sufficient attention in the domestic academic community,Petals of Blood still has a high research value.This thesis examined the "native diaspora" problem that colonized people faced in the postcolonial era,studied the root causes of the problem and the strategies to solve it,which is conducive to further interpreting Ngugi’s anti-colonial and postcolonial ideas and understanding the far-reaching significance of his creation.It also enriches the critical practice of postcolonial theory and contributes to the solution of the colonial legacy faced by the former colonial people.