Colonialization
Mrs. Hill in “The Martyr” is a wealthy landowner who employs natives on her plantation, and her conversation with Mrs. Smiles and Mrs. Hardy highlights the two ways of perceiving the natives. While Mrs. Smiles and Mrs. Hardy consider the native inhabitants of the land savages, Mrs. Hill considers them more like equals. For example, Mrs. Smiles declares “We’ve brought ’em civilization. We’ve stopped slavery and tribal wars. Were they not all leading savage miserable lives?” On the other hand, Mrs. Hill explains her more liberal stance: “That’s all they need. Treat them kindly. They will take kindly to you.”
Patriarchy
In many of the short stories, the husbands are portrayed as fearful and violent. For example, in “Mugumo,” Muthoga, “the warrior, the farmer, the dancer, had recovered his old hard-heartedness which had been temporarily subdued by her, and he began to beat” his wife because she cannot bear children. The beating even seems to be tolerated and accepted by society, as “the crowd that watched and never helped! But that was a preamble to such torture and misery that it almost resulted in her death that very morning. He had called on her early and without warning or explanation had beaten her so much that he left her for dead.”
In “A Meeting in the Dark,” John fears his father because he does not allow his wife to tell traditional stories, and he “always looked at him as though John was a sinner, one who had to be watched all the time.”
The women and wives, on the other hand, are portrayed as laborers who work hard to ensure the survival of the family. For example, “And the Rain Came Down!” begins with Nyokabi taking a rest after “having labored like a donkey.” The same simile is used to describe John’s mother in “A Meeting in the Dark,” when she is “panting like a donkey.”
However, women receive little to no credit for their efforts. Instead, in “The Village Priest,” they are described by the male narrator as chatty individuals who do not care for the important things: “Who could it be? These women. They would never tell anyone who a visitor was, but must always talk of somebody.”
Christianity vs. other religions
Ngugi wa Thiong’o frequently writes about the effects of missionaries and preachers trying to replace the original religious beliefs of the African people with Christianity. For example, in “The Village Priest,” a rivalry breaks out between a Christian preacher and the local rainmaker, as both fight for the approval of the villagers.
In “The Black Bird,” Ngugi vividly describes how the newly converted see the Christian faith as the light that leads them out of darkness, and how they resort to violence to eradicate other beliefs: “My grandfather was the first of the young converts to the Christian faith brought by the white man. The new converts were full of zeal; they came to believe that what was in their people was evil. Every custom was a sin. Every belief held by the people was called superstition, the work of the devil. Our God was called the Prince of Darkness. My grandfather and the others like him considered themselves soldiers specially chosen by the Christian God to rescue a lost tribe from eternal damnation. Nothing could harm them. Christ was on their side; and so they went through the hills, treading on the sacred places and throwing away the meat that had been sacrificed to Ngai under the Mugumo. Soldiers of Christ fighting with Satan.”
The rift is even present in families. For example, in “A Meeting in the Dark,” the narrator’s father is a Christian preacher who has forbidden his wife to tell traditional stories to the child.
