What is the theme of land?

Ngotho and Mr. Howlands share a fierce dedication to the land. At the center of their relationship is the central problem of the colonial presence in Kenya, and hence to the novel's main conflicts. Each has his own deep connection to the land. Land is an important part of Gikuyu culture, an indicator of a family. Mr. Howlands seems to have embodied some of this sentiment, despite his racism. However, 'land' does not refer only to the physical space used for living and farming. By the end of the novel, it has acquired a multi-dimensional meaning. In addition to Mr. Howlands's shamba, the concept of land has come to include the people who live on it. (Indeed, Ngugi suggests that dispossessing a people of their land is not enough to separate them from it; the connection is too strong.) “When the time for Njoroge to leave [for secondary school] came near," Ngugi writes, "many people contributed money so that he could go. He was no longer the son of Ngotho but the son of the land” (115). Land, with all its profundity, is what the Africans lost to the British, and what they are fighting to regain.