A Review of ‘Goodbye Africa’ by Ngugi
A review of ‘Goodbye Africa’ by Ngugi,
The fascination narrator of ‘Goodbye Africa’ is called third person, usually referring to by the narrator as ‘he’, ‘she’, and ‘it’. It is obvious in the short story that the narrator is merely an unspecified entity or uninvolved person that conveys the story, and is not a character of any kind within the story being told. ‘Goodbye Africa’ is narrated by She/he perspective, also with subjective narration describing characters feelings and thoughts, “She felt a suggestion of impatience in his voice…” P: 72. “My hands are losing their firmness, he was thinking…” P: 72. Besides that, the narrator is omniscient, has knowledge of all times, people, and events, including all characters thoughts.
Therefore, Ngugi chooses to use third person narration in this particular story to make us understand the story in a right manner. Ngugi uses many symbols throughout the story, which in turn represent two main themes, liberation, and revolution. From the title (Goodbye Africa) we can reveals to that the British colonialism has almost ended in Kenya, on the other hand, the most obvious example is to be found in the short story which symbolize liberation, where the ‘Shamba boy’ progressively flouts the authority of the white male protagonist in his social capacities as employer, screening officer, district officer and, finally, husband. Thus, the defeat of the white man means the victory of the ‘Shamba boy’ and all the Kenyan people. There are many elements of revolution in the short story. A moral revolution, manifested in the ‘boy’s’ refusal of his master gift, besides, his laughter is an unanticipated antagonist response that remains with the master as a form of disjunctive affect, his laugh continued and hunted him as a huge humiliate. The ‘Shamba boy’ sexuality becomes crucial in the representation of Mau Mau destabilizing effects upon the colonialism, considering the sexual affair between the white man wife and the ‘Shamba boy’ as a
The fascination narrator of ‘Goodbye Africa’ is called third person, usually referring to by the narrator as ‘he’, ‘she’, and ‘it’. It is obvious in the short story that the narrator is merely an unspecified entity or uninvolved person that conveys the story, and is not a character of any kind within the story being told. ‘Goodbye Africa’ is narrated by She/he perspective, also with subjective narration describing characters feelings and thoughts, “She felt a suggestion of impatience in his voice…” P: 72. “My hands are losing their firmness, he was thinking…” P: 72. Besides that, the narrator is omniscient, has knowledge of all times, people, and events, including all characters thoughts.
Therefore, Ngugi chooses to use third person narration in this particular story to make us understand the story in a right manner. Ngugi uses many symbols throughout the story, which in turn represent two main themes, liberation, and revolution. From the title (Goodbye Africa) we can reveals to that the British colonialism has almost ended in Kenya, on the other hand, the most obvious example is to be found in the short story which symbolize liberation, where the ‘Shamba boy’ progressively flouts the authority of the white male protagonist in his social capacities as employer, screening officer, district officer and, finally, husband. Thus, the defeat of the white man means the victory of the ‘Shamba boy’ and all the Kenyan people. There are many elements of revolution in the short story. A moral revolution, manifested in the ‘boy’s’ refusal of his master gift, besides, his laughter is an unanticipated antagonist response that remains with the master as a form of disjunctive affect, his laugh continued and hunted him as a huge humiliate. The ‘Shamba boy’ sexuality becomes crucial in the representation of Mau Mau destabilizing effects upon the colonialism, considering the sexual affair between the white man wife and the ‘Shamba boy’ as a