Kimathi proves this, as already mentioned earlier, being ready to let kill his own brother. This in turn disproves his image as an innocent and flawless figure in Kenyan and African history as presented in The Trial of Dedan Kimathi.
Apparently, the preface bears valuable information for the reader. Those were, paradoxically, of an alarming scale and certainly not as intended: According to The True Crime Library, not only Mau Mau fighters were executed by the British Army and the Kenya Police, but also Kenyan civilians and approximately black policemen and soldiers were killed by the Mau Mau themselves.
The number of British colonizers killed throughout the same period of time was comparably low, namely It can even be said that, due to the important information given, the preface of the play is essential to understanding the whole piece; It makes it easy for the reader to follow and contextualize the plot historically and additionally gives a crucial insight into the motivation of the two authors.
Furthermore, it enables the reader to analyze the play from an unbiased perspective as the bias towards the historical Kimathi is clearly given in that introduction. It becomes notable that the melodrama is a tribute to the leader and, one could even claim, savior Kimathi who is portrayed as a godlike figure without flaws and of huge devotion. The leader represents the victims of imperialism, struggling for liberation and justice for his people Crow Despite his efforts and actions to stop the wars, Kenyatta only had little influence on the rebellion and did not participate in the battles.
As a base to achieve peace and prevent new fights, the president called to the people for national amnesia which has been received controversially. Although it was the goal of the play to portray Kimathi as flawless and exemplary, as a leader who committed himself to liberating Kenya from British colonial oppression, as explicitly mentioned by the authors in their preface to the piece, it becomes clear that the protagonist has been dramatically romanticized and even deified throughout the melodrama.
Either he wants to use his play as a commercial motive or he wrote it as a personal motive. It could also be he wrote it for a literary motive. Most plays though are usually written to sensitize the society on what the playwright considers socially unacceptable. It could also be written to portray what has happened in the past or the history of a particular country and how it affects the present situation of a particular society.
The colonial masters then saw him as a terrorist who tried to jeopardize their mission in Kenya though among the natives, he was considered a Mau Mau warrior and a freedom fighter. He had a disorganized childhood. The historical Dedan Kimathi was arrested in and on 18 th of February ; he was executed by the colonial government and buried in a mass grave. He was seen as a villain by the whites while the Kenyan natives saw him as a warrior and hero, thereby naming several public buildings after him.
We can therefore say that it was this historic happening that served as a source of inspiration for Ngugi and Micere. The play is one that talks about the injustice faced by blacks at the mercy of the colonial masters.
The main character, Dedan Kimathi is seen as a terrorist and is unjustly tried in the course of his fighting against oppression, colonization, imperialism and exploitation. The play opens with Dedan Kimathi standing trial for carrying a loaded revolver. He is asked to plead guilty or innocent but he remains adamantly silent. This is then followed by a sudden darkness that precedes a flashback on the history of the black man and how they were captured as slaves and how they were colonized and how they finally began to rebel and resist.
Cyril Enagbare Dr. This powerful account contains Douglass' desire to escape from damaging restrictions, which lead to the writing of his story. In the Narrative, Douglass uses many themes, and representations to teach people on the reality of slavery. Africans were chained and packed into quarters unfit for movement or proper breathing. The only hope of escape rested in suicide by jumping overboard.
With the British Parliament's outlaw of the slave trade in , the naval superpower set sail to enforce total European abolition. The Society of Friends, along with other such concerned parties, published accounts of the horrific middle passage to distribute amongst still practicing nations. These accounts, supported by memoirs such as Oladuah Equiano's, who survived the journey, informed the masses and catalyzed the destruction of slavery.
He was a very influential person in the abolition of slaves. Just as Frederic Douglass did, he wrote an autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, that discusses the time spent in slavery, how served on vessels and how gained his independence by his own.
In his youth he was kidnapped along with his little sister and they were separate from each other. Equiano changed hands a few times before being shipped across the Atlantic Ocean.
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