Petals of Blood | Tracing a Winding Stair: Ngugi's Narrative Methods in Petals of Blood
In the following essay on Ngugi's Petals of Blood, Ayo Mamudu examines the narrative structures of the work as used to weave the past, present and futures of the characters into a portrait that illustrates the general history of human behavior.
Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in the future, And time future contained in time past. — T.S. Eliot, ''Burnt Norton’’
Considered with his earlier novels, Ngugi's Petals of Blood shows a relative complexity which is inseparable from the ambitiousness of its author's aim and scheme: to examine the tangle of human relationships (and identify an underlying principle), to make clear patterns comprehensively observed in the history of a people (and show the wholeness of that history), and, above all, to achieve these objectives...
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