Violence: The (Un)real, Power and Excess in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's Wizard of the Crow

Abstract

SummaryIn this article, the nature, form and content of violence are traced through the engagement of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's Wizard of the Crow, situating it in the context of the postcolony. In this context, the conception of the real and unreal qua violence is interchangeable and also entangled. Thus, performativity of power depicts how violence becomes ritualised and institutionalised. The excess of the body is also problematised as a site of exercising state power. These politics of excess are clearly marked by the omnipresence of the Ruler in private and public domains of the citizens of Aburĩria, his plan of constructing the unlimited tower of Marching to Heaven, funded by the Global Bank, and the politics of eating which perpetuates dispossession of the Aburĩrian citizenry. Though the Ruler claims to be mighty and powerful he is still caught in the clutches of the puppetry of colonial power which reduce him to a typical colonial subject.