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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Petals of Blood, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Colonialism and Capitalism
Education
Gender, Sexuality, and Exploitation
Religion, Hypocrisy, and Delusion
Land and Nature
Summary
Analysis
Though European colonial history suggests Kenyans “only arrived here yesterday,” archaeology and oral history suggest Kenyans have occupied the land a long time and have fought off many different racist, greedy invaders. Ilmorog remembers a few of these. For example, a man named Lord Freeze-Kilby came to Ilmorog with his wife, conscripted local people as workers, and forced them to farm wheat. One night, in protest, the workers burned the wheat fields. The lord’s wife fled to the Ol Kalou. After the indigenous people terrorized the Lord with strange sounds at night, he followed his wife—only to find her in bed with a lover. He shot both his wife and the lover. The people of Ilmorog burned the house he left behind.
This passage contrasts European colonial history with Kenyan archaeological and oral history. The contrast suggests that Europeans teach a false history (for instance, implying Kenyans have no special right to or relationship with their land) to justify European colonization of Kenya. By contrast, Kenyan history shows that Kenyan people have a long history in the land. The story of Lord Freeze-Kilby killing his wife makes clear the novel does not view violence against women as a particularly Kenyan problem—men of all nationalities have the potential to hurt women.
Themes
Later, Ramjeesh Ramlagoon Dharamashah came to Ilmorog from India and set up a shop. Though he had a very young wife, he hired and subsequently impregnated a local Ilmorog girl, whom he then set up as his mistress in the city. He got all the local people to shop at his store and eventually got them into debt with him. In 1956, he received a mysterious letter from Ole Masai and immediately skipped town with his wife—leaving his Ilmorog mistress and son behind.
Ramjeesh Ramlagoon Dharamashah sexually exploits his “very young” wife and an Ilmorog girl while also preying on Ilmorog’s townspeople economically, which suggests that sexual and capitalist predation go hand in hand. The story of Ole Masai’s letter implies that Ole Masai was a revolutionary who threatened the shopkeeper to get him to stop exploiting Ilmorog.
Themes
Shortly after Kenya’s independence, Abdulla moved to Ilmorog, took over Dharamashah’s shop, and yelled at Joseph much as the old owner used to yell at his wife. Yet eventually, he stopped yelling at Joseph, sent him to school, and started seeming much happier. Njuguna believed the credit was due to Wanja.
Though Abdulla initially behaves like the first shopkeeper, he acts better under Wanja’s influence, showing that people may mistreat others not because they are inherently evil but because their economic or social context encourages that behavior. Things can be different in a different context.
Themes
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After having sex with Wanja, Munira feels conflicted and guilty. His family is rigidly Presbyterian and never talks about sex. Though he’s cheated on his wife occasionally, the memory of his first sexual experience still haunts him: he orgasmed so quickly with a sex worker who’d mocked his youth that he wasn’t even sure whether he'd succeeded in penetrating her. With Wanja, he enjoys the sex very much and feels temporarily powerful but then feels powerless in the face of how much he wants her.
Munira’s religious upbringing gives him a conflicted. He has a natural desire for sex and so seeks it out, including with people other than his wife, but he also feels shame and powerlessness because Christianity has taught him that he should exercise more sexual self-control.
Themes
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Wanja often asks Munira about Abdulla. Once she asks Munira why he thinks Abdulla came to Ilmorog. Munira claims not to know. Wanja says it seems that Abdulla’s true pain is psychological, not bodily pain from his crippled leg. She suggests they are all “maimed souls” and demands to know what Munira is hiding from in Ilmorog. Panicky and babbling, Munira claims first that he wanted to move and then that he wanted to help the country after independence. When Wanja crows that she knew there was more to his motives than he originally claimed, Munira feels guilty for deceiving her.
Wanja’s claim that she and her friends are all “maimed souls” suggests that something is wrong with the social context of post-Independence Kenya, causing harm to Kenyan men and women in a wide variety of life situations. When Munira tells Wanja that he wanted to improve post-Independence Kenya, he feels guilty for lying—underscoring yet again that Munira doesn’t really care about political questions or the common good.
Themes
During the maize harvest, Wanja helps the women farm during the day and listens to their sexual gossip; the women like her for helping her grandmother Nyakinyua. In the evening, Wanja works at Abdulla’s and listens to the men’s gossip; the men perform verbally for her. Munira finds himself jealous of Wanja’s work and of how attentively she listens to other people. After the harvest, which is poor, ends, Wanja’s mood sours. She criticizes Ilmorog harshly.
Though Munira has no legitimate claim on Wanja—he’s married to someone else—he feels jealous when she does normal things like work and talk to other people. This unreasonable jealousy reveals that Munira sees Wanja as a sexual possession rather than an independent person. The poor harvest hints that Ilmorog, full of farmers, lives at the mercy of nature.
Themes
One night at Abdulla’s, when Wanja is criticizing Ilmorog’s poverty, Munira asks her why she moved there from the coastal cities and why she doesn’t leave. Wanja wonders aloud why she doesn’t. Then she turns on Abdulla, blaming him for not paying her enough and talking about how bar owners want their female employees to work for a pittance and have sex with customers. Suddenly, she suggests turning the bar into a church for city tourists, or a sanatorium, or a brewery that will help poor people drink themselves to death. Munira, angry but very attracted to Wanja, considers insulting her by calling her a whore.
Wanja’s tirade moves quickly from Abdulla’s failures as an employer to a larger pattern of workplace sexual harassment Wanja has experienced—implying that Wanja’s problems are bigger than Abdulla and that women in capitalist societies tend to suffer sexual exploitation in addition to economic exploitation. When Munira gets angry at Wanja, he wants to call her a whore; this insult shows his hypocrisy, since he’s committing adultery with her.
Themes
Before Munira can insult Wanja, she suddenly demands music and begins to dance erotically. When she finishes dancing, she seems less upset. She tells Munira and Abdulla that she and other bargirls used to dance like that to get men to spend money on them, but Wanja never had sex with the ones who thought they could buy her. Then she admits she’s sick of Ilmorog, which she calls a “wretched hole.” Abdulla, feeling compassion toward Wanja, tells her he knows what it’s like to be in emotional pain and suggests she stay in Ilmorog and become a co-owner of the bar. Wanja is grateful but refuses Abdulla, calling herself “wicked.” By the next day, she has left Ilmorog.
Wanja’s comments about her dancing reveal that she knows female sexuality is a market commodity in a sexist capitalist system—but she still doesn’t want to sell sex itself. When she calls rural Ilmorog a “wretched hole,” it suggests she has negative attitudes about nature as opposed to more manmade environments like cities. Finally, it’s not clear why Wanja describes herself as “wicked”—but it’s possible she has internalized anti-sex attitudes and is judging herself for her own sexual history.
Themes
