Paradoxes of Prostitution in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Petals of Blood

Abstract

This paper investigates the contradictions surrounding the prostitute figure in Ngugi’s Petals of Blood (1977). The figure of the prostitute is a striking issue in Ngugi’s oeuvre. As a Marxist advocate, Ngugi writes about post-colonialism, anti-colonialism and anti-capitalism in his essays, novels and plays. Ngugi views romantic love as pure, hence not to be soiled or dirtied by material gains. This paper considers the question of material concerns in the romantic relationship through the way in which the prostitute is figured in Petals of Blood. By applying a qualitative descriptive method,  the study will enter into a conversation with other African works, which explore intimate relationships in exchange for material benefits. In these contexts, material concerns do not devalue an idealised love, but are part of the love relationship. However, in Petals of Blood, Ngugi presents “transactional sex” as a means of financial survival among young girls in Kenyan society. In the novel, the woman figure capitalises on her power of sexuality to meliorate herself but ends up enslaved by the male counterpart.