Manipulation of narrative paradigm in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's Wrestling with the Devil
This article evaluates Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's manipulation of the narrative paradigm in recasting his prison narrative Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary to come up with Wrestling with the Devil. Grounding our discussion on the theories of narratology, rhetoric and autobiography, this study argues that Ngũgĩ's revision of his prison narrative serves both a political and rhetorical agenda. His main intention of recasting his prison narrative, therefore, is to manipulate the readers' perception and beliefs towards his claims and arguments in these memoirs. The study reveals that, in his manipulation of the narrative paradigm in the recast version, Ngũgĩ has changed the title of his prison narrative, expunged some sections/chapters and rephrased or deleted some paragraphs and sentences to advance his anti-imperialist ideas and political agenda. The study concludes that Ngũgĩ's manipulation of the narrative paradigm advances his anti-imperialist ideology and anti-dictatorship agenda. However, it works against his rhetorical intention of advancing his political agenda since it compromises his ethos and evokes the reader's mistrust of some of his claims in the text. The study recommends that this kind of criticism should be extended to other revised autobiographical writings to establish their writers' rhetorical intentions of recasting their works.
