Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want) is a controversial play that covers post-colonial themes of class struggle, poverty, gender, culture, religion, modernity vs. tradition, and marriage and family.
[2] Set in post-independence Kenya, the play is a searing look at the legacies of colonialism and the difficulties Kenyans faced at the time.
[3] Kiguunda's most highly prized possession is a 1+1⁄2-acre piece of land whose title deed he keeps carefully and often fingers gingerly and tenderly.
The family are expecting a rare visit from the wealthy farmer and businessman, Ahab Kĩoi wa Kanoru and his wife, Jezebel.
But on recalling that the Kĩois’ son, John Mũhũũni, has shown some amorous tendencies towards their daughter, they surmise that the purpose of the visit could be either to warn that the two don't see each other again, or to ask for Gathoni's hand in marriage.
When it occurs to the two that the purpose of the visit could be to ask for Gathoni's hand in marriage, they reminisce about the days of their youthfulness and courtship, teasing each other in the process.
When she gives out that her new look is due to the generous purse of John, the son of Kĩoi, her parents raise objections, brand her a whore, and order that she return them to his beau and be content with her lot.
He reneges in his commitment to the bank, and a series of adverse events culminate in mayhem, loss of his land to Kĩoi, and his wallowing in drunkenness.
The working class cannot survive for very much longer and by the end of the text prepares to mount another revolution -this time for economic parity, not independence.
They cannot conceive of her making choices in this respect, and perhaps more minor but equally important, are frustrated with her lack of manners and work ethic.
The play is slightly more sympathetic to the parents (and, by extension, tradition) by not giving Gathoni many words or thoughts of her own outside of petulant ones.
Gĩcaamba pays lip service to the idea that gender equality must be an important component of their revolution and they must appreciate women's contributions.
Ngugi calls explicit attention to this earlier struggle, valorizing the achievements of the Mau Mau, celebrating their ethos and philosophy, and suggesting that his characters adopt the same principled unity to wage this battle against Kenyan elites and their foreign friends who have taken over their economy and opened the doors to Western values, systems, and philosophies.
The play is not explicitly anti-religion, but Gĩcaamba in particular lays out how the Kenyan churches often argued against independence and capitulated to Western influences.
He also spends a great deal of time explaining how religion is an opiate, is the "alcohol of the soul" because it encourages people to think not about their earthly struggles but about their future in heaven; this precludes criticism and uprising, and allows people like Kĩoi to flourish and fatten while the poor do their best to ignore their woes or conclude that they are God-given.
Ngũgĩ's project sought to create an indigenous Kenyan theater, which would liberate the theatrical process from what he held to be "the general bourgeois education system", by encouraging spontaneity and audience participation in the performances.
By concealing the struggles of the actors to achieve their sought-after form as embodiments of their characters, traditional theater, according to Ngũgĩ, actually causes people in the audience to "feel their inadequacies, their weaknesses and their incapacities in the face of reality; and their inability to do anything about the conditions governing their lives.
"[5] The play points an accusatory finger at church institutions that are complicit in facilitating the wedding arrangements and act only as a means for the oppressed workers to drown their sorrows, juxtaposing them with the local bars in which the characters spend their time.