English > Comparing the “animal stories” Ngugi wa Thiong’o heard as a child with Rodriguez’s childhood experience of silence.

The animal stories from Decolonizing the Mind were very similar to Rodriguez’s childhood experience of silence. The animals were being very small and weak and the children associated with the animal characters. The struggles of the animals reflected real-life struggles in the human world. Rodriguez was also struggling in his childhood by not believing himself that he belongs in the American society and that he has the right to speak the public language.

The two stories are also similar based on public and private space. In Decolonizing the Mind private space was when Ngugi worked in the fields and heard stories about animals who struggled against predators. In Aria we hear stories from Rodriguez how he was suffering as a child because he couldn’t express himself in public and he could only speak Spanish with his family at home in the private space.

In Decolonizing the Mind the animals did not speak, they were silent and the children felt related to these characters. In this story Ngugi describes that intelligent African people educated only in English which is a split between the mind and the body of Africa. Before colonization the children could only speak Gikuyu and they had to work in the fields therefore they could only feel connection with silence animals who are struggling in life because they have no access to real knowledge. In Aria, Rodriguez tells how he was struggling as a child by not be able to speak the public language and he choose to be silent in public because he didn’t believe that he is part of the American society.