Wam Literature

The play Inheritance has involved various aspects of English literature styles in order to create a very compelling work of art. Normally, plays are divided into Acts; however, the playwright chose to use movement instead of acts. Movement shows motion, a change in position from one point to another, a transition. In this regard, David Mulwa tries to weave a transitional play; a play that doesn’t occur in acts but moves from one place to another or time to another. The play starts off (in the prologue) in colonial Kutula led by colonial Governor Thorne Macay with the advisory board made up of Bishop Menninger. During this period, there is a lot of opposition fronted by the people who are led by the wise and beloved King Kutula XV. King Kutula seems adamant to reach an understanding in which his people will continue being slaves to their colonial masters even though they are politically independent. He refuses any form of independence fronted by Thorne in which the colonial master s...

Allegory is a style in which the writer or author mirrors what is happening in society with what happens in his work of art. Most often, allegory has been used to espouse the truth ignorant to the masses. In Inheritance, David Mulwa attempts to warn us about the dangers of voting in Uhuru Kenyatta. Nevertheless, a decade later, we voted in Uhuru Kenyatta and now we are reaping what we sowed.  The play Inheritance is the modern-day Allegory of the Cave. Written by Plato centuries ago, Allegory of the Cave explains why the opinion of the few with knowledge is unacknowledged especially at the time when there is a general consensus on what truth is. In this respect, the majority will acknowledge the general truth as opposed to the new truth espoused by the few. This is one of the reasons we make the wrong decisions.    The play Inheritance was first published in 2004- two years after Uhuru Kenyatta had lost two Mwai Kibaki in the 2002 elections. At the time, no one knew tha...