DEVIL ON THE CROSS

Post-independence Dilemma in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Devil on the Cross

When changes happen in society, the question comes to mind whether they are integral to progress. In the process of making them, there are several social institutions at stake. They are the recipients of its immediate downturn and the visible manifestations of its fruition. When revolution therefore broke out in African countries to install an indigenous system of governance, the backlash took a toll that rippled across generations. This backdrop is the microcosm depicted in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Devil on the Cross.

Devil on the Cross is a seminal novel about the haze of independence in Kenya. It follows the agonising experience of Wariinga, the protagonist who faces a debilitating challenge of job hunting in Nairobi. As of this time, the country has just begun its train under the indigenous administration of Kenyans themselves. In the wave of ineptitude commingled with sexual politics, the careerist politicians make the new Kenya unlivable for Wariinga. Economic hardship is another bane. Love is an affliction too. Altogether, the Wariingas of new Kenya are trapped in these three human struggles. She resolves to return to Ilmorog, her hinterland. En route, she is invited to a feast with the Devil. The journey on the bus is so instrumental in revealing the mind of the characters who share their plight with one another. In the end, Wariinga attends the party. She finds love too, but upon discovering that her father-in-law is the savage rich man who got her once pregnant and left her to suffer obnoxiously, she shoots him dead. The novel at this point leads to the end.

Ngugi’s narrative landscape in this ingenious novel lays bare the layers of suffering of the masses in the event of Kenya’s self-governance. Wariinga is a compelling character whose image manifests a gamut of agony in a failed system. One could infer that this sedulous work is a prognosis of the consequence of obsession with power – as a human deficiency and not a racial shortcoming. We cannot dispute the destructiveness of power with underdevelopment. In the case of Kenya’s Nairobi, it is human and capital underdevelopment; the squander mania of resources. All this points to the lack of vision in political careerism. As a result, the transition from colonial rule to independence creates for the people an unspeakable tribulation boasting its scourge with the institution of elitist economy.

Perhaps the most enchanting signification in Devil on the Cross is the imagery of the title itself. Past the metaphor of the installation of brutality, it is a mordant criticism of the ideologies of succession. While the words ‘Devil’ and ‘Cross’ allude directly to Christianity, they are independently expressive of the nature of Kenya’s (and Africa at large) political establishment. It depicts the fatal error that will infinitely affect the destiny of every creature and their future, no matter the structural adjustment of another revolution. And more concerning is the relevance of this 60’s novel to the continuing issues of political disenchantment still being experienced in every corridor of Africa’s rulership.

Brilliant enough is the gender play at issue in the text. For one, wa Thiong’o uses Wariinga’s vulnerability to depict the comprehensive predicament of the masses (and this appeals to the reader’s imagination in several modules of deduction). The reader is compelled to associate her experience with the depth of existential failure. For Wariinga, Nairobi is a portrait of predators; the rich use their influence and affluence to sabotage the opportunities of equality for women. But in a broader scope, this highlight is the easily unnoticeable contraption with gender struggles. That is, while it is believed that Nairobi does not offer economic security, it is more perilous for the woman.

Pointedly, Devil on the Cross examines the changed narrative of women’s importance in a sustainable economy in Africa. The reading of this significant work brings history back to the reader’s consciousness. And that offers the evaluation that in every part of Africa, women had always held an indisputably important position in the transformative engagements of commerce. Kenya’s Nairobi was no exception. It was impossible to sideline the roles women played in the propagation of the trading spirit, a larger implication of which is the economic colouration of the continent.

It is therefore a deployment of irony (a compelling device for that matter) that the woman is subjected to the caprice of masculinist superiority. This is a powerful historicist’s highlight that underlies Ngugi’s narrative. It is therefore not a scenario of vying for women’s empowerment but an experiential trajectory of how Kenya’s economic buoyancy could be said to have once flourished on the woman’s immense contribution. Does this then posit that political prosperity in modern society is a hack on the economic ebullience of agrarian Africa? Should we conclude that it takes a proportionate destruction of that integrity of traditional society to build for the profiteers a thriving club of elitism? No doubt, the novel raises several questions to be discovered. Or several thoughts to ponder about the indigenous ineptitude that succeeded colonial exploitation. All this is projected through the lens of an unforgettable character.

Ngugi also uses this novel to portray the naturalist’s ideology. That an organism is affected by heredity and environment. The latter is more obvious in Devil on the Cross. The reign of thieves and robbers in the emerging Nairobi renders society precarious. It poses an overreaching difficulty in adapting and ultimately surviving. The recent changes that have now toppled the years ripples for the futility of having ambitions at all. But to be more specific, this transition comes with an elusive dream. It is very much impossible to aim for the privileges of white collar jobs as it is futile to operate commercial activities of artisanship.

There probably would not be a more fascinating prospect of a delectable reading exercise of Devil on the Cross besides the unique deployment of language. The metaphors lead on to dimensions of interpretation. This altogether makes the novel a vivid and fresh imagination of the defunct Nairobi, Kenya and Africa as a whole. The techniques to be discovered in the association process are also carefully employed to give an unforgettable experience of literature. The use of dreams, flashbacks, etc., etc. becomes a selling point of infinite relevance. And as Maya Angelou rightly posits, no reader will forget how Ngugi makes them feel about Africa upon reading Devil on the Cross. Indeed, they sight the cross and ponder the fate of the great but indescribably affected continent.

Kehinde Folorunsho

Kehinde Folorunsho is a literary critic and a lover of African poetry. He was shortlisted for the Gbemisola Adeoti Poetry Prize, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife. He is very much interested in the structure of African poetry and the elements of its orality  which is what informs his study of the works produced by pioneer writers of African poetry.