Ngugi is one Africa’s greatest living writers. He was detained and imprisoned without trial between 31 December 1977 and 12 December 1978 in Kamiti Maximum Security Prison under the charge of having engaged in unspecified “activities and utterances… dangerous to the good Government of Kenya and its institutions. He decided not to write in English the colonial language but in Gikuyu his mother tongue. His writings are concerned with colonial times and the Mau Mau Uprisings in his nation Kenya.
From 1952- 1959 Kenya was put under a state emergency due to the Mau Mau rebellion against the British colonial rule. This movement had a great effect on the writings of Ngugi. He decides to write in his mother tongue to break the hierarchy of the English language. Ngugi as a novelist and artist emerged as an activist struggling against the government for economic liberation of his masses.
Ngugi Wa Thiong’ o wrote his Devil on Cross while he was in jail, thereby putting on record his severest criticism of the oppressive system that he was fighting against. Who can imagine the aesthetic power the writer has in those dark hours of life and to write such a great novel on the toilet issued papers.
Devil on the Cross was first written in Gikuyu and then translated by himself into English, the novel was published in 1980 in East Africa. Devil on the Cross is a powerful fictional critique of capitalism. Kenya has been presented as a nation of the capitalist system based on theft, corruption, and robbery where the masses are exploited and put to death. The novel is an apt example of what lies concealed by darkness and behind the curtains. The plot construction and the development of the novel are fantastic. The novel paints the society which is full of women exploitation, abuse, brutality, corruption, theft, robbery, and social injustices. It tells the tragic story of Wariinga, whose name means “Woman in chains” a young woman who moves from a rural Kenyan town to the capital, Nairobi, only to be exploited by her boss and later by a corrupt businessman. Her story and the struggle she faces is illustrative of post-colonial state, the story of Kenya’s proletariat, a story of victimization of filthy and sexist politics. She grows from a traditional local girl to become an auto mechanic and out spokeswoman of his nation.
The main part of the novel is concerned with speeches of the local and foreign exploiters who meet in Illmorg (a mythical place of all Africa) of Devil Feast organized on theft and robbery and to choose some experts in theft and robbery. At the feast, the explicators started speeches about the bravery of theft and robbery. All these exploiters were concerned with the wealth of poor to snatched, as every speaker says about how many cars he owns, how many wives, who may suggest girls and how much property they have. Warinnga’s life throughout the novel is very hard, she faces from the very beginning a lot of problems, she was worried about his shabby figure as mentioned in the novel “That which is born black will never be white” (Thiong’o 1980: 11) with the passage of time seemed very difficult for him “I suddenly felt my brain and heartburn with pain and my anger seemed to suffocate me” (p. 14).
She struggles very hard to find a job, whenever she gets some job she had been exploited by her bosses, getting a job was very difficult unless she surrenders herself completely before boss at the cost of her beauty, the corruption, abuse, and women exploitation in prevailing in Kenya as the narrator Waringa recounts: “Women’s thighs are the table on which contracts are signed” (p. 19). Her body was exploited to the extent of raped by her bosses and getting pregnant. Later when she discloses this to the man who had exploited and seduced her denies the charge against him and leaves her all alone. She tries to commit suicide a number of times in the novel. As she struggles to survive, Wariinga begins to realize that her problems are only symptoms of a larger societal malaise and that much of the misfortune stems from the Western, capitalist influences on her country.
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At the end, Warringa becomes a mechanic to start her job and carrier and live a free life where she will be boss of her own. Wariinga’ ordeal of sexual abuse and exploitation, show the patriarchy prevailing in Kenya and is an attempt to break down this patriarchy. But here also people started exploiting her but she was now a brave girl who can fight against the cruel system and capitalist and malaise society, where masse are reduced to mere creatures to be crawled and trodden. At the end, Wariinga commits for a new life, a life which is based on honor, respect, equality, and freedom. At the end of the novel she kills her first seducer as she says in last pages of the novel:
“You snatcher of other people’s lives, do you remember the game you and I used to play, the game of hunter and hunted. Did you imagine that a day might come when the hunter would become hunted? What is done can’t be undone… the man interrupted Wariinga…. My darling, my little fruit, my orange, my flower to brighten my old age! He went on, carried out by his words. He didn’t see Warringa take out the pistol. Look out at me! Wariinga commanded, with the voice of a judge…his words suddenly ceased. The people outside heard the shots.” (Thiong’o 1980: 253)
The novel shows the reaction, rebellion, and rejection which enabled him to resist his incarceration. Ngugi has presented himself not as an individual but as a writer as an essential component of the society a voice to the voiceless.
The novel allows one to understand and to fight against neo-colonialism and capitalism. The Marxist influence in the novel, the class struggle between the poor and rich. The capitalist who always destroys poor as Wariinga is a poor girl who was throughout the novel the victim in the hands of bosses. Ngugi was deeply engulfed in the Mau Mau Uprising of Kenya. From his all writings his Marxist beliefs and clear representation of Marxism are obvious. But through the character of Wariinga, her exploitation several times are crystal clear representations of Capitalism and commoditization in Kenyan society, as Ngugi believes in a classless society.
Marxist novel-like this and his other writings have made Ngugi as the subject of much discussion in the world academia. He gained much popularity with his powerful critique of writings; it proves the fact whenever an artist is incarcerated to speak against the capitalism, oppressive regimes and for the betterment of common masses. His/her talent seemed to block by the government to remain silent in the dark and solitary cells of the prison. But how can they put the locks on their imagination, soul, and power to create more distinguish arts like poetry, dramas, novels etc? The novel is thronged with the themes of resistance at political, social, linguistic, cultural or philosophic levels embedded in the aesthetic structures.
Along with Marxist perspective and critique of capitalism; the novel can be aligned and interpreted with from materialist feminist perspective. Ngugi not only speaks of the post-colonial state of Kenya but more of neo-colonial state, regardless of the independence of Kenya, the colonization is still prevalent in Kenyan society. Mentally, politically, economically, socially colonization is still in society, to decolonize the mind seems very crucial to Ngugi. Devil on the Cross is embedded with conflicts and effects of colonization and neo-colonization, without which text cannot be interpreted at all.
Ngugi prison writings proved the fact that the aesthetic the writers have is much higher than the reach of one image. These great prison bards prefer to die but not to remain silent. Prison literature begins with Boethius is now one of the great genres in literature. There is no denying the fact that this African writer is a great prison writer indeed. The novel is an excellent piece of art produced by its author in the narrow chambers of prison, and powerful fictional critique of capitalism, a cry for Kenya of free dictatorship, and fight against the neo-colonial stage of imperialism. The novel bears a profound influence, and effect on African Postcolonial literature.
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