Devil on the Cross

“Warĩĩnga was convinced that her appearance was the root cause of all her problems. Whenever she looked at herself in the mirror she thought herself very ugly. What she hated most was her blackness, so she would disfigure her body with skin-lightening creams like Ambi and Snowfire, forgetting the saying: That which is born black will never be white.”

In the beginning of the novel, Warĩĩnga demonstrates high amounts of insecurity about her physical appearance, linking her attractiveness to her own skin color. However, the narrative makes the argument instead that those opinions stem from internalized imperialism, rather than any objective observation, thematically supporting The Legacy of Colonialism.

“These countries are finding it difficult to stave off poverty for the simple reason that they have taken it upon themselves to learn how to run their economies from American experts. So they have been taught the principle and system of self-interest and have been told to forget the ancient songs that glorify the notion of collective good.”

The young man who saves Warĩĩnga’s life has strong opinions about the economic situation of post-colonial Kenya. These lines foreshadow the eventual reveal that this young man has much more to do with the Devil’s Feast than initially implied.

“Mwaũra was one of those who worshipped at the shrine of the god of money. He used to say that there was no universe he would not visit, no river that he would not cross, no mountain that he would not climb, no crime that he would not commit in loyal obedience to the molten god of money.”

Mwaũra is the driver who drives most of the major cast of the novel to Ilmorog for the Devil’s Feast. In this passage, Mwaũra is characterized as a selfish and greedy man, but the full extent of his involvement with crime, death, and robbery is not revealed until later. By linking Mwaũra with the worship of money, the novel implies that the worship of money is similar to worshipping the Devil.

“Therefore there are two hearts: the heart built by the clan of parasites, the evil heart; and the heart built by the clan of producers, the good heart.”

Here, Mũturi provides the simplest explanation for his worldview. To Mũturi, capitalists are parasites who siphon off the profits from the people who actually produce the goods, reflecting the theme of Exploitation and Theft Under Capitalism. However, this is placed into a Christian framework of good versus evil, as Mũturi is shown to be the biggest moralist of the group.

“Gatuĩria paused again. Gatuĩria spoke Gĩkũyũ like many educated people in Kenya—people who stutter like babies when speaking their national languages but conduct fluent conversations in foreign languages. The only difference was that Gatuĩria was at least aware that the slavery of language is the slavery of the mind and nothing to be proud of.”

Paradoxically, the characters with more education in Devil on the Cross speak their Indigenous languages with less fluency than characters with less education. Because the education system is designed for Western values, it does not necessarily reflect the learning that’s best for the working people of Kenya, feeding into the toxicity of The Legacy of Colonialism.

“A child without parents to counsel him—what is to prevent him from mistaking foreign shit for a delicious national dish?”

When Westerners force post-colonial countries to adopt their culture, they are also eliminating knowledge of that culture from the Indigenous people of the colonized country. Without that culture, knowledge could be forever lost, replaced, as shown here, with an inferior, foreign version.

“There is no difference between old and modern stories. Stories are stories. All stories are old. All stories are new. All stories belong to tomorrow. And stories are not about ogres or about animals or about men. All stories are about human beings.”

In this passage, the novel is exploring the relative use of old versus contemporary stories. The distinction here is collapsed, as the purpose of all stories is said to be the same: the exploration of what it means to be human. However, the simplicity of this exploration conflicts with the dehumanization that occurs as a result of colonization.

“He had a well-fed body: his cheeks were round, like two melons; his eyes were big and red, like two plums; and his neck was huge, like the stem of a baobab tree. His stomach was only slightly larger than his neck. He had two gold teeth in his lower jaw, and, when talking, he opened his lips wide so that the gold teeth could be seen. He had on a silk suit which shone in the light, changing color according to the intensity of the light and the angle of the beam.”

As with most of the participants of the Devil’s Feast, the master of ceremonies is described in exaggerated, almost cartoonish terms. This is a frequent technique of the text, which uses exaggeration to make clear the excesses of the capitalist class.

“Every competitor will mount the platform, and he will tell us how he first came to steal and rob and where he has stolen and robbed, and then he will tell us briefly his thoughts on how to perfect our skills in theft and robbery. But even more important, he must show us how we can develop the partnership between us and foreigners so that we can hasten our ascent into the heaven of foreign commodities and other delights. You, the listeners, will act as the judges, so you must clap each speaker to show how inspired you have been by his account of his earthly wiles.”

In just the instructions for the competition, the master of ceremonies is positioning theft and robbery in religious terms, saying that the competitors will guarantee their entrance into heaven. However, this statement is also paradoxical, as the competition is explicitly hosted by the Devil, showing how in a capitalist system, even the rich can be tricked into thinking their actions are for the greater good.

“What we want to do is to choose seven disciples. They will become the representatives of our representatives, thieves to teach other thieves, robbers to teach other robbers, experts to teach other experts, because, as the master of ceremonies was telling me, as we sat together at that table, you have a saying that there are iron tools that can bore through iron itself.”

The purpose of the Devil’s Feast is explicitly to choose representatives of foreign interests among the Kenyans, who will guide the country in the direction that the foreigners see fit. This is a clear reflection of what happened after the fall of British rule in Kenya, in which the country’s independence continued to be affected by the money of non-Kenyans.

“On their heads they wore hats like crowns. Each crown was decorated with seven metal objects shaped like horns, which gleamed so brightly that they almost blinded the eyes. All the crowns looked alike, but the leader’s was a little larger than the others. The tips of the horns were twisted into the initial of the country that each delegate came from.”

The devilish nature of the proceedings is evident even from the crowns worn by the participants, which are clearly modeled on the popular Christian conception of the crown of Satan. The number of foreign judges, too, is modeled on this popular conception, reflecting the notion of the Seven Princes of Hell.

“What I’m saying is that it doesn’t really matter if the Devil actually exists or if he’s merely a certain image of the world.”

Despite the exaggerated and magical realist elements of the Devil’s Feast, the narrative makes it clear that the Devil is not literally in attendance, but rather that the invitations were created by student groups opposed to the competition. By not accepting the literal reality of the Devil, the narrative here places the ethical responsibility on the participants, who have made the choice to behave immorally toward their workers.

“[M]y heart was always with the workers on his tea plantations. They were the ones who sang beautiful songs to me, who told me exciting stories, who often played their guitars or their bamboo flutes for me…I would look at the shanties they lived in, the food they ate, the rags they wore, and when I contrasted that poverty with the richness of their songs and the breadth of their knowledge, I would be seized with a deep hatred for my father. Weren’t the workers people like ourselves? Sometimes my father would whip them, and abuse them, and call them dumb cows.”

The ability to exploit workers here is linked to the rhetoric of dehumanization. If the workers are seen more like farm animals than human beings, treating them without respect and exploiting them becomes much easier to psychologically justify, which the text makes explicit through the rhetoric of the rich.

“Sometimes they would go to the Hot Springs, ostensibly to hunt animals, though they had no hunting license. But instead of hunting animals, they would play a game called the Hunter and the Hunted. The Hunter would take the pistol to chase the Hunted until the Hunted was worn out and exhausted, whereupon the Hunter would catch the Hunted and fire into the sky to announce his victory.

It was the Rich Old Man who normally chased Warĩĩnga through the trees, holding a pistol in his right hand.”

A common rhetorical technique of Devil on the Cross is to literalize a concept that typically is metaphorical. Here, the rhetorical technique refers to exploitation as “predator versus prey” becomes literalized, as the Rich Old Man likes to pretend to hunt his young girlfriend as if she is an animal in the forest, implying his lack of understanding of her humanity.

“I, Mwĩreri wa Mũkiraaĩ, believe only in the first kind of theft and robbery: that is, the theft and robbery of nationals of a given country, who steal from their own people and consume the plunder right there, in the country itself. But to the second kind—the theft of foreign thieves and robbers who come to our country and build lairs here, helped by some of us—I say no, hapana, a thousand times, no!”

The exploitation of the foreigners is contrasted here with the exploitation by Mwĩreri wa Mũkiraaĩ. Though Mwĩreri wa Mũkiraaĩ does not want foreign influence in Kenya, he still agrees with the exploitation of the workers, demonstrating the internalization of the lessons learned from the parasitic rich Westerners.

“Gatuĩria held Warĩĩnga’s hand. He still felt as if he were in a dream. Warĩĩnga squeezed his hand. They sat in silence, both engrossed in their own thoughts, but each feeling that were he or she to let go of the other’s hand, they would both drown in the darkness of the cave.”

The only way that, in this novel, good people can survive the degradations of capitalism is to rely on each other. This reinforces a major message of the novel: how change can only come from solidarity and relying on the morality of others.

“People, think about that vision! Every rich man could have two mouths, two bellies, two cocks, two hearts—and hence two lives! Our money would buy us immortality! We would leave death to the poor! Ha! ha! ha!”

The absolute privilege of the capitalist class in the cave is lent a certain ridiculous literalism. One of the only things in life that money can’t buy is a second body and another chance at living; by proposing the capability of the rich to purchase another body, the novel showcases the ridiculousness of using money to solve all of life’s problems.

“Warĩĩnga: I don’t believe it. I don’t believe anything. Why are you distressing me with stories that will keep me awake when I need a good sleep above all? I’ve hardly slept at all the last four nights.”

Unlike the competitors in the cave, Warĩĩnga rejects the influence of the Devil when he speaks to her. As a result, she is able to change as a person, becoming more self-assured and confident in her own abilities, unlike those in the cave who remain static as characters.

“We who work as clerks, copy typists and secretaries, which side are we on? We who type and take dictation from Boss Kĩhara and his kind, whose side are we on in this dance? Are we on the side of the workers, or on the side of the rich? Who are we? Who are we?”

This passage showcases Warĩĩnga’s thoughts as she witnesses a large crowd of workers reject the competition and kick out the competitors from their homes. Here, Warĩĩnga recognizes that solidarity can only come from collective action, recognizing similarities to others rather than differences.

“Mũturi gave Warĩĩnga the gun and turned away. Warĩĩnga felt a strange sensation come over her. Her heart trembled. Then she felt courage course through her whole body. She thought that there was not a single danger in the world that she could not now look in the face. All her doubts and fears had been expelled by the secret with which Mũturi had entrusted her.”

Warĩĩnga receiving the gun represents an important moment in her character arc. For Warĩĩnga, the gun represents a personal power that she had previously lacked, leading to her exploitation by powerful men. The gun, by contrast, gives her back the power that was taken from her, which thematically includes The Treatment of Women in the Workforce.

“Her hair is long and black and soft. What did I tell you? The present Warĩĩnga stopped singeing her hair with hot iron combs long ago. There, now she is tying a scarf over her hair. She puts on her blue weather-beaten jeans and a khaki shirt. Look at her! Her clothes fit her so perfectly, it’s as if she was created in them.”

Following her experiences in Ilmorog, Warĩĩnga transforms into a much more confident and self-assured woman. The Devil’s Feast demonstrates the ways in which she had internalized the judgments of her post-colonial society, and rejecting those judgments is the way in which she’s able to achieve a kind of happiness.

“In his heart of hearts, Gatuĩria has always felt ashamed of his parents because of the way they cover themselves in the robes of foreign customs at all times, equating European culture with the culture of God. Even now Gatuĩria is not quite sure how his parents will receive Warĩĩnga tomorrow, especially when they learn that she has had a child by another man.”

Unlike Warĩĩnga, Gatuĩria still struggles with the competing forces of social pressure and solidarity with the workers, due to his own past. This struggle becomes more present at the end of the novel when Gatuĩria becomes unable to choose between his own abusive, exploitative father and Warĩĩnga.

“‘Earthly life is a passing cloud,’ Gatuĩria replied. ‘If we overturned now, I’d be very happy, for if you stood at the gates of Heaven dressed as you are, the angel who keeps the keys would rush to open the gates wide. And as you entered, I, the sinner, would get a chance to enter Heaven too and live forever with you and the Lord.’

‘This Earth is my home. I am not passing through. So drive carefully because I’m no longer in such a hurry to get to Heaven.’”

This passage of dialogue showcases the still-present distance between the couple’s worldviews. While Gatuĩria is still framing the struggle in terms of Heaven versus Hell, as did the competitors in the cave, Warĩĩnga rejects this, understanding that living conditions on Earth are of paramount importance.