Devil on the Cross was written by Ngugi while he was imprisoned. He was held without trail by a government that tried to silence him. The out come was a book that was "One of the century's greatest novels" by the Tribune. In the following passages I plan to explain the meaning of four characters that are affected by capital class.
The speaker of the passage "She sat down on a box…" is the gorgeous protagonist; Jacinta Wariinga. Jacinta Wariinga is a young beautiful black woman who easily stops "men in their tracks." She is like Thanksgiving dinner, a feast for the eyes. Jacinta moves with grace when she is without self-conscious. Underneath all her beauty, she is a suicidal person who hates her blackness. Jacinta truly hates her …show more content…

The speaker of the passage "The human heart…" is none other than Muturi or Nugui speaking to us himself. Muturi or Nugugi believe in oral tradition. That by telling a story one learns from it. Just as "heart makes man," oral tradition smoothes out the rough edges one has. Oral tradition leads to the shaping of our great grand kids. "The [heart] co-operates with all the other organs of the body," unlike the upper class that only tend to work with themselves, the middle and lower classes work together like the heart. By the middle and lower classes working together their heart is shaped with courage and love. Anything from the heart is authentic; language, art and symbolism. All language is a symbol of humans, which in the end becomes unique to oneself. The heart stands for; courage, love, life, empathy, spirit etc which shape the heart. Also, "humanity [which] we fashion with our hands, aided by our eyes…" is the other part of the heart. From the image we convey a meaning. That meaning is transformed into a symbol, which is then express in oral tradition. Just like the heart which "pumps blood into the arteries and veins," oral tradition is spread everywhere. Cultural imperialism tries to stop oral tradition, but it fails to succeed because the heart is shaped to endure such road blocks. "By indirections we find directions out" a quote from Hamlet by Polonius