응구기의 『십자가의 악마』

Ngugi's Devil on the Cross: the language of the margin and the possibility of a new classic

The canon or the list of the world classics has been formed and disseminated primarily by the Western scholars and publishers. But their literary taste or criterion is so aesthetic or eurocentric that it is apt to exclude some major works of the third world's. Therefore the list of World Classics issued by the Western global publishers can be tainted by the cultural imperialism. The Western canon has served for promoting, distinguishing, separating, or artificially injecting the Western culture into the non-Western society. It accepts the humanistic and aesthetic English novels of Achebe, Soyinka, and Ngugi, while rejecting the anti-imperialist or anti-colonial works such as the Gikuyu novels of Ngugi. In this way it is excluding and marginalizing the formerly colonized people's cultural achievements. Devil on the Cross depicts the modern Kenya which has been dominated and exploited by the Kenyan neo-colonial power elite and their Western capitalist friends, both of whom are parodied in the novel as thieves and robbers, the true followers of Devil. Moreover, some part of the Bible is read reversely ; for example, Jesus' parable of Talents is interpreted as a lesson to criticise capitalists, while in the Western society it has been commonly read in the context spiritual salvation. For these reasons Devil on the Cross has been underestimated as an extremist and dogmatic novel, in spite of its unique narrative technology and its great insight into the Kenyan modern culture and society.'Decentralization' is the motto of Ngugi's political and cultural agenda. He defines the Western culture and the Kenyan neo-colonial ruling elite to have been 'the center' dominating the modern Kenya. He wants to rehabilitate the marginalized people and to restore the African national culture against the Western one. And that, he believes, will make the plural centers, not a single one in the world. For this purpose he begins to write the novel, on the one hand in the native Gikuyu language and on the other hand blending and contrasting the traditional with the modern; for example, kenya with the West, the past with the present, the Gikuyu orature with the novel, allegory with realism, Gicaandi player with Biblical prophet, etc. In this aesthetic strategy, he made devil on the Cross a new classic of the African novels, which is different from those of Achebe, Soyinke, and even Ngugi's earlier English novels. Devil on the Cross should be regarded as a canonical and classical novel of the African literature.