ORALITY AND NARRATIVE REVOLUTION IN NGUGI WA THIONG’O’S DEVIL ON THE CROSS

Abstract

Orality preserves the sociological and historical relevance of developing societies; especially in the Global South; as an instrument with which oral culture is handed over across generations. Concerted efforts are explored in literary discourses to ensure that orality as depicted by the exigency of storytelling in Africa evolves and still retains its traditional flavour in a technological world. While writers like Chinua Achebe and Ayi Kwei Armah revolutionize orality through the voice of the writer, Ngugi wa Thiongo’o adopts the Narrator through whom he expresses a reformed African oral culture. Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s novel, Devil on the Cross depicts a modernized orality that magnifies, embellishes and remodels the role of the traditional narrator, the major actor in the oral culture, who is a gicaandi player. Ngugi achieves this by conferring on the Narrator the aesthetic roles that resonate with and appeal to the sensibility of the younger generation. This ensures that the Agikuyu orality remains relevant in the modernist era. This work attempts to recognize that many other oral cultures are becoming extinct in the presentation of orality because it no longer fits into the technological age. Ngugi leverages on the role of the narrator to project a story on capitalism and brutality of the citizenry which reflect the postcolonial reality of the Kenyan people and by extension Africans; while remodeling the Agikuyu orality to retain its significance across all generations. Using textual analysis research approach, the paper introduces magical realism in the Agikuyu oral culture through the narrator to depict an important component of the spiritual worldview of Africans. Through a postcolonial prism, the paper also validates the supernatural elements as the legitimate depiction of African beliefs and practices in contemporary times.