Devil on the Cross
Characterise wariinga according to novel devil on the Cross
Characterise wariinga
Characterise wariinga
Warĩĩnga is the protagonist of Devil on the Cross. As a young girl, Warĩĩnga hoped to become an engineer, but her involvement with the Rich Old Man from Ngorika caused her to get pregnant with a daughter, Wambũi. Warĩĩnga then dropped out of school, leaving her baby with her parents, in order to pursue secretarial work. When this does not work out due to the predatory behavior of her bosses, however, Warĩĩnga decides to return to her home of Ilmorog and see her parents. On the way, she encounters Robin Mwaũra, Mũturi, Wangarĩ, Gatuĩria, and Mwĩreri wa Mũkiraaĩ, whose tales of neocolonial Kenya shock her into realizing her solidarity with the peasants and workers of the world. She attends the Devil's Feast in Ilmorog, and then is visited by the Devil himself afterwards at a golf course. She constantly resists the temptation to give in to corruption and the exploitative nature of sugar relationships, however, and she grows greatly as a person after taking up with Gatuĩria. Once a victim who sought to end her life, by the end of the novel, Warĩĩnga has become a stereotype-dispelling mechanic who embraces her Blackness, her past, and her Marxist sensibilities. These sensibilities run so deep and so passionate that, when confronted with the truth that Gatuĩria's father is the Rich Old Man from Ngorika, she kills the Old Man and runs away, sacrificing her own comfort and marital bliss for her Marxist ideals and in the name of freeing Kenya from robbers and tycoons.