Clothing (Symbol)
Throughout the novel, clothing becomes an stand-in for how one responds to the threat of national opposition by foreign colonizers, as well as a symbol of one's corruption by these colonizers' ideals. Mũturi, for example, dresses in overalls, a symbol of his higher loyalty to the working people's cause. Wangarĩ dresses in Kitenge, a symbol of her Mau Mau roots and ongoing love for the local customs and culture of Kenya. Mwĩreri wa Mũkiraaĩ, like many others, is dressed in a Western suit that indicates his loyalty to the causes of corruption and money. Warĩĩnga begins the novel dressed in imitation of others, trying to meet foreign trends in a way that does not fit her body, but by the novel's end, she shines by wearing national dress to the engagement party at Gatuĩria's parent's home. This, however, is also a notable act of resistance directed towards the social standards propagated by tycoons and thugs that support the neocolonial regime (like Gatuĩria's father).
The Cross (Symbol)
The cross, the instrument on which the Devil is executed and from which he is afterwards spared, is an intensely symbolic image corresponding to the deficient and faulty procedure of decolonization towards self-rule and autonomy. While workers might think they have gained opportunity by taking bold and revolutionary action, the Devil resurges—as did Christ, according by Christian religious philosophy—by finding incarnation in the structures of neoimperialism and neocolonialism. Moreover, the way in the Devil both exits and comes back to the world is dependent here on the Christian symbol of the cross—an indictment of the role that religion can play in upholding both white supremacist ideologies and a social caste system based on wealth and its alleged correlation with holiness.
The Parable of the Talents (Allegory)
The Parable of the Talents recurs heavily throughout Devil on the Cross. In the context of the novel, it is often told by those who align with capitalist or neocolonial ways of thinking, and it seems to convey the message that those who are entitled and wealthy are to be enriched even more by God's will. In this regard, the Parable seems to be a direct allegory for the real conditions of Kenyans after Mau Mau—those who worship at the feet of foreign lords are enriched even more, while those who call out the truth are chastised and dispensed with. Alternatively, one could see the Parable as a lesson in how society goes wrong: the third servant ought not to be chastised, and perhaps if the other two servants had aligned with him, they could have withstood the impositions of their cruel, foreign master. Here, as in the Bible, the ultimate message is unclear. Ultimately, however, Ngũgĩ uses the Parable so prevalently in his text to show the ways in which religion can be used to justify the subjugation of those who stand up for what is fair.
Kĩmeendeeri wa Kanyuanjii's Plan (Allegory)
Late in the novel, the plan of Kĩmeendeeri wa Kanyuanjii is related to Warĩĩnga by the voice of Satan. He tells her about this plan, to have a farm where blood, sweat, and brains are drained from workers and sold at a premium around the world using pipelines, and Warĩĩnga is incredulous. She fails to understand how Kĩmeendeeri wa Kanyuanjii could possible keep people in a deluded enough state to have their lives stolen from them, and she also questions whether people could actually be so cruel as to feast on the blood and bodies of other human beings. Satan makes clear to Warĩĩnga, however, that this plan is more allegorical and real than she could ever think: Kĩmeendeeri wa Kanyuanjii will delude people, as the current tycoons do, through both religion and educational systems designed to hide the truth and possibility of revolution from the workers. He will devise entertainment for the workers that makes wealth appear glamorous and distracts them from their plight. As for the consumption of human blood and flesh, Satan mentions that this is in fact a sacrament of Catholicism, meant to train people to be as selfish and cannibalistic as possible in their own quests for self-salvation. In sum, what Ngũgĩ does through the plan of Kĩmeendeeri wa Kanyuanjii is lay out an arresting allegory for modern conditions that are more desperate and horrible than we have perhaps ever noticed. This allegory, like the whole of the text, is then meant to awaken us, as it does Warĩĩnga, into the eventuality of revolutionary thought and action.
Music and Song (Motif)
Music and song are prevalent throughout the novel, often intervening in and being interwoven with the prose content of the novel. This calls our attention to the tradition of oral recitation in Gĩkũyũ storytelling, as well as how closely related this tradition is to the companion arts of dance, song, and poetry. At the same time, through Gatuĩria's plan to write a "song of Kenya," we see the ways in which music and song can also contain history, telling the truths of a specific person, group, or country through authentic emotion and direct language. Compare the music Gatuĩria ultimately composes with, for example, with the music heard by Warĩĩnga when she attempts suicide, as well as the Congolese music heard at the Devil's Feast (an intermediary between foreign and local music that aligns with the race/class treachery of those present).
