Wedding at the Cross Notes
Ngugi's Life and Works
Early Life and Education
Ngugi became president of Kenya.
Imprisonment and Activism
When Ngugi was released from prison, he was refused employment as a professor and eventually reimprisoned.
His time in confinement led to his being declared a Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International.
In 1978, an open letter calling for his release was published, signed by many Western authors.
Literary Works and Themes
While in prison, Ngugi composed the first full-length novel written in Kikuyu, Devil on the Cross (1980), using prison toilet paper as stationery.
Ngugi critiques the tensions between official Christianity and popular religion, adding depth to his portrayal of postcolonial African society.
Wedding at the Cross
Story Overview
The story depicts a family: a timber merchant, his obedient wife Miriamu. They were seen as a shining example of cooperation between man and wife united in love and devotion.
Character Descriptions
Wariuki is described as tall, correct, and wealthy, while his wife is small, quiet, unobtrusive, and a diminishing shadow beside her husband.
Wariuki's Transformation and Early Life
Early Struggles
Wariuki was once without a cent. He was then only a milk clerk.
Public Persona
He rode his Raleigh Bicycle around, yodeling in imitation of Jim Reeves.
He would stand on the bicycle, stretched about to fly. He decorated in red, green, and blue with several home-manufactured reflectors and with a warning scrawled on a signboard: “Overtake Me, Graveyard Ahead.”
He mimicked his white bosses, even those Africans who sought favors from the white workers were not spared.
He varied his acts with dancing. His left trouser leg was deliberately split along the seams an inch above the knee, always attracting approving eyes and sighs from many in the crowd.
Miriamu's Admiration
Miriamu would go to the square where she would eagerly join the host of worshippers, then rise and fall with his triumphs and narrow escapes, or simply pound in rhythm with his dancing hips.
Miriamu's Family and Their Objections
Family Status
Miriamu's family was better off than most squatters in the Rift Valley.
Her father, Douglas Jones, owned several groceries and tea-rooms around the town.
They said their prayers first thing in the morning, last thing in the evening, and before every meal. The church on Sundays.
They were looked on with favor by the white farmers around; the District Offices would often stop by for a casual greeting.
Objections to the Marriage
The family objected to their daughter marrying into sin, misery, and poverty.
They told her not to attend those heathen Sunday scenes of idleness and idol worship.
Miriamu's Aspirations
Miriamu had an independent spirit, schooled into inactivity by Sunday sermons and a proper upbringing with rules straight out of the Rt. Reverend Clive Schomberg's classic: British Manners for Africans.
Wariuki with his Raleigh bicycle, his milkman's tunes, his baggy trousers and dance which gave freedom to the body, was the light that beckoned her from the sterile world of Douglas Jones to a neon-lit city in a far-off land.
Douglas Jones's Intervention
Confrontation
Douglas Jones summoned Wariuki, wanting to find the source of the young man's wealth.
He and his counselors, seated in judgement, offered Wariuki tea while being condescending.
Interrogation
Douglas Jones questioned Wariuki's profession (milk clerk) and salary (thirty shillings a month).
He emphasized that true wealth came from the Lord.
Douglas questioned why Wariuki wanted to marry, mentioning that maintaining a wife costs money.
Douglas Jones insisted the wedding take place at the cross with a church wedding.
He asked to see Wariuki's savings account.
Wariuki's Discomfort
Wariuki was crushed because he did not know how to act away from his usual environment.
Douglas Jones spoke of not signing his daughter to a life of misery and drudgery.
Miriamu's Life After Marriage
Daily Life
Miriamu worked hard and enjoyed the touch of the soil, often bringing her husband food in a shamba.
She would look out for his welfare and conversation with the workers.
Observations
Living among the squatters, she saw the suffering and envy of the idle and the poor for the rich, and she felt ashamed of their ways.
Involvement with The Religion of Sorrow
They gradually let her into their secrets. They called themselves The Religion of Sorrow because they believed that Christ suffered and died for the poor.
Miriamu would attend some of their weekly meetings.
The Religion of Sorrow
Practices
A strange band of men and women sang songs, used guitars, jingles and tambourines, producing a throbbing rhythm.
They would dance with happiness, waving their hands in the air, their faces radiating warmth and innocence, until they reached a state of possession and heightened awareness.
They would speak in tongues strange and beautiful.
Impact on Miriamu
Their emphasis upon labor and faith impressed Miriamu.
Some dormant wings would beat with power inside her. She would go home trembling in expectation and felt sure that together they could rescue something from a shattered past.
Livingstone's Return and Miriamu's Disillusionment
Livingstone's Status
When Livingstone came back from his tours, he was still Dodge W. Livingstone, Jr., senior church elder, and a prosperous farmer and timber merchant.
Miriamu's Role
Miriamu became the model wife again, listening to her husband as he talked business and arithmetic for the day.
Public Image
On Sunday, man and wife would go to church as usual.
Everyone said in admiration and respect: he, the successful farmer and timber merchant; and she, the obedient wife who did her duty to God and husband.
Douglas Jones's Invitation and Livingstone's Reaction
The Invitation
One day, Livingstone came home early, excited about an invitation from Douglas Jones to visit them at Molo.
He knelt down and praised the Lord.
Livingstone's Transformation
Livingstone had aged, with wrinkles around his mouth and eyes, and black hair covering his head.
Livingstone fell on his knees and was drowned in tears and prayers.
Aftermath of the Interview
Livingstone, after the initial interview, found that the memory rankled a little, and he was angry with Jones.
He wanted to wipe the earlier humiliation from his memory forever.
He trembled and tasted the hand of God, knowing the answer.
He had a long intimate conversation with Douglas Jones after the war and then made the proposal, Jones immediately consenting at the cross.
Miriamu's Resistance and the Wedding Plans
Miriamu's Disagreement
Miriamu could not see any sense in the scheme.
A proper wedding at the cross of Jesus would make their lives complete.
Overcoming Resistance
Her resistance was broken, with them all praising the Lord.
Preparations
The few weeks before the eventful day were the happiest in the life of Livingstone which erased unsettling memories of yesterday.
Cars and buses were lined up. He dragged Miriamu to Nairobi to buy her a snow-white long-sleeved satin gown.
Wariuki's Post-Wedding Life
New Job
After the wedding, Wariuki ran away and got a job with Ciana Merchants. He could not stand the doses of his Indian employers.
Wariuki lived in a shack.
Life at Ciana Merchants
He sang with the movement of the sauce.
Wariuki lightened his heart, he did not mind the falling saw-dust. The sense of power as he stands on top of the kit, he would experience a malicious power as he cut through a long cleared woods and forests more dense than before.
Relationship with Miriamu
Miriamu would hear his voice rising above the whispering or uproarious wind and her heart rose and fell with him. This dear bond was so different from the mournful church hymns.
On Saturdays and Sundays, he took her to dances in the wood.
On their way home from the dances and the songs, they would look for a suitable spot on the ground to make love. For Miriamu these were nights of happiness and wonder.
It seemed to him a miracle that he had secured the affections of a girl from that class.
Reflections on the Past
He was never the old Wariuki.
Often he would go over his life beginning with his work picking pyrethrum flowers for others under a scorching sun or icy cold winds in Limuru, to his recent job as a milk clerk in Molo his reminiscences would abruptly end with that interview with Douglas Jones and his counsellors.
He would never forget that interview: he was never to forget the cackling throaty laughter as Douglas Jones and his friends tried to diminish his manhood and selfworth in front of Miriamu and her mother.
Wariuki's Decline and Disappearance
Deterioration
A restless note crept into his singing and he tore through the air with the same greedy malice.
Abandonment
He gave up his job with the Ciana Merchants and took Miriamu all the way to Limuru.
He dumped Miriamu with his aged mother and he disappeared from their lives.
Rumors
They heard of him in Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru, Kisumu and even Kampala.
Miriamu's Continued Struggles
Waiting and Consolation
Miriamu waited and was consoled by her mother-in-law.
Obsession
Miriamu had one obsession: to erase the memory of that interview and the ghost of those contemptuous eyes.
Reflections on Colonialism
He wanted to aid in slave to aid in the slave in Madagascar and not to think in what it meant for black people.
Fleeting Hope
Miriamu again detected a little flicker of the old seed planted.
Post-War Reality
Wariuki joined the crowd of the unemployed recently returned from the War.
No jobs-no money rewards: the good British and the wicked Germans were shaking hands with smiles.
Miriamu's Transformation and Stand
Return to Parents
Miriamu was helped on the way back to her parents.
Wedding Day
She inclined with a wad jacket, top hat and all, and as she was led towards the holy aisle, not even her fellow believers made her more silent by the singing outside.
Members of the Religion of Sorrows waited in a group among the crowd with their guitars, drums, and tambourines. The bridegroom as he passed gave them a sharp glance.
Miriamu now stood before the cross, her head was hidden in the white veil Her heart pounded.
She thought there were ten virgins when the bridegroom came. And five of them were wise-and five of them were foolish.
Livingstone answered with a clear and loud yes when asked if he would accept Miriamu as his wife until death do them part.
Final Stand
Miriamu looked at her father, and lifted the veil and addressed the audience with her eyes.
Miriamu shouted, "No, I cannot", because she has been married to Wariuki, and he is not dead.