The Use of Dialogue to Reveal Truth in Ngugi’s Devil on the Cross Anonymous College

Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Devil on the Cross uses oral storytelling and dialogue to illustrate the ideas that underlie the plot of the novel, making statements about the colonization and decolonization of Kenya. Kenya’s capitalism and corruption caused by the onset of capitalism are analyzed from many contrasting points of views through the use of conversation between many characters. Focus on the bus scenes, involving the five contrasting main characters, shows conversation is used in the novel to illustrate the various types of morality present in Kenya and to develop arguments for multiple philosophical viewpoints. Dialogue is used to realistically explore character’s backgrounds in a way that mimics real life.

Ngugi’s uses dialogue as a realist method to illustrate the characters’ background, as there are no omniscient narrators in real life. Dialogue allows Ngugi to illustrate the story to the reader as if they were sitting on the bus and learning about each of the characters through their own speech, themselves. The use of dialogue is more effective than the use of an omniscient narrator because the way each character expresses themselves is equally, if not more, important than the details of that expression. Dialogue is...