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Wariuki's Wedding At The Cross

Decent Essays

It is a common idea that traveling gives people a greater insight on the dynamics of the world as they experience different cultures and ways of life. This can be seen in the short story Wedding at the Cross by Ngugi wa Thiong’o where traveling greatly influences the main character Wariuki’s outlook of the world. Wariuki starts off as being a very poor but very happy man until he gets humiliated by his father in law, Douglas Jones, for not being wealthy enough to pay for a wedding at a church or provide for his wife. This ignites a fire in Wariuki to prove his Douglas Jones wrong and he goes to great lengths to accumulate enough wealth to become higher class and not be looked down upon. The great lengths that Wariuki goes through to try and …show more content…

Wariuki was fortunate and escaped the negative aspects of the war and took advantage of the opportunities that came with. He set himself up as a timber merchant and felt he finally was in a place where he could become very wealthy. This shows Wariuki as a changed man because he once would have been with his people who were fighting and being put in concentration camps but instead chose to work for the colonial regime and took advantage of the situation (Thiong’o 104). Wariuki’s choice shows a change in moral conviction that can is linked to acquisition of wealth which was Wariuki’s life motivation. His travels throughout the world made him realize that being the “good guy” would not get him far in becoming wealthy and proving his father in law wrong. As Wariuki realized how the world worked with his many unsuccessful trips in becoming wealthy he realized that the only way he was going to break through the system that made it extremely hard to greatly improve one’s well-being was through hard work and a lucky break. So, because of his experience during his travels Wariuki made the choice to take advantage of the opportunity that presented itself and even though it hurt those around him it was the only chance he had to achieve his dreams. Through his travels Wariuki came up with what he thought was the only way he could make enough money to fulfill him and it although it changed him as a person it ultimately ended up working. However, his father in laws influence cannot be forgotten from the picture, as the embarrassment Douglas Jones put Wariuki through seems to be the biggest contributor towards Wariuki’s life

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