Blurred Lines

Imagine falling in love with someone and going to meet their parents for the first time. You put on your best shirt, brush your hair, and spruce up as best you can. Then comes the moment when you are introduced to the family. Suddenly you realize that even your best shirt and tidy hair does nothing to help elevate your status to family. It appears that each family member is there staring at you, looking at your clothes and your hair, and asking you all types of questions you have no right answers for. If you could just get up and run you would, but instead you are there glued to your seat while they size you up and in one evening decide that your presence is not wanted, and neither do they want you in their loved one’s life.

In Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s “Wedding at the Cross”, we see the blurring of national boundaries on full display. Wariuki is Kenyan and from humble beginnings, while Miriamu, the woman he falls in love with comes from a Christian well-to-do family. Miriamu’s family invites Wariuki over to see the gentleman that their daughter has fallen for. It is an awkward evening as Miriamu’s father drills Wariuki with questions about his work, his background, and his finances. He feels unwelcome and out of place. It is apparent that he and the rest of the family believe Wariuki has crossed boundaries and is not fit to marry Miriamu.

The couple decides to elope and move away to start their own family. They are happy, but Wariuki never forgets the awkward encounter and the way Miriamu’s father looked at him with disdain and displeasure. He is determined to make something of himself and wants to prove a point to Miriamu’s family, showing them that he could make a decent living and be a good husband to their daughter. He does eventually elevate his status, but he forgets his roots and becomes overzealous. He is no longer the man that Miriamu fell in love with. He even changes his name from Wariuki to Dodge W. Livingstone, Jr. He becomes a completely different person.

Sometimes in the quest of proving a point, we can lose ourselves altogether. This is what happened to Wariuki. He longed to be accepted and revered by those he believed to be powerful and somehow better than who he was. What he once despised, he later became. Moreover, when we try to step into something we are not we can often lose ourselves and in the long run, lose those we love.

Teenage years are very impressionable times for students. There is a great deal of peer pressure placed on teens to become something they are not or do things that they are uncomfortable with­–all for the purpose of being accepted. Kidshealth.org has a wonderful personal health series for grades 9 to 12 that educators can add to their lesson plans to help their students recognize their potential, appreciate who they are and boost their self-esteem.