Language and Style in Second Class Citizen

1 Clarity of expression

Much of Second Class Citizen is clear and understandable. There are no highfalutin words or words which demand constant reference to the dictionary. Each chapter starts with a thesis remark which guides the events therein. The only strange words and expressions are 'navy-blue pinafores', 'craw- craw', 'a presence', 'eyes as blank as contact lenses', 'transcendent Beings', 'tut-tutted', 'locum' elevenses', 'charwoman' and 'Thalidomide babies'. Otherwise, the words are accessible. The story itself is about a series of conflicts in a marriage, slowly processed in a readable manner that one takes sides with the major female character, the heroine. Even in matters of conflicts, words and expressions are used such that they point at issues which are the bases of the differences.

2. Point of view

The point of view largely used is the omniscient narrative approach. However, occasionally, the heroine sounds first person, particularly when thetorical questions are asked in addition to the use of descriptions. For instance, after some omniscient description, the question is asked: "Had Adah not seen him? However, this is a brief experience as the narrator, a female voice, is keen to know how irresponsible Francis is. The omniscient voice sides with the heroine who is bent on painting Francis black as a husband. Francis is occasionally allowed to express himself and when he does, it depicts that he is not sensible or that he is petty or autocratic. See his pettiness when he discusses with the father on whether Adah should be allowed to work for the Americans. Sometimes, the narrator says what she wants to say about Francis as in “she (Adah) did not delude herself into expecting Francis to love her" (p. 82). Or when the narrative voice, using a take-it-or-leave-it assertion about Francis, remarks: "Francis did not believe in friendship" (p. 104). Or "Francis was Francis, not ashamed of being Francis" (p. 172).

3.Use of Nigerian vernacular terms 

The author uses Nigerian vernacular terms to make what she is saying clearer. Sometimes, such words or expressions may not be as clearly stated preferring to leave them with their Nigerian flavour. The narrator remarks that "her (Adah's) parents said that Lagos was a bad place, bad for bringing up children because here they picked up the Yoruba-Ngbati accent" (p. 8). The female cloth, often called wrappers' is called lappas (pp. 8,13 & 135). When the police decide to punish Ma for not sending her daughter to school they give her "a big bowl of gari with water" (p. 12). The wrappers used to welcome Lawyer Nwere are labeled Ezediji ji de ogoli, ome oba, meaning: "When a good man holds a woman she becomes a queen" (p. 15). Instead of cane, the author prefers koboko for administering strokes of the cane (pp. 23 & 24). There are other expressions such as agbada (a Nigerian dress type worn by men); iyawo (Yoruba for wife); okei (Western Igbo word for old man); opoho (Western Igbo word for 'woman'); odo (Igbo for wooden mortar) and yaimirin/ajeyon, what the Hausa call the Igbo people.

Rhetorical questions

Rhetorical questions in a story are the narrator's questions which do not expect answers. Such questions abound in Second-Class Citizen. Early enough, the narrator asks thetorical questions pertaining to what the Bible demands from women for their husbands while asking husbands to treat their wives as rubies. The questions are: "What of a man who would throw rubies away, thinking that they were useless stones? What was she to do now? Cry?... Who were these people anyway?" (p.30) When their ship, Oriel , arrives cold England, there is an ululation from the passengers which leaves Adah confused

since she is sure they are yet to get into Liverpool:

“What could it be? Wondered Adah... Perhaps it

was a fire, or an accident, or could it be that they were drowning?... but what was the rushing for?" (p. 38) Adah doubts how good the "Royal Free Hospital will be since it is free. Thus her son Vicky being taken to a hospital with such a name is baffling to her. Adah ruminates in rhetorical questions: "Why was the name of the hospital Royal Free? Was it a hospital for poor people; for second-class people? Why did they put the word 'free' in it? ... Were they sending Vicky to a second-class hospital, a free one, just because they were blacks?" (p. 66). At the height of Adah's feminist temper, her narrator asks on her behalf: "Was Eve the only person who ate the apple? Did not the man Adam eat some too? Why was it that women had to bear most of the punishments?" (pp. 111-112). Other pages where rhetorical questions are used to advance the plot include: 32, 34, 45, 67, 79, 81, 85, 87, 89, 90, 103, 106, 107, 110, 113-116, etc.

5. Allusions

By allusion one refers to events and circumstances outside the text which are used to advance the course of the story. The commonest allusion in this story is to the Bible. Here, it is not just about the Bible events, but other such references that do not really have to do with history, other texts or even some personalities. After stealing the two shillings she is asked to buy steak with, Adah asks herself rhetorical questions on her religious belief about sin and punishment. She asks: "Didn't Jesus say that one should not steal?.... why would Jesus condemn her doing it: for stealing?" (p. 22) Reference is also made to the Bible where it is said: "Be as cunning as a serpent but as harmless as a dove” (p. 30). This is the Biblical principle which Adah uses to resolve some of her existential crises with her husband or her in-laws. Another Biblical allusion is worth making reference to, resulting from an occasion when Francis and Adah are quarrelling. Almost beating her, but he restrains himself and remarks “You'll be telling the world soon that you're carrying another Jesus. But, if so, you will soon be forced to look for your own Joseph" (p. 85). Inside the book called The Word of God, used by Francis to preach to is wife on the virtuous woman, "were pictures of Adam eating the apple and Eve talking to the snake They both had fig leaves covering their sex" (p. 109). We already know that this remark refers to the Bible. Although what one will say next is not about the Bible, the author's reference to The Pilgrim's Progress's Christian is biblical. However, Adah uses what she imagines to be how Christian looks like bearing his many sins to compare to what Francis looks like carrying the load of letters marching through the streets of London "up the stairs leading into flats, and down the stairs to those living in basements” (p. 139). Further allusion is made to William Wordsworth who celebrates birds in his poems. It is to the English poet that Adah makes reference when the latter hears the songs of birds from nearby trees. When Francis and his wife bring in Flora Nwapa into their discourse, it is because Adah wants to be a writer. However, Francis does not want the wife to be one and tells Adah: “Flora Nwapa writes her stuff in Nigeria" (p. 184). In other words, a black female writer can do that in Nigeria, not in England.

6. Opposed valuation as technique

The opposed valuation approach used by the author is such that there are actually two major antagonists, although one only hears from one. The other one is almost silent, cast in the mould of a villain. The loud one is the voice of the virtuous while the benign voice, almost unheard, is that of the villainous fellow. Adah is the virtuous, more sinned against than sinning. The very few redeeming features of Francis are his youthfulness and handsomeness, his decision to come to London which is a good thing for Adah; and his ability to give Adah children. The positives are so few whereas all of Francis is base and wicked. From the narrative leaning of the novel, one can evidently say that Adah is virtually the narrator who takes the narrative thrust to any direction, provided such direction will paint Francis in bad light. Adah, in all but name, is the narrator, she gives Francis an antagonist frame and keeps him there. He rarely speaks and when he does, it is to show who he is: a vile and coarse fellow. Husband and wife hardly agree. These disagreements are such that their values are opposed, with Adah's being fair, reasonable, acceptable and ample. Francis' stance is shown to be irreverent, arrogant, illogical and despotic. The narrator paints Adah as not being concerned about sex, whereas Francis, rather undeserving of sex from his wife, is doggish and a favour can only be extracted from him if it is tied to sex.

7. Symbolism

Symbolism is noted in the reference to a boy who has craw-craw. The smell is so emphatic that itremained in Adah's consciousness, as if often reminding her of schooling in the same manner Ma drums it into her head: "To school you must go from now until you go grey" (p. 15). There is also Mr Cole, the Sierra Leonian who first teaches her. He is virtually the opposite of Francis: whereas Mr Cole is huge, protective and considerate, Francis is not of massive build, is indifferent and self-centred. There is as well the cold reception of Adah in England. The environment is not only cold, even Francis' reception is cold. Apart from the events in the library where she works, Adah's other experiences prove cold and unresponsive. It is in England that her relationship with her husband deteriorates irretrievably. It is in England that she is hospitalized without her husband's care and understanding. She makes little progress in her own studies while her husband fails his examinations. Largely living in a one room apartment throughout their stay in England, she and her family experience bed-bugs which attack Vicky's right ear. In England, Trudy the child-minder plays on Adah's intelligence, does not care about her two children she is minding, and instead sleeps with Adah's husband, and in the process Vicky takes ill and is hospitalized for virus meningitis. Part of England's coldness is experienced in neighbours who are not only jealous of Adah and Francis but also want them to leave Ashdown Street, even though the Street is not the best of places. Often the setting "snowed without cease for weeks” (p. 93) just as Adah has an unceasing hostility between her and her husband. Adah's notice of a little grey bird symbolizes her way out in the near future a lonely freedom. The bird in question is grey, small, solitary but contented in its solitude. The bird's greyness reminds one of Ma who says her daughter (Adah) will school "from now until you go grey" (p. 15). The bird's lonely freedom is what Adah will have to adopt if she is to enjoy the rest of her life. It is likely because of this symbolic option, that she leaves Francis after years of oppression under him.