Critical Analysis of Second Class Citizen

 Themes in Second Class Citizen by Buchi Emecheta

 Marriage without love 

Analysis of The Theme of Marriage Without Love in Second Class Citizen

The marriage between Adah and Francis is not founded on genuine love. Both of them seem to have stuck to each other on the basis of convenience. Adah sticks to Francis as she has no relative kind enough to take her in. In short, Adah had no home to call her own, and she needed "not just any home... but a good quiet atmosphere where she could study in peace” (p. 25). Thus Francis' appearance on the scene is seen by Adah as a blessing. We are told that “Adah congratulated herself on her marriage” (p. 25). To her, Francis is a quiet young man, one who will soon be an accountant. The marriage itself starts on a wrong footing. Both of them, Francis and Adah are underage. The marriage is witnessed by only one person - Francis' mother who signs with her thumb. The couple forgets to bring a ring to the wedding. When the registry official insists on a ring, "Adah assured him that a piece of string would do  registry, "they were married the following day" (p. 26). until they got home" (pp. 25-26). It is Adah's saddest day because rather than be wedded that day in the Francis seems to have been more interested in the fact that Adah will bring money into the house,

although he fears for the marriage if she works for the Americans where her salary "will be three times aliyowen (p. 26). Such is the tripty for a day's pay that she is said to have needed a protection on her first pay day. Francis fulfils that purpose by working “only half day in his office" and then taking "a bus to meet Adah in order to be a bodyguard for his wife and their money" (p. 26). The first sign of the apartness to come is in Francis leaving for England without being bothered by his wife remaining behind. Secondly, Adah feels cheated, being left in Nigeria: “so she was to stay in Nigeria, finance her husband, give his parents expensive gifts occasionally, help in paying the school fees for some of the girls, look after her young children and what then, rot?” Thirdly, for not having wept on the day of the husband's departure, Francis, still on his way to England, writes her from Barcelona: "You did not cry for me... You were very happy to see me go, were you not?" Fourthly, she is accused of not appearing in my send-off photograph” (p. 34). All these accusations and observations show that love is scanty in the relationship. Many chapters later into the story, Adah admits to herself thus: "She knew she was not loved, and was being used to give Francis an education which the family could not afford” (p. 137). The question such as "Had she loved Francis to start with?" and the answer, "the love was short- lived because Francis did nothing to keep it alive” (p. 137) evince the fact that the marriage lacked the essential nutrient identified as love from the very beginning. 

A successful marriage is a reciprocal relationship

Analysis of The Theme of A successful marriage is a reciprocal relationship in Second Class Citizen

From the events in the story, it is evident that for a marriage to be successful, there ought to be mutuality. The Francis-Adah marriage fails because the relationship weighs much in Adah's disfavour. She enters the marriage in order to own a home; moreover, she and Francis are not of marriageable age. Adah is running away from wicked and non-understanding relatives. Her father had died and her mother had re- married. She is virtually alone. In this circumstance, she is ready to do anything to have her own home. However, the Obis, including her husband, Francis, are keen to quietly exploit her. Whereas she works and is prepared to utilize her salary to fend for herself, her children and Francis, the latter is more interested in his studies which unfortunately is not making progress. He prefers not to work and thinks that combining reading with a job will stall his success at studies. But the reality is different. When it falls on him to look after the children while his wife goes to work, he does the chore haphazardly while sitting at home and sharing Adah's salary when she brings it home. When Vicky falls ill, rather than their sorrow and worry bringing them together, it further divides them. Francis does not even know "how to be a man. Instead he cried, like a woman with Adah" (p. 69). Adah accuses Francis of infidelity. She warns him that should anything happen to Vicky, "I am going to kill you and that prostitute" and asks him, "You sleep with her (Trudy), do you not? You buy her pants with the money I work for, and you both spend the money I pay her when I go to work” (pp. 69-70). Francis even makes a mockery of his wife's fertile nature. On one occasion she is angry with him. Instead of beating her, he restrains himself and voices a dry joke: "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). Francis is one who does not make friends, whether within or outside marriage. A sentence from the narrator in the novel attests to this observation: "Francis did not believe in friendship" (p. 104). This applies not just to outsiders but also in his relating with his wife and the children. When Adah fails to go to work because the railwaymen are on strike, her worry centres on her husband believing her. We are told that he would accuse her of laziness and would remind her they (the entire family both in England Such is the failure of the marriage that the narrator informs that in other marriages, husbands become and in Nigeria) needed her money" (p. 105) panicky and worried in case their wives died, "but not Francis... To him Adah was immortal. She has to be there, bearing his children, working for him, taking his beatings, listening to her sermons". 116). She has experienced much hassle with her pregnancy of Bubu with little or no involvement of her husband. This wells up emotion in her that she bursts into tears, which her doctor and his students view as "after baby blues." The truth is that Adah is wondering why she cannot be "loved as an individual the way the sleek woman was being loved, for what she was and not just because she could work and hand over money like a docile child" (p. 126). Furthermore, she puzzles and asks, “why was it that she was not blessed with a husband like that woman who had to wait for seventeen years for the arrival of her baby son?" (p. 126) Earlier, Adah had had to imagine "what her life with Francis would be if she had given him no child" (p.122). 

The Joys of Motherhood 

Analysis of The Theme of  The Joys of Motherhood in Second Class Citizen

Nnu Ego, the central character of The Joys of Motherhood, whose life and sufferings will dramatize the story’s main points, is the illegitimate daughter, by a fiercely proud mistress, of the local chief in rural Ibuza. Nnu Ego’s inability to bear children with her first husband causes her father to arrange a second marriage, to Nnaife Owulum, who works in Lagos for an English family. Nnu Ego submits to marrying a man she has never met; indeed, when she does meet him, she finds in him neither esteem nor attractiveness. When Nnaife’s older brother dies, his wife, Adaku, becomes the younger brother’s junior wife. Nnaife is conscripted into the British army for action in World War II, and his two wives are left to their own resources. Adaku becomes a prostitute and does well financially; Nnu Ego remains respectable and does not. When Nnaife returns, he acquires a third wife, sixteen-year-old Okpo. Nnu Ego’s sons, as boys, are favored in society, and decide to continue their education in the United States and in Canada. Nnu Ego’s own life continues to be subordinated to men and their privileged status. Nnaife, after serving a brief prison sentence for attacking a man of a different tribe who wanted to marry one of his daughters, returns to Ibuza, with the young Okpo. Nnu Ego, disowned, dies in Ibuza obscurely, and a shrine is built for her so any infertile granddaughters can pray to her. Amesh of interconnected themes is developed in The Joys of Motherhood. At one stage, Nnu Ego thinks that if she were in Ibuza she would have her own hut and be given respect; in colonized Lagos, she has the worst of both worlds—polygamy and exploitation. She has been given to a man who is subservient before his English masters, as if he were a woman, but who still tries to exact complete obedience in the home, as if he were part of an organic social system of give and take that justified such demands. Her boys, to whom she has sacrificed everything, end up living in the New World, the epitome of modernity, and do not correspond with their mother. Nnu Ego has obeyed all the old rules but is still taken advantage of, and abandoned in old age.

 Stubborn female 

Analysis of The Theme of Stubborn Female in Second Class Citizen

Adah is a stubborn woman. From the outset, Adah is presented to us as a recalcitrant fellow who takes her fate in her own hands. From childhood, she has refused to accept the place given to her, either by her parents or any other person. She rejects the idea of Boy continuing his education because he is male while she, a girl-child, is denied secondary education. Adah does not accept her mother's presumption that a female child does not need too much of learning. According to Ma, "A year or two would do, as long as she can write her name and count. Then she will learn to sew" (p. 9). On her own, Adah decides to go to Methodist School and gets into Mr Cole's class. She tells Mr Cole who is surprised to see her, “I came to school - my parents would not send me" (p. 12). For not catering for all her children, schooling-wise, Ma (Adah's mother) is detained by the police. She is accused of child neglect. They take her to the police station and punish her by compelling her to drink a big bowl of garri with water" (p. 12). Adah is also punished by her father with a few strokes for being responsible for Ma's fate in the hands of the police. For making Ma drink garri almost to the bursting of her stomach, Ma makes an ironical remark: "You chose school. To school you must go from now until you go grey" (p. 15). For the manner Ibuza people honour their first son who studied in England, Adah "made a secret vow to herself that she would go to the United Kingdom one day" (p. 17). However, Adah's father's sudden death dashes her hope of earning a good education. As if that is not enough, Ma decides to remarry. She is left in the hands of her relatives who are not kind to her, essentially because of her apparent obstinacy. From very early times when her mates were thinking of something else, Adah had started thinking of marriage. She is not opposed to marriage; she only did not accept elderly suitors, in spite of mother's propaganda that "older men took better care of their wives than the young and overeducated ones" (p. 20). Being a wilful girl, she has already made up her mind that she won't marry a man "she would have to serve his food on bended knee.” Although Adah knows that many Igbo wives refer to their husband as 'master' or 'Sir', "she wasn't going to!" (p. 26) Such is her head-strong nature that her smile is taken to be a challenge to the headmaster who canes her until she bites one of the boys who carries her on his back. It is for this that she is nicknamed, "the Ibo tigress” (p. 21). Similarly, she withstands Cousin Vincent's strokes who canes her for supposedly losing the two shillings she was given to buy a pound of steak from a market. So stubborn is Adah that after receiving 50 strokes of the cane, she refuses to cry. Her cousin, Vincent, has to beg her "to cry a her again: not in this world nor in the world to come” (p. 23). little" (p. 23). After giving her a hundred and three strokes, he told Adah that he would never talk to to be Francis' type of woman and the narrator says: “Francis could beat her to death, she was not going Evidence to show that Adah is a stubborn female abound in her marital life with Francis. She refuses to stoop to that level” (p. 18.1). Although Francis is largely to blame for their disharmonious marriage, Initially , Francis was to be her saving grace. She wanted a home, and Francis' offer of marriage ought to have satisfied that desire. However, cases of her fixed ways or gauging her height with her husband lead to their various instances of misunderstandings. When she gets a hint that she may have to be in Nigeria for a while while her husband stays away in London pursuing his studies, she surmises what the intention is: "So she was to stay in Nigeria, finance her husband, give his parents expensive gifts... help in paying the school fees for some of the girls, look after the young children..." (p. 30). This is stubborn thinking. A little disagreement with Francis over whether or not the English joke with death, she insists, "You're lying Francis.” The husband feels humiliated by her referring to him as a liar for which he tells her, "This separation of ours has made you bold" (p. 40). Her arguments with her husband over minor issues attracts an obstinate response which Francis never likes. When Francis gives an excuse as to why he could not obtain a better accommodation than the one he had upon getting to England, Adah snaps: "Don't talk to me. I don't want to hear. You could have got better accommodation if you had really tried" (p. 42).

There are other cases of acts of inflexibility, say in her relationship with Trudy, the child minder or the Indian doctor who gives her drugs to enable her to have a healthy foetal growth while she had wanted the baby aborted. At the height of her disgust for Trudy whose carelessness in taking care of her children results in one of them falling ill, she remembers the ferocity of Ma, her mother: "she remembered her mother. Ma would have torn the fatty issues of this woman into shreds if she had been in this situation" (p. 56). It is not stated in the story how Adah knew her husband had been hobnobbing with Trudy. Yet she tells Francis: “I am going to kill you and that prostitute. You sleep with her, do you not?” (p. 69) Similarly, at one of the climaxes of her hatred for her husband, we are told that Francis "thought at first that she was going to smash his skull into a pulp from the way she was looking at him with thick hatred” (p. 107). From all that have been said about Adah here, she is certainly a stubborn lady. 

 Feminist temper 

Analysis of The Theme of Feminist temper in Second Class Citizen

The novel is centred on the feminist quest of the heroine, Adah. Feminism is the pursuit by man woman to secure more freedom or welfare for females in a place where men are essentially in control or decide what happens as in our culture or tradition. This novel has many points in the narration where the heroine tries to question a poor treatment of females, assumptions about them or their being taken for granted. On the very first page of the novel, the narrator informs that Adah "arrived when everyone was expecting and predicting a boy." (p. 7). This indicates that society places more premium on the male than on the female. The narrator further remarks that the failure of Adah's parents to record her birthday is because "she was such a disappointment to her parents, to her immediate family, to her tribe..." (p. 7). Rather than encourage Adah to take up education, she being older, Boy her younger brother is taken to school. As for the girl, "a year or two would do, as long as she can write her name and count” (p. 9). This is not acceptable to Adah who not only forces herself into Mr Cole's class, but has to tell lies to obtain the two shillings to afford the cost of the entrance form.

Early in Adah's life, s has become conscious of the sexes, who is to be relied upon more than the other. She says it is her mother, Ma, who gives such a low opinion of the feminine gender. As the narrator puts it, based on what Adah thinks, "... when in real trouble, she would rather look for a man. Men were so solid, so safe" (p. 12). As it turns out in the novel, however, Adah’s reliance on her husband, Francis, is a catastrophe. Not only does he fail to lead his family, he fails to show support to his wife who is the breadwinner of the family.

Adah is compelled by the mother to choose elderly suitors who in the thinking of her mother would look after wives better. Adah is not moved by this view. She wants young suitors rather than those who "she would have to treat as a master or refer to as 'Sir' even behind his back” (p. 20). Modern feminism is not so keen about marriage but Adah's feminist temper initially saw marriage as an escape route out of homelessness. The home she aspires to have is not one there would be trouble today and fights tomorrow, but a good, quiet atmosphere..." (p. 25). Ironically, her marriage with Francis does not provide such a peaceful air.

In their marriage, Adah diseovers that Francis is an African through and through" (p. 30). Even what concerns Adah is not meant to be known by her. To Francis, "he was the mafe, and he was right to tell her what she was going to do" (p. 30). Only once does he kiss Adah in public, and thereafter Francis remains within his African traditional dictates. Conversations often turn into quarrels and certain words or expressions used by Adah are re-examined and given some connotations by her husband. When Adah joins Francis from Nigeria and during a discussion, the former says, "You're lying, Francis," Francis takes it as an affront: "This separation of ours has made you bold. You've never in your life told me that I was lying before" (p. 40). Their relationship gets to the point where “Adah thought Francis hated her" (p. 43). For issues in their marriage, Francis always consults his parents. He is always conservative like loathing his children picking up another language spoken in urban Lagos. With respect to the children's care while Adah works, Francis only does his studies in the house, and is not prepared to look after them. When Adah reminds him that they had decided he looked after them, he retorts: "You mean you decided ou thought it all out, and then you tell me what I am going to do" (p. 51). He is one who is ashamed of his few friends seeing him push his children in a pram and complains bitterly to his wife. On an occasion, Adah prays him to take the children to Trudy, the child minder, he cries "Oh God... Have I any choice?" Apart from having asserted her humanness when Boy rather than herself was encouraged to go to school, her feminist inclination makes her play with the term, "she was only a girl" when she is having  a chat with a nurse. When the nurse retorts at Adah's "only a girl," the latter ruminates on what happens in her society: “But how was she to tell this beautiful creature (the nurse) that in her society she could only be sure of the love of her husband and the loyalty of her parents-in-law by having and keeping alive as many children as possible, and that though a girl may be counted as one child, to her people a boy was like four children put together?" (p. 68). One of Francis' regrets seems to be his bringing his wife to London and letting her "mix with middle-class English women. They (African women) soon knew their rights” (p. 70). One of the rights is having their husbands all to themselves. Thus when Adah notices that Francis and Trudy are flirting, she is beside herself with anger. She faces her husband: "Last night you left at eleven, and you did not come back until I was ready for work. Seeing Titi!" (p. 70). He exerts the need for a response to familyissues on Francis. She uses sex to obtain a response to what she wants her husband to do: “she would encourage him to work himself up and then bring up important discussions like where they were going to live" (p. 94). Often times when she resists him, "it would result in blows" (p. 95). She herself could with hatred" (p. 107) be occasionally violent. For instance, when Adah fails to go to work because of the railway men's strike and Francis asks her certain questions which seem to doubt her sincerity, the narrator remarks: "He thought at first that she was going to smash his skull into pulp from the way she was looking at him From her childhood when the headmaster identifies her as "the Ibo tigress," Adah shows that she does not take nonsense, especially between her and the husband. As the story unfolds, her hatred for her husband is unhidden. Her non-respectful comments about her husband's "little Chinese mouth," his stomach and his cheap linen pyjamas or wrinkled pyjamas” go to show that she is not afraid of him as such. Thus Adah's feminist hot-headedness is well established in the novel, particularly when she dismantles her marriage with Francis, and goes on to hire a two-bedroom apartment, the first of such space since she arrives England,

Racism and Prejudice

The Theme of Racism and Prejudice in Second Class Citizen

Second-Class Citizen presents racism and prejudice as barriers to Adah as she attempts to achieve her dreams. The blatant racism against Black people in London is especially prominent when Adah seeks accommodations for her family in chapter 6; most advertisements include the line “Sorry, no coloureds.” Adah and Francis face discrimination firsthand when they go to view a two-room apartment. The woman with whom Adah spoke on the phone to arrange the viewing of the rooms invited her over, but Adah had also disguised her voice so the woman would not know she was Black. When the couple arrives, the woman sticks her head out the window before coming downstairs, but she apparently could not see them well, judging on her shocked reaction when she opens the door:

Adah thought the woman was about to have an epileptic seizure. . . . She made several attempts to talk, but no sound came.

When the landlady finally speaks, she tells them the rooms have just been let, and it is obvious that her decision is based on their race. Even though Adah has been made aware of racism in London before this incident, she hasn’t “faced rejection in this manner.”

Emecheta also depicts prejudice among Nigerian immigrants in London, where Yoruba and Ibo people adopt suspicious and stereotypical views toward one another. The Yoruba people even think Ibos are cannibals. Late in the novel, Adah must hide from a Yoruba landlord that she is Ibo in order to rent rooms for her and the children.

In their first apartment building in London, Adah and Francis are discriminated against by other Nigerian immigrants, both because they are Ibo and because the other tenants think that Adah and Francis, with their education and Adah’s respectable job history, feel superior to those who work in labor industries. The other tenants also judge Adah and Francis for not wanting to foster their children elsewhere, as many other young Nigerian couples have done. The prejudice against Adah and Francis leads to their family being evicted from the building. The other tenants “knew how difficult it would be for them, but that was their desired effect.”

 Irresponsible husbandhood 

Analysis of The Theme of Irresponsible Husbandhood  in Second Class Citizen

Francis marries early in his life. It is not clear if the manner he comports himself as a husband is because he takes on such a responsibility so early in life. Adah considers herself lucky marrying Francis who was not an old baldy, neither was he a 'made man' then..." (p. 25). As the days progress, the way he says or does things shows that he is not ready, neither for fatherhood nor for husbandhood. He sets to go to England for further studies without being bothered how his wife will fare at home. Instead he is more interested in noting whether or not Adah cries on the eve of his departure from Nigeria. Anything between him and Adah will "be referred first to Big Pa, Francis's father, then to his mother, then discussed among the brothers of the family..." (pp. 28-29). Adah hides the fifth pregnancy from her husband because she knows he will "repeat it to the Nobles, to his parents and to everybody" (p. 164). We are informed that at the height of their disagreement over the 'cap' issue,"Francis made it clear he was writing to his mother and father. Adah was not surprised at this” (p. 161). Their marriage "was finished as soon as Francis called in the Nobles and the other tenants..." (p. 161) and let them into what should have been a family secret. Yet it is this same neighbours, the women in particular, who had writlen Adah an open petition warning her to control her husband, because he was chasing them all" (p. 168).

At the least provocation, Francis beats his wife. Once, he beats her so much that their landlord, Mr Noble stops him from hitting her. However, she "was dizzy with pain and her head throbbed. Her mouth was bleeding" (p. 160). After she has packed out of their Nobles' one room apartment, Francis visits her with a knife and beats her even as he knows she is five months pregnant. But for their Irish co-tenant, Mr Devlin, perhaps Adah would have lost her life. Part of why he will be regarded as an irresponsible fellow is what he does with his wife's manuscript. He is conservative to the point where he does not believe that a woman should be a writer. He wonders in a strange way: "A woman writer in his own house, in a white man's country!" Reminded that "Flora Nwapa is black and she writes," he retorts: *Flora Nwapa writes her stuff in Nigeria" (p. 184). Not only would Francis not read the manuscript, he calls the material “rubbish" and goes ahead to burn it. Francis finds it difficult to accept change. He does not accept a woman claiming equality with a man or proving to be intelligent. He tells his wife, “You keep forgetting that you are a woman and that you are black" (p. 184). When Adah is about to start work with the American Consulate, he shudders to think that his wife will earn more than himself. He complains to his father: "Her pay will be three timesmy own. My colleagues at work will laugh at me." He asks his father what he should do. His father is angry with him and calls him a fool of a man" (p. 26) and goes on to remind him that Adah's money is his, especially as she practically has no direct relations interested in her or in what she is doing: "The money is for you, can't you see?" (p. 26) More or less an irresponsible husband, he loathes work. He is contented to be fed by his wife Francis is not bothered that his wife whom he leaves behind in Nigeria is taking care of herself and their two children, is financing his education in England, gives his parents expensive gifts and caters for the fees of his younger sisters. Although he does not work, he grumbles when he is asked to look after Titiand Vicky while Adah goes to work. He does not regard his looking after his own children as part of  his responsibility. On an occasion he complains, “Who is going to look after your children for you? (p. 49) It is her children, not his own as well! He tells her, "I can't go on looking after your children for you." The narrator enlightens the readers on what goes on about children in Nigeria: "In Nigeria, when children were good, they were the father's, they took after him, but when they were bad, they were the mother's, taking after her and her old mother" (p. 49). Failing his summer examinations, he blames it all on her: "If she had not brought her children and saddled him with them... if she had not become pregnant so soon after her arrival, he would have passed” (pp. 54-55). A claim like this is an indication that Francis is not the husband of a family as he is not prepared to shoulder any responsibility or admit outcomes which he clearly initiated. So unhelpful is he that the narrator informs us, "Adah seldom called her husband for anything" (p. 148).

 The presence' as the determiner of life 

Analysis of The Theme of The presence' as the determiner of life  in Second Class Citizen

Within the first paragraph of the novel, the narrator makes reference to the presence', sometimes a presence. It is used in the narrative to stand as the dream former and shaper, a promise fulfilled because there is a superior being somewhere dictating how things work even though a human being or human beings would want such things to work in another way. We are informed that there is always a presence which can be felt or which can direct or dictate one's consciousness until what is initially considered a dream becomes a reality. Adah's dream has a way of "assumed substance" which lives with her just like a Presence" (p. 17).

"The Presence would be akin to Adah's spiritual guide and director. She communes with this spiritual force within her such that both she and this spirit do exchange smiles when events or incidents favour her. This is the circumstance which draws a smile on Adah's face when there is a way for her, having not to leave school when her father suddenly dies, and her mother remarries. It is this moment of a misunderstood smile on her face which draws the ire of the headmaster, for which she is given several lashes of the cane. Just before then, Adah had heard the Presence tell her, "You are going, you must go and to one of the very best of schools; not only are you going, you're going to do well there" (p. 21). Thus "she was smiling at the Presence, not the headmaster, and she suspected that the headmaster knew she was telling the truth: he had simply wanted to cane her, that was all” (p. 22) "The Presence' constitutes Adah's drive to success or getting solved what ordinarily would be difficult to contain. As she matures to go to the secondary school and her father had died and the mother, a mere housewife, had just remarried, Adah obtains a scholarship. The narrator defines the Presence as existing right beside her, just like a companion” (p. 24). The narrator does not directly identify the Presence as God; it is rather God's manifestation in the heroine. It is her comforter, one who works with her and consoles her when she is in trouble or about to be in dire straits. "The Presence' is on and off. Certain measures and comportment made it stay with her; a behaviour which is unacceptable could drive it away. We are told that at this point Adah "wished the Presence was still with her to give her a clue but it seemed to have deserted her when she landed in England between her and her husband, (p. 60). Maybe the Presence requires one to be in a particular frame of mind, as in a state of calmness unloving, ungrateful and difficult. At a point she wonders if the Presence is not what ordinarily should or holiness. Her landing in England is marked by marital crisis with Francis proving uncooperative, be her instinct. In Nigeria, it had been active, she being closer to Mother Nature. However, in England conscious; he seems to have inequality as a fact of life. We are told that Adah does not expect Francis, there may have resulted a new circumstance which would still perhaps have to do with the relationship One suspects that the narrator's reference to "a man upstairs” (p. 143) connects us once again to the Presence which Adah considers missing as she is no longer near Mother Nature. A man upstairs heared for what happened to everybody, including herself and her children" (p. 143). Here, the narrator identifies the man upstairs as Jesus, a great man who is still known as the son of God'. Adah is very conscious of her God and when she is helpless, she leaves everything in His hands: "But what else was there for her to do? She prayed to God again and again to forgive her" (p. 156). At the height of  her heated relationship with Francis, her awareness of the Presence returns as in her childhood: "She went nearer to it in her prayers. But she never knelt down to pray in the orthodox way... she talked to Him all the time, and Adah felt that He was always there” (p. 164). For her, "London... killed Adah's congregational God" (p. 165) leaving her with a personal God who loomed large and really alive" (p. 165).

Gender Roles and Misogyny

Analysis of The Theme of  Gender Roles and Misogyny  in Second Class Citizen

Adah’s options in life are determined by her gender. In Lagos, Adah must beg to go to school; as a girl, her formal education is much less important than that of her brother. Once she is finally able to begin her education, she must work to continue on to high school by winning a scholarship, and she repeatedly faces questions about why she is still going to school as she reaches a marriageable age. As a teenager, Adah marries Francis Obi for security. However, in a reversal of traditional gender roles, Adah is the breadwinner of the family. Francis devotes his time to studying accounting, while Adah earns a good job at the American Consulate. Very early in the marriage, she becomes pregnant with their first two children in quick succession. Nevertheless, Francis does not work, and Adah continues to work and support the family.

 The concept of second-class citizen

When the story takes off, the concept of second-class citizen applies mainly to the female, especially in Nigeria. Adah's coming is not marked nor her birthday noted because she arrives "when everyone was expecting and predicting a boy" (p. 7). She is thus "a disappointment to her parents, to her immediate family, to her tribe..." (p. 7). In the scheme of things, Boy is considered more important than Adah. Adah's schooling is stalled in order to give Boy a headstart in education. The typical family would want their children to go to school: "Boys were usually given preference, though" (p. 9). At eight, the argument rages as to whether Adah should be allowed to go to school. Ma, Adah's mother, says "a year or two" of schooling "would do, as long as she can write her name and count. Then she will learn to sew." This is the mother's mantra as she "had heard her mother say this many times to her friends” (p. 9). One suspects that Adah's wildness for which she is punished with caning on the side of CousinVincent and the headmaster is her refusal to accept the second-class status. Her tendency to serve as the Ibo tigress' must have made all who accosted her want to suppress her. Her relations do not care whether or not she gets further education after primary school. How she affords the secondary school entrance fee does not bother them because being a second-class citizen, she will not go far. With respect to the disagreement between husband and wife, the second-class sex/citizen is at the background. Francis is not happy with his wife because she fails to cry as he leaves the country. As a woman who is supposedly his wife she ought to cry. When Adah tells Francis he is lying, his response shows that Adah is second class: "You've never in your life told me I was lying before” (p. 40). In England, the concept of second-class citizen goes beyond sex or gender and incorporates race or where one comes from: "you may be living like an elite but the day you land in England, you are a second-class citizen” (p. 43). This is what Francis reminds his wife of. He sees his wife as his mule who works "harder than most girls of her age and because she was orphaned very early in life” (p. 45). Thus he prefers to do his reading and leave working to fend for the family to Adah. Francis is race-that he accepts his status in life as second-class. of their second-class ranking. "Her house-hunting was made more difficult because she was black. In In their desire to find a new abode, husband and wife have to contend with discrimination because 76). Nothing like this existed in Nigeria before she travelled to England. But in England, Adah leams some places where there is a vacant room "nearly all the notices had 'Sorry, no coloureds on themthat "black was inferior," the equivalent of second-class citizen. Gradually she learns that her colour The story of Mr Noble we have come to know in the novel is "when he became a second rale person, when he became second-class" (p. 89). As it is said, he is a retired civil servant in Nigeria and the only son of a certain chief in Benin City. He came to England to study Law. But poverty occasioned was something she was supposed to be ashamed of " (p. 76). by his second-class gradation brings him down to his knees. He is a butt of jokes , including some which demand that he undress to show that he has no tail. Each time Mir Noble does this , he carns himself a pinn of beer. The money he makes from a railway accident enables him to own a house said to be "too old, um shabby for any white family” (p. 93). When the white doctor fails to come to cure Vicky of his ailmen on Christmas, it is understandable since every person will like to stay indoors . However, the main issue in that the patient for which the doctor is being invited again and again is "a black child” who “had taken till on Christmas Day" (p. 149). Even the white man's locum, an Indian, does not come. He who comes is a  Chinese, a second-class citizen like herself. The Chinaman examines Vicky and asserts that he had been bitten by a bed-bug. When Francis and Adah appear uncomfortable with the Chinese man's diagnosis, he assures that his grandmother back home occasionally suffers from bug-bite. She used to eliminate bugs by getting "cigarette tins and put (ting] all the feet of the bed in them, so that the bugs would fall into the tins, that had already been half-filled with water" (p. 151). Thus a second-class doctor identifies what is wrong with the child of a second-class citizen and diagnoses it correctly. The narrator asks: "How were they supposed to know that Vicky was not dying, but only bitten by a bed-bug?" (p. 151).

The Bride Price

Analysis of the Major Events and their Significance of Second Class Citizen   

 A stubborn childhood (pp. 7-17)

 Adah's first ill-luck is her birth not being recorded. Her coming is not a happy event. All she knows is that she was born during the Second World War. She thinks she is eight when Nweze, Ibuza's first lawyer, is being welcomed in after his sojourn abroad where he had gone to study Law.

 Adah, Boy her younger brother and her parents lived in Lagos, "a bad place, bad for bringing up children" (p. 8). Part of Lagos' 'badness' is that it is a town "where Law ruled supreme" whereas in Ibuza, their home-town, one can always take the law into one's hands since what reigns there is the law of nature" (p. 8).

The women of Ibuza who live in Lagos prepare for the arrival of Lawyer Nweze. They buy identical cotton material from the UAC department store with which to adorn themselves and welcome the new lawyer. The women compose songs weaving the name of the lawyer into them. Nweze is considered to be their messiah "who would go into politics and fight for the rights of the people of Ibuza" (p. 8). Having been sewn a dress from the remnants of the uniform by her mother, who is a seamstress, she expects to be at Lawyer Nweze's reception. But this does not happen because it is held on a school day Boy is sent to school. But Adah is discouraged from dreaming about schooling, she being a girl. However, she forces herself into Methodist School in which Mr Cole taught. Adah's mother, Ma, is punished by the police for not sending her daughter to school, for which Pa caned the stubborn girl.

As Adah is punished and she is crying, her father, Pa, "came and talked to her seriously just as if she were a grown up!" (p. 14). Pa calls her by her pet name 'Nnenna' which means 'Father's mother'. The truth is that Pa's mother promised she would return to him as his daughter. When Pa saw his mother in Adah, meaning that his mother had come, the little baby girl was "loaded" with names: Nne nna (father's mother), Adah nna (the daughter of the father) and Adah Eze (princess or daughter of a king).

Significance of Page 1 to 10 of Second Class Citizen

The non-recording of her date of birth adds to Adah's mystery as a child who will do things differently. She even guesses that she is eight years old. Adah grows up in a 'bad' place and that makes her a unique person. Although Lagos is "bad for bringing up children", it evidently strengthens her as a growing child.

 The description of the women's uniform and their keenness to welcome Lawyer Nweze shows how much the Igbo 'worship' those who have been to school, especially outside the country where the schools were. More importantly, those who have been to school are supposed to fight for the people's rights and their share of the national cake.  Both the disappointment of not attending Lawyer Nweze's reception, even after the remnants of the uniform had been used to sew her own uniform, and the let-down of her parents not allowing her go to school must have been the two early jolts in Adah's life, which formed "Adah's dream"

Adah's pet names show that her parents love her, but their refusal to send her to school must have been a case of contrasting signals in her early life. Instead, Boy, his younger brother, is encouraged to embrace education. 

Summary of Page 11 to 12 in Second Class Citizen

 Adah's first day at Methodist School (pp. 11-12)

 Adah avoids Ladi-Lak school where Boy is a pupil. Her reason is that Ladi-Lak is an expensive school. She prefers Methodist School which is cheaper to attend. Moreover, Mr Cole, "the Sierra Leonian neighbor living next door to them, taught there" (p. 10).  Adah goes to school, instigated by her own initiative. She locates Mr Cole's class and enters, notwithstanding the stare of members of the class. "At first there was a hush, a hush so tangible that one could almost hold and feel it” (p. 11). A giggle, started by one silly child, soon envelops the class.  Mr Cole's eyes fall on the disturbed students "who had all gone crazy". We are told that the “silly child” who lets off the giggle covers her mouth with one of her hands as she points at Adah with her free hand.  Mr Cole is said to be huge, an African through and through. We are informed that "his blackness shone like polished black leather” (p. 11). The huge teacher swings his "great bulk” round and faces Adah with “one of those special smiles" of his for which he is known. He directs her to go to a boy in class who has craw-craw on his head and sits beside him. Adah is worried that she has not been asked why she is in class. With Mr Cole's reassuring smile, Adah pronounces, "I camebto school - my parents would not send me!" (p. 12) The class turns quiet once more like it had been before Adah came visiting. As she has no writing material, the boy with the craw-craw on his head "gave her a bit of his pencil and Adah scribbled away, enjoying the smell of craw-craw and dried sweat". That is what she calls this smell of school" which she says she "never forgot" (p. 12). Upon Mr Cole indicating that they need to go home, Adah grudgingly feels that "the day ended

too soon" (p. 12). Mr Cole assures her that she is free to come again and again and that if her parents would not allow her he would himself teach her the alphabet.  Here what Adah thinks about men and women is made manifest when the narrator informs that so early in life she had through the behaviour of Ma scored women lowly - Ma "had given her such a very low opinion of her (Adah's) own sex" (p. 12). According to the narrator,"women still made Adah nervous. They had a way of sapping her self-confidence." For Adah, whenever she is in "real trouble, she would rather look for a man. Men were so solid, so safe" (p. 12). 

Significance of Page 11 to 12 in Second Class Citizen

 For preferring a cheaper school (Methodist School) to an expensive one (Ladi-Lak), she is a thoughtful girl who knows that finances may stand in the way of one who wants to go to school. More importantly, Adah knows early in life the usefulness of education which is why she takes herself to school, irrespective of what Ma thinks.  The children in Mr Cole's class are amused by Adah's sudden appearance, but the latter considers herself seriously and takes her seat as soon as she is asked to do so. Mr Cole's protectiveness enables the little girl to make up her mind on who, between men and women, are more helpful. For her, it is the men.

 Adah's experience of school on the very first day, especially the smell of craw-craw and of dry sweat from the boy she is asked to sit near, creates a special nostalgia for her about schooling.

Summary of Page 15-17 in Second Class Citizen

  The song practice and Lawyer Nweze's reception (pp. 15-17)

 The women of Ibuza in Lagos practise songs with which to welcome Lawyer Nweze who has just returned from overseas where he had just finished studying Law. We are told that the women "practised their songs several times and showed off their uniform to which they had given the name, 'Ezidiyi ji de ogoli, ome oba', meaning: 'when a good man holds a woman she becomes a queen" (p. 15). We are informed that they wove the name of the uniform into the song, and it was a joy to hear and see these women, happy in their innocence..." (p. 15). The women are unburdened by the lures of the modern society such as industrialization, mortgage payments, owning a family car, pollution, population explosion and the like. On the reception day, the women go to the wharf to welcome someone who had experienced the taste of civilization, the civilization which was soon afterwards to hook them all, like opium“ (p. 15). They go in their new uniform.

 The uniform consists of red headscarf, black patent leather shoes called 'nine-nine", "Ezidiyi ji de ogoli one oba' wrapper, new gourds which cover the colourful beads, etc. They danced merrily at the wharf, "shaking their colourful gourds in the air" (p. 16). The Europeans around observe what is going on with keen interest. According to the narrator, they had never seen anything like it before" (p. 16). The dancing women are happy when their pictures are taken by Europeans. Myths are developed around Lawyer Nweze's eating habits. For example, the lawyer is said to be unable to swallow pounded yam anymore; he is said to be unable to eat a piece of bone, and can  only chew meat if it is stewed for days to "almost a pulp" (p. 16). What bura perplo in Lagen admire him for is that Nweze "did not bring a white woman with him" (p. 16) If Lawyer Nweze had dared to return home with a white woman, Oboshi, the bus sudes, "would have sent leprosy on hert" (p. 16). The truth is that Nwere respects the traditions of his people, the flouting of which attracts the curse of the goddess of the biggest river in buza  Adah is taken aback by Oboshi's silence when "oil was discovered very near her, and she allowed the oilmen to dig into her, without cursing them with leprosy" (p. 17), For months and months, Nweze's return is the talk of Adah's environ. She talks about their first lawyer to her friends at school, informing them that he is her cousin. While the exposition lasted, Adah makes a secret vow to herself "that she would go to this United Kingdom one day. Her arrival there would be the pinnacle of her ambition" (p. 17). 

Significance of Page 15 to 17 in Second Class Citizen

 Lawyer Nweze's return from England is a source of pride to all Ibuzans in Lagos. The song practice to mark the return of a single citizen among the Western Igbo shows the people as a fun-loving, united, people who wish others well. The marking of Lawyer Nweze's return and the geniality at such an occasion portrays this era (in the 1950s) as the age of innocence. The women are not tied down by the demands of the present era such as industrialization, mortgage payments or pollution or population concerns Such is the bewilderment by which the people now look at Lawyer Nweze that they think he cannot swallow pounded yam or eat a piece of bone. It is thought that his stay outside has softened him to the point of not being able to eat meat unless it is boiled to a pulp. What the people think would have happened to Lawyer Nweze had he returned with a white woman is contrasted with what the goddess of Oboshi is expected to do to those who dig for oil near the river. As the goddess fails to act, we are constrained to think that she would have done nothing to the lawyer if he had come back with an English woman. The celebration of Lawyer Nweze's return is an impetus to Adah who then vows to go to the United Kingdom one day.

Summary of Page 18 to 22 in Second Class Citizen

Death shatters Adah's dream but she remains in school (pp. 18-22) 

Adah's dream to go to the United Kingdom one day is shattered by the sudden death of Pa, who is the only one keen to send her to school. Like most girl-orphans, Adah goes to live with her mother's elder brother as a servant. Her mother, Ma, is inherited by Pa's brother while the little money in the house is to be spent on Boy's education Rather than stall her education as it then looked, someone reminds her relations that Adah will yield more money as dowry from her future husband if she is educated. Moreover, part of the dowry "would tide Boy over" (p. 18). Initially, Adah found herself in Ladi-Lak school whose school fees was six times higher than the older schools before she is withdrawn. However, she benefits from her early exposure to Ludi- Lak, which places her far above her mates in the new school. Although her relatives with whom she is staying regard her as "a funny little girl" (p. 18), her day with work is hectic. She wakes at four-thirty in the morning and fills a big water container with water, making between ten and twelve trips to the public tap at Pike Street.

The children of her mother's brother - fairly grown-up males - treat her as an unpaid servant. All these people "occupied only one room and a veranda" even as the house, owned by their parents, has ten rooms! The public tap served many households which is why Adah is woken up early before the day breaks fully. Moreover, her new Pa, her mother's brother, goes to work by six-thirty in the mornings and usually needs her to "get him his odds and ends" (p. 19).

Rather than consider her strenuous life as a case of ill-luck, Adah learns to be very useful to herself early in life. Early in life she learns to be responsible for herself. Although nobody is interested in her for her own sake, Adah sees her treatment as "an opportunity of survival" (p. 19).  At eleven or thereabout, “people started asking her when she was going to leave school" as "the fund for Boy's education was running low" (p. 19). Pressure mounts for Adah to marry. She had been known to be an obstinate girl. Only the old baldies come because they are the ones who can pay her bride price. With time, the number of suitors begins to dwindle and she later learns that the downturn in the number of suitors is due to her ugliness which Adah herself affirms: "she did not dispute that; she was ugly then, all skin and bone" (p. 20).  The presence speaks to her: "You are going, you must go and to one of the best schools." This is a revelation from the presence' (her God/spiritual guide) for which Adah smiles which irritates the headmaster. The headmaster orders four tough-looking boys to carry Adah up. She is given several strokes of the cane on her buttocks. In a bid to ease the pain of the strokes she bit the back of one of the boys who is backing her: her teeth dig into the poor boy's back that "fragments of his flesh were stuck between her teeth" (p. 21). This incident makes her to be nicknamed "the Ibo tigress", whose people, the Igbo, are said to eat human flesh. 

Significance of Page 18 to 22 in Second Class Citizen

The death of Pa marks a new turn in Adah's life. Almost losing her place in school, the voice of somebody who says education would raise her value in bride price saves her. The voice of someone who saves her from crashing out of school is akin to the presence', the spiritual guide which Adah often makes reference to. The strenuous duty to which she is subjected strengthens Adah and makes her a strong girl. Adah's early experience and the manner she would have been given out in early marriage in life was the fate of Igbo girls in the 1950s. In each case, it is the interference of the presence that saves her from early marital 'imprisonment'. Adah is shown to be poor all round. Not only are her parents poor, her nearest relations are equally poor. Although her mother's brother has a  ten-room house, only about two rooms are available to the family. All other rooms are given out on rent. Her portraiture as 'the Ibo tigress' is painted first in this segment of the narration. It results from Adah's biting the boy backing her for the headmaster's cane strokes.

Summary of Page 22 to 24 in Second Class Citizen

 Adah's other atrocity as the route to secondary school education (pp. 22-24)

The other atrocity committed by Adah is to have converted the two shillings meant to buy a pound of steak. She is sent to Sand Ground market to buy steak; instead she lies about the money so that she will afford an entrance examination form. Adah battles with her conscience and engages in a silent argument with Jesus: "Would Jesus condemn her for doing it for stealing?" After all her cousin, Cousin Vincent, can afford to replace the money she later converts for another purpose. All the points of argument Adah raises with Jesus remain unanswered: "That was the trouble with Jesus, He never answered you" (p. 22). The lie is so open at the ends that the cousin's wife detects that she is lying. Adah opens her mouth and closes it because no sound came" (p. 23). Even as she knows sin attracts punishment, she is ready for the punishment which will follow her thievery. Cousin Vincent punishes Adah with several strokes of the cane, called the koboko. After fifty strokes and Adah is not weeping, her cousin begs her to cry a little: "If only she would cry and beg for mercy, he would let her go" (p. 23). Even after one hundred and three strokes, Adah is as stubborn as ever. This makes Cousin Vincent proclaim that he will not talk to her again: "not in this world nor in the world to come" (p. 23).

 The headmaster is surprised that the little girl from a poor home with a kwashiorkor-ridden body is going to sit for the common entrance examination. "One can never tell with you Ibos", exclaims the headmaster. "You're the greatest mystery the good God has created." Thus the school head praises both Adah and her ethnic group. Although the money is not there with which to train Adah, the girl herself does not allow that to bother her. As long as there will be scholarship awards, Adah targets one of them. How to leave the home to go and sit for the examination becomes a problem. She informs Ma's brother but he does not care since it does not involve giving her any money. Relations neither ask her about the entrance fee nor how she will pay her school fees should she succeed. Luckily, Adah passes the entrance examination and obtains one scholarship award. Her success increases her awe for the Presence which "existed right beside her, just like a companion” (p. 24). Adah does not forgive Cousin Vincent. Each time she prays, she asks God to send him to hell for having the heart to cane her for two hours with a koboko. We are informed that Adah "did not believe in that stuff of loving your enemy" (p. 24).

Significance of Page 22 to 24 in Second Class Citizen

Falsehood can be encouraged by need. Moreover, Adah is eager to attain secondary education. Overwhelming need for the money (two shillings) compels her to steal. The looseness of her falsehood indicates that she is yet to be adept at lying. Adah is at least aware that sin is supposed to attract punishment which is probably why she withstands the caning episode 

Adah is a tough girl. She withstands over a hundred strokes to the extent that her caner begs her to cry. Her obtaining a scholarship means two things: she is intelligent and has a wakeful Presence' who works for her. Adah's failure to forgive Cousin Vincent shows that she is unrepentant, unforgiving and self justifying 

Summary of Page 25 to 35 in Second Class Citizen

 Marriage, traditional sacrifice and Francis' departure for England (pp. 25-35) 

Marriage comes as an opportunity to have a home. After leaving the secondary school, Adah cannot find a home nor can she live on her own, being a teenager. Of all the suitors that came, Francis' age is nearest hers although he has no money to pay her bride-price of five hundred pounds. The marriage starts on a wrong footing. Both of them are under-age. On the wedding day, they forget the wedding ring and cannot be wedded at the Registry. The postponement of the initial wedding day is her saddest day. Francis' first sign of pettiness shows when he asks his father if he (Francis) is to allow Adah to work in the library for the Americans since she is to earn more than himself. His father is surprised at him: "Let her go and work for a million Americans and bring their money here" (p. 26).

Adah's first pay-day is a day of anxiety. She is about to be paid sixty pounds, a sum none of them had seen before in their lives. That day Francis serves as his wife's bodyguard from work: "Both husband and wife carried the money to Tinubu Square in Adah's work bag like a delicate baby (pp. 26-27). While Francis is planning to leave for the UK, he would want his wife to remain in Lagos because of her big pay packet. Rather than say this himself, Francis quotes what his father says, namely"... you're earning more than most people who have been to England. Why lose your good job just to go and see London? They say it is just like Lagos" (p. 30). Adah understands what it means to stay back in Lagos while Francis travels to England. She does not argue about it but instead adopts the Biblical approach: “Be as cunning as a serpent but as harmless as a dove (p. 30). The fact is that Francis and his parents want her to stay in Nigeria and "finance her husband", make occasional gifts to her parents-in-law, help in the payments of the school fees of her husband's female siblings and look after their (Francis and Adah's) young children. Adah allows Francis to depart before she sets to work on her mother-in-law. She works on the older woman's senses, including letting her realize that she (mother-in-law) would lose nothing if she leaves for England:"... in England I'll work and still send you money. All you have to do is to ask, and then you'll get whatever you want" (p. 35). We are informed that "Adah won over her mother-in-law (p. 35). 

Summary of Page 38 to 41 in Second Class Citizen

 Adah arrives cold England (pp. 38-41)

Adah hears jabbering voices and thinks it is either a fire or an accident or perhaps someone had drowned. She looks out of the ship, from the deck, a cold wind blew on her face as she emerged on the deck... she ran back, with her arms folded across her chest" (p. 38). They have arrived Liverpool; the noise is to acknowledge this fact. We are told that "England gave Adah a cold welcome" (p. 39). She earlier experienced cheerful welcomes from ports such as Takoradi in Ghana, Freetown in Sierra Leone and Las Palmas, a city in the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. Much regret for her but there is nothing Adah will do now, having struggled hard to be in England: "Well, it was too late to moan ... it was too late to change her mind... Her children must have an English education for which she is prepared to bear the coldest welcome" (p. 39).  Adah meets a new Francis. He kisses his wife in public with everybody looking" (p. 39). It is a act for which Adah's mother-in-law could have made sacrifices "to Oboshi for forgiveness" (p.39)  In a short while husband and wife disagree. When she tells Francis to his face that he is lying, he comments that their separation "has made you bold. You've never in your life told me that I was lying before" (p. 40). Another disagreement stems from the wife's comment to the effect that England builds jammed houses, land not being plentiful and adds that we may never be as bad as this" (p.41). Francis silence indicates that he disagrees with Adah's opinion. Yet another disagreement is when they arrive their poor residence and she asks, "Are we going to live here?" It would seem that this effort to even have such a place is not appreciated by his wife. He remarks: "Well, I know you will not like it but this is the best I can do(p. 41). 

Significance of Page 38 to 41

The noise from fellow passengers celebrating their arrival at the English city of Liverpool symbolizes the din in the disharmonious relationship between Adah and Francis in England. The cold Adah first experiences in the English city also portends the coldness to be experienced

in her marriage with Francis. Francis has been briefly changed by the environment as he now kisses his wife in public. But this change is skin-deep. Not too long from that time, they disagree on virtually every issue. Francis' action of kissing his wife in public shows that he has the capacity to change if he wishes. But as the story unfolds, he soon returns to his conservative old self. 

Summary of Page 45 to 59 in Second Class Citizen

 Adah starts work and what to do with the children (pp. 5-59) Adah starts work at Finchley Central Library. It is a good environment and everybody is friendly.

The chief librarian, Mrs Konrad, a Czech, is "explosive in her welcome, and very, very friendly (p. 47).  Adah is a worker and is happy that she is; her husband will not work because he is studying. claiming working will interfere with his progress at studies. It is real work; she does not sit down. The people of North Finchley trouped out in their number just to borrow books. The narrator remarks: "only God know what the people of North Finchley did with the books they borrowed" (p. 48).  Although she enjoys her new work environment, her biggest worry is her children, who to look after them. Francis who only reads, is not really happy that he has been consigned to looking after  them while Adah goes to work: "I can't go on doing it; you'll have to look for someone. I can't go on looking after your children for you" (p. 49). Moreover, their childless landlord and landlady are hostile to the idea of bringing children to the tenement building, In England, Nigerian children often have two sets of mothers - the biological mother and the social mother. The fact is that most foreign mothers in Adah's situation "advertise for a foster mother" (p.50). However, while others in similar circumstances are looking for foster-mothers, Adah is 'not making any attempt to look for a foster-mother" (p. 51), Pressure mounts on Adah, not just from Francis, but also from the landlord who even goes as far as doing the advert for a foster-mother. Fortunately no applicant shows up. Janet, Mr Babalola's wife, is Adah's friend. Her eighteen-month-old baby is Titi Obi's playmate and serves as a partial relief for the mother.

Adah arranges with Trudy who is said to be clean, well dressed and very friendly. We are told that Francis "praised Trudy to the skies" (p. 55). Trudy has two children and adds those to Adah's two - Titi and Vicky. A sad incident takes place while Trudy is looking after Adah's children. After a few weeks of the children coming under the care of Trudy, Titi stops talking "altogether" (p. 59), having before then been "a real chatt ox." This is a surprise to the mother. Adah pays a surprise visit to Trudy to find out what may have gone amiss. Adah makes some discoveries: the Trudy girls (two of them) play with the spades and buckets meant for Titi and Vicky; Trudy hobnobs with a man, for which Adah nearly calls her a prostitute, The man Trudy is playing with is a lover, a customer or a boyfriend, or may be a mixture of both" (p. 56); Vicky is at the junky backyard "pulling rubbish out of the bin and Titi was washing her hands and face with the water leaking from the toilet" (p. 57); and Vicky has no nappy on. Adah reports Trudy who is a registered baby-minder to the children's officer at Malden Road. Trudy makes a scrupulous denial of all that Adah discovers on her own. She arrives Malden Road in tears. She claims she had allowed Adah's children wander into that part of the backyard because of the man Adah had met holding Trudy "at a funny angle." She also claims that she gives Adah's two children five pints of milk whereas the milkman supplies two pints, a fact Adah observes herself. That day, the myth Adah had been brought up to believe that whites hardly lie, is broken.  Francis takes the faults of Trudy, a paid baby-minder, rather lightly. Instead he defends the baby- minder: "Even if the children were left in the backyard, he was sure it must have been clean before the kids missed it up" (p. 58). The babies stare at their father who, it seems, occasionally beats them with his belt. Adah later discovers why Titi no longer chatters. The old classmate of Adah who visits makes the discovery while the little girl lets the cat out of the bag. The girl mutters in Yoruba: "Don't talk to me. My dad will cane me with the belt if I speak in Yoruba. And I don't know much English" (p. 59). After this revelation Adah starts to nag. Miss Stirling, the children's officer, looks for places in the nursery for her children. No such opportunity exists. Adah has to resort once more to Trudy.

Significance of Page 45 to 59

Adah's workplace, the Finchley Central Library, is genial and friendly whereas her home is a contrast. While she works and enjoys it, Francis shuns work, and clings to his studies. He is not prepared to look after the children, in spite of their also being his children.  Adah is a committed mother. By refusing to submit her children to a foster-mother, she shows that the welfare of her children is uppermost in her mind. Francis' refusal to cater for his children in the absence of his wife shows that he is not a caring father. He is a conservative who believes that child-rearing is for women alone.  Adah is so concerned about her two children that she locates a baby-minder, named Trudy. Although she is neat and looks like one who can do the job, she is a bit loose with men and uncaring to the children left in her care. Under her care Vicky is handling rubbish without his nappy on; and Titi washes her face with water issuing from a toilet.  Trudy proves herself a liar by her strenuous denial of all facts of the matter before Miss Stirling, the children's officer. Adah is scandalized. She had been taught to believe that whites do not tell lies, but here is Trudy trying to prove that belief wrong. By her close commitment to her children, she discovers why Titi, hitherto a chatter-box, does not talk as before. Although the information on Titi's sudden withdrawal from chatting is learnt from Adah's ex-classmate, it is Adah who complains that her daughter had recently been taciturn. It is discovered that Francis beats his children in their mother's absence, an indication that he has since engaged in child abuse. Francis is not a reliable partner. Whereas Adah is angry at Trudy for her oversights and shortcomings, Francis makes light of Trudy's misdemeanours and even blames his own children who are mere toddlers. 

Summary of Page 60 to 68 in Second Class Citizen

 Uncooperative husband and the ailing Vicky (pp. 60-68) 

 Francis is unbothered by what Adah's headaches such as their living in "one half-room", the treatment meted to Vicky and Titi by Trudy and her new pregnancy. Rather than be concerned with these worries, he sleeps soundly, "his hairy chest going up and down like troubled waves" (p. 60). Adah recalls how her husband waves off every issue she raises and this adds to her frustrations. As soon as Adah complains that she feels "so heavy this morning" and requests him to take the children to Trudy, Francis cynically says, "Have I any choice?" He hardly has time to ask whis pregnant wife how she was feeling so early in the morning" (p. 61).  Adah dreams that should Francis qualify as an accountant and she a librarian, the husband would take her to Finchley Road where they would eat in one of the expensive restaurants. She quickly dismisses such a thought because she already knows that Francis will at once turn it down, convinced that such places were not for blacks” (p. 63). The fact is that in "Francis' mind was a fertile ground in which such attitudes could grow and thrive" (p. 63). Apart from a mother's sense of caution, Cynthia brings the news of Vicky's sudden ailment. Mrs Konrad, Adah's boss at work, drives her to Trudy who is seen wiping Vicky's face with a rag as filthy as an old mophead" (p. 64). Vicky is running temperature; he is ill. Sign it seems that the difference between husband and wife is deep-seated. Not even their child's ailment can bring them together as they frequently bicker between themselves. The Obis are challenged by their son's ailment. In particular, Adah is upset by the fate of her son: he suffers from the virus meningitis whose survival is very slim.

Adah's confrontation of Trudy in spite of how uncivilized it looks reveals the depth of her anxiety and frustration. Her husband's slow response to the unfolding events and his late night visit to Trudy on the grounds that he wants to bring Titi back infuriate Adah the more.nSo disturbed is Adah that she threatens both her husband and Trudy. "If anything happens to my son, I am going to kill you and that prostitute." Her use of 'prostitute for Trudy is an indication that she believes there is some dalliance between the two. At the height of her frustration, Adah throws caution to the wind, directly accuses her husband of sleeping with Trudy and also threatening the latter with death, regardless of its implication. The boy's illness induces the worst in Adah and shows how fierce she is. This new conduct suggests to Francis that he may have overexposed his wife by bringing her to mix up with middle- class English women.

Adah uses every little incident to expose the British society and her hidden cultural traits in the name of civilization. For instance, while a row brews between Adah and her children's minder over Vicky's dangerous ailment, Miss Stirling, the children's officer, is seemingly urbane and neutral. Ironically, while husband and wife cross swords, neighbours, largely fellow Nigerians, envy them and wish them ill. The main source of envy and contempt is largely that the couple is Igbo and seems to have a distinct way of going after their problems as if they are first-class citizens. Moreover, they are blessed with children whom Adah is reluctant to send out for fostering unlike other Nigerian parents. 

Summary of Page 69 -79 in Second Class Citizen

 While Adah and Francis bicker, neighbours hate them (pp. 69-79) 

Initially it was as if husband and wife would come together from the experience of having an ailing son, Vicky. But this does not happen. Francis is on the queer side. Rather than face the task before them "he cried, like a woman, with Adah" (p. 69). Vicky has just been diagnosed with the virus meningitis. Adah learns that the boy's chances of "surviving are very slim" (p. 69) and this makes her very sad. She accuses Trudy of being responsible for the child's ailment and forcefully tells Francis she is going to confront the woman who looks after her children (Trudy). Francis is saddened by Adah's announcement over Trudy and asks his wife: "What is happening

to you?" The disturbed woman is emboldened by such a question and tells the husband: "If anything happens to my son, I am going to kill you and that prostitute" (p. 69). Adah reveals that there is an unholy relationship between her husband and Trudy. She was him, “I don't care what you do, but I must have my children whole and perfect" (p. 70). She calls their marriage, "this slavish marriage" (p. 70). Francis, shocked by the fierceness on Adah's face, as she talks, sees his wife with new eyes. Somebody had once told him that it was a mistake to bring a woman from Africa to England, and allow her mix up with middle-class English women: "They soon knew their rights" (p. 70). This possibility worries Francis. Adah is still insistent that she is going to ask Trudy about the source of Vicky's ill-health. Francis warns his wife to desist from doing so as "this is not home, you know. You can be failed for accusing her falsely" (p. 70). With such a position, Adah is forced to reveal what she thinks

about both of them: Francis is accused of having a relationship with Trudy. Adah then says emphatically: "I don't care what your friends say. I am going to Trudy. She has something to tell me" (p. 70).

Adah verbally attacks Trudy eventually: "I am going to kill you. Do you hear that? I am going to kill you if anything happens to my child. I shall sneak in here and kill you in your sleep" (p. 72). While the quarrel lasted, Miss Stirling, the children's officer who could discipline Trudy for her carelessness is neutral in the typical English manner. When Miss Stirling speaks, it is to announce that "we've got nursery places for the children" (p. 73). However, a lot pile upon Adah's head: "Vicky was still in danger, her marriage hung in the balance and now all this row" (p. 73).  While Adah and Francis bicker, it is clear that they are a loathed couple. They have been asked to quit Ashdown Street by their landlord. Neighbours, even fellow Igbo themselves work against Adah. As the narrator puts it, her Nigerian neighbours consider her as having her cake and also eating it at the same time: "She was in a white man's job... [and] would not send her children

away to be fostered like everybody else; instead they were living with them just as if she and Francis were first-class citizens..." (p. 75). Neighbours would like to see their backs. They pray, "Adah and her husband must go" (p. 76). Not only is the couple working hard to achieve, they are fertile: "one never knew, Adah and

Francis might even have another boy" (p. 76). It is not easy for the couple to have another accommodation and with their three children and a pregnancy. Every door is barred against the couple even when they are willing "to pay double the normal rent" (p. 77). The landlord and landlady are gladdened by the couple's inconveniences brought about by their being asked to quit. Neighbours on Ashdown Street "would start singing as soon as they saw Adah coming" (p. 78).

The couple is unwanted by fellow Nigerian neighbours because they were lbos, because they had their children with them, because Adah worked in a library and because they found it difficult to conform to the standard which they were expected to live by" (p. 79). Part of the reason for

neighbours' hatred is the fact that although black, African and Nigerian, Adah would not accept to be imposed with an inferior status in life. Sign it seems that the difference between husband and wife is deep-seated. Not even their child's ailment can bring them together as they frequently bicker between themselves.

The Obis are challenged by their son's ailment. In particular, Adah is upset by the fate of her son: he suffers from the virus meningitis whose survival is very slim.

Adah's confrontation of Trudy in spite of how uncivilized it looks reveals the depth of her anxiety and frustration. Her husband's slow response to the unfolding events and his late night visit to Trudy on the grounds that he wants to bring Titi back infuriate Adah the more. So disturbed is Adah that she threatens both her husband and Trudy. "If anything happens to my son, I am going to kill you and that prostitute." Her use of 'prostitute for Trudy is an indication that she believes there is some dalliance between the two.

At the height of her frustration, Adah throws caution to the wind, directly accuses her husband of sleeping with Trudy and also threatening the latter with death, regardless of its implication. The boy's illness induces the worst in Adah and shows how fierce she is. This new conduct suggests to Francis that he may have overexposed his wife by bringing her to mix up with middle- class English women. Adah uses every little incident to expose the British society and her hidden cultural traits in the name of civilization. For instance, while a row brews between Adah and her children's minder over Vicky's dangerous ailment, Miss Stirling, the children's officer, is seemingly urbane and neutral.  Ironically, while husband and wife cross swords, neighbours, largely fellow Nigerians, envy them and wish them ill. The main source of envy and contempt is largely that the couple is Igbo and seems to have a distinct way of going after their problems as if they are first-class citizens. Moreover, they are blessed with children whom Adah is reluctant to send out for fostering unlike other Nigerian parents. 

Summary of Page 80 to 102 in Second Class Citizen

 From ghetto to ghetto and dissonance in the Obi family life (pp. 80-102) 

From the near ghetto living on Ashdown Street, the Obis are challenged to seek another housing accommodation. To look for a new place is a tough choice. Nor can the family move into a better place than where they are currently. Even to obtain a house of equivalent status is not guaranteed. There is a promise of two rooms but Adah is faced with the racist possibility of being rejected because she is black. She hopes that her new landlady to-be would be compassionate to welcome her considering her pregnancy, "forgetting that her plight had failed to move her countrymen" (p. 80). Initially, she is to get the two rooms on Hawley Street. She is so happy that she walks back home in order to announce it to Francis, namely that she has secured not just one room but two at the same rate as the present rent. Although the house is in "a tumble-down area with most of the surrounding houses in ruins” (p. 83), Adah is so happy about her new find. Husband and wife go to see the landlady but on seeing the couple, the house owner is shocked to know who they are, blacks. The landlady "made several attempts to talk, but no sound came. Her mouth had obviously gone dry" (p. 84). She lies to them that the two rooms had been taken.  Husband and wife return to Ashdown Street very disappointed. We are informed that "Adah could not bear it. She had either to start screaming or talking; anything that came into her head" (p. 85). She chooses to talk but Francis is not listening. At a point Adah thinks he would beat her instead he lambasts her: "You'll be telling the world soon that you're carrying another Jesus." Adah returns the dry joke, namely that “to the English, Jesus is coloured" (p. 85), the type of pale colour similar to Francis”. She throws a quip at the English for worshipping a coloured man and yet refusing "to take a coloured family into their home” (p. 86). Francis says nothing. The house the Obis eventually secure is one owned by a Nigerian called Mr Noble who had come to England to read and secure a good job but failed. Pensioned twice, Mr Noble puts his money together and buys an old terrace house in Willes Road, just by Kentish Town Station. The house has three floors, and the two top floors were occupied by two sisters who had been born in the house" (pp. 91-92). Mr Noble had thought that as soon as he bought the house, the two sisters would move away. But British law supports their continuously living in the house until they find a place or decide to quit on their own. So Mr Noble effectively has only a floor, since the sisters are 'controlled tenants whose rents the landlord cannot increase nor can they be evicted. The house on Willes Road is said to be narrow, "curving into Prince of Wales Road.” It is said to have “a gloomy and unwelcoming look" (p. 95). Lodged between two houses owned by some Greeks, Mr Noble's house “looked like a midget between two giants. His was neglected" (p. 96). Mr Noble is already aging. His wife, Mrs Noble is "a large-boned Birmingham woman, still young and pretty" (p. 99). Named Sue, she has many children. Pa Noble on his own has two prominent bones which form a triangle encasing the hollow on his neck: "whenever Pa Noble talked something that looked like a chunk of meat inside his gullet would dance frighteningly in this encased hollow" (p. 97). The narrator informs us that "Pa Noble was too old for Sue" (p. 102).

We are informed that Francis "seldom smiled” (p. 101); he is traditional, often withdrawn and unfriendly. When Adah asks Pa Noble why he told Sue that his father(i.e Pa Noble's father) had tails, the old man laughs and tells the questioner she is young and inexperienced and will learn soon. Francis speaks in his conservative tone: "she's only a woman" (p. 102). 

Significance of Page 80 to 102

Things have not changed for the Obis. They have only moved from one ghetto into another with all the hassles associated with looking for accommodation in a racist environment. The response of the landlady on Hawley Street shows that racism is entrenched in the English society. The shock on the white landlady's face as soon as she sees the Obis shows that race is a decider of one's fate in the British environment. The Hawley Street landlady's instant claim that a house Adah had thought was almost theirs has been taken by some other people is another evidence to Adah that white people also lie, unlike the impression to the contrary.  Pa Noble's house proves a relief to the Obis. Here there is no discrimination, after all Mr Noble is also a Nigerian. England is not a bed of roses. Nigerians, even up until now, think Britain is an Eldorado. The suffering experienced by Mr Noble and his wife, Sue, or even Francis and his family evince that England is not a walk in the park.

The suffering by the obis on housing fails to bring husband and wife together. Francis talks down on his wife: "she's only a woman." This is in spite of the fact that it is Adah that locates the new accommodation and compels both of them to go after it. 

Summary of Page 103 to 119 in Second Class Citizen

 From settling at the Nobles to the arrival of another boy (pp. 103-119)

 Adah's pregnancy continues to mature. She experiences arrow-like punches, whose intensity jolts her into reality. She wonders if babies "do morning exercises in their mother's tummies” (p. 103). Adah is getting heavier and heavier. To get up in the mornings for work is becoming a task indeed.  Adah arrives Kentish Town station and discovers that the rail men are on a go-slow. She had no idea until she got to the station. The reason for this ignorance is that the Obis relate with no one: "Francis did not believe in friendship" (p. 104). He only relates with one or two Jehovah's Witness people. Even then such people are not regular visitors as such.   Francis occasionally watches Mr Noble's television but does not allow his wife to do so "because [Mrs Noble) would be a bad influence on her" (p. 104). Adah accepts things as they are in order not to promote misunderstanding between her and her husband. Meanwhile, the kicks of the child in her womb continue.  The railwayman's strike of that day is a blessing in disguise. Although she desires the unexpected break, it is not wholly acceptable to her because Francis would "accuse her of laziness and would remind her that they needed her money" (p. 105). While he is still in his pyjamas, Adah returns home informing him about the railwayman's strike for more pay. Francis is not interested in the story: "she should have thought of a better story" (p. 107).

 The kicks hit her again and again and felt like screaming" (p. 107). Rather than show pity to her general condition, Francis starts to preach, a preaching that centres on the virtuous woman. It is always "Jehovah God said this, Jehovah God said that" (p.108), and "how Jehovah was going to bless the virtuous woman" (p. 109). In spite of Adah's negative view of Francis, she is convinced that her husband is not a bad man, “just a man who could no longer cope with the overdemanding society he found himself in" (p. 110). Often angry, his search for a religious magazine leads to his scattering all the clothes in their room, and when it is found, he commands Adah to return to the room from which she is escaping.

However, Adah hurries to Dr Hudson's surgery at the Crescent as a result of the continuous kicks. Before then, Adah buys lots of clothings in expectation of her new baby. Francis is not amused and “demanded angrily whether she was preparing to get  married, buying all that stuff" (p. 113). While the female doctor (Dr Hudson) thinks of what is good for Adah by insisting on her giving birth at University College Hospital, the pregnant woman thinks of having her baby at home and saving six pounds. Adah's reason is that "the six pounds would feed them for a week, maybe for eight or nine days” (p. 113). Adah describes her husband in an inelegant manner like expecting him to appear in his cheap linen pyjamas, with the baggy trousers and his thing in it swinging this way and that way." (p.114). She again describes the pyjamas as wrinkled while Francis is dressed for the day in his grey flannel trousers, cream coloured shirt and his pale green cardigan with a criss-cross pattern on it" (p. 115). Francis is said "to open his little Chinese mouth" (p. 115). Adah has nothing but ill-feeling for her husband. While other husbands would panic the their pregnant wives were facing a risky time in their lives and may die, Francis is said not to bother: "He was sure Adah would live. To him Adah was immortal" (p. 116). She accuses him or neglecting her and her pregnancy because of her not waiting to read the religious magazine, The Truth Shall Make You Free just as she had interfered with his sexual escapades with Trudy or not having been a virtuous woman. All these are speculations which Adah has heaped on her husband by her narrator Adah is in danger as she tries to have her third child. She dreams a terrible dream in which she is close to death. Even in near death she does not trust her husband: "She could not run to her husband for help because he was still carrying that sword of fire" (pp. 117-118). Soon after, her bad dream turns into a good one. Another boy is born by a Caesarian. 

Significance of Page 103 to 119

The expected baby's kicks in her tummy heighten her pains. These pains increase as she becomes heavier and heavier.  The incident of the Kentish Town railmen being on a go-slow and the Obis being ignorant of the fact shows that they are cut off from their immediate environment. Francis has just very few friends while he deliberately discourages Adah from being friendly with Mrs Noble. Adah's hard times with her third pregnancy exposes Francis' lack of love for his wife. Francis' preaching over the "virtuous woman" and concentrating on what Jehovah God says shows that he is a conservative fellow indeed. The hatred between husband and wife is mutual. While Francis is not caring, Adah is not trusty She even speculates on what Francis thinks and what is on his mind. Adah's disaffection for her husband is located in everything, including what he wears, the shape of his mouth and how his organ dangles within his clothing.  Her bad dream centres on what Francis does or does not do while his good dream does not accommodate him. The good dream ends on the delivery of their third child, Bubu. 

Summary of 120 to 138 in Second Class Citizen

 Adah's hospitalization, acquaintances and Francis' conduct (pp. 120-138) 

 Having given birth to Bubu, Adah is restrained to remain in the University College Hospital for a while. There are other women who have been acquaintances because they are sick, suffering all kinds of ailments. She specifically has drip tied to her hands, a tying which reminds her of the manner by which the little Lilliputians tied Gulliver.

The manner she is tied, including how they allowed a rubber tube joined to it to run through her.nose, to the back of her mouth” (p. 120), makes talking rather difficult, if not impossible. Adah wonders why she is singled out for this kind of treatment Anurse comes to Adah with a stand, "like the one attached to the bottle with the drip and stationed it near her head. Another nurse soon followed, carrying a bottle half-filled with blood" (pp. 120 121) Adah's neighbour on her right asks after her health. She has an answer which could have suggested that her tummy harbours a kind of mincer grinded by some angry gods as if they targeted to turn her inside into a neat pulp. But she could not say anything after all, “a rubber tube passed through her nose to her mouth" forestalling her talking. The women in the ward are kind to Adah. When the latter could have embraced death, these women seem to be telling her that there are many beautiful things in the world which she has not seen yet; and that there are several joys" she is still to experience. There is another woman who appears to be of the same age as Ma, Adah's mother. This woman's marriage of 17 years yielded no child. During this period, she had no miscarriage. Suddenly God visited her and she became pregnant and had a son. The woman is so happy about her new son that she shows him around "even when she was not strong enough to walk properly" (p.122). Adah imagines herself in the stead of the woman who was for 17 years childless. Adah wonders what and how her husband would have felt and what Francis would have done: "She would have either died of psychological pressure or another wife would have been brought for Francis"  Francis lacks the courage to stick to a vision for a long time as the husband of the woman who had no child for 17 years. Even in matters of faith, “Francis was like the Vicar of Bray. He changed his religion to suit his whims” (p. 122), occasionally Catholic, at other times Jehovah Witness. There is another acquaintance in the hospital whom Adah identifies as "the sleek, younger woman"  She sleeps on number eleven bed. A quiet woman, she is fond of talking to Adah all the time. She is still pregnant, some weeks overdue. She has a handsome husband, "well-dressed and well-groomed, looked like the god Apollo" (p. 123). The surgeon that handled Adah is equally “a handsome dark man, white, but with that type of skin colouring" possessed by white people after years of living in sunny Africa. He is the one handling the sleek woman's case, too. Adah's question to the sleek woman is instructive: she admits that both the sleek woman's husband and her own husband, Francis, are handsome. She now asks the other woman: "How did she come to marry a man as handsome as her husband? What did it feel like, marrying a man who was almost old enough to be your father? How did it feel to be loved and respected as she was, being showered with presents of flowers, funny dolls that made mad music, beautiful boxes... containing all sorts of things?" (p. 124). The sleek woman simply smiled. The sleek woman is indulged and she knows that Adah envies her as she calls her "a princess". The narrator says that Adah admits her hospital neighbour's princess-like treatment by her husband and at once "wanting to cry" (p. 125). We are told that "it never occurred to Adah that such things could be real" (p.125). Adah burst into tears for not being loved by her own husband, Francis, but the surgeon describes and calls it "the after-baby blues" (p. 126). Adah's conclusion as to her fate with her husband is that some people were created with all the good things ready made for them, others were just created like mistakes. God's mistakes" (p. 126). She cries continuously even as the surgeon and his "six disciples" are still with her. They later withdraw.  Visitors rush into the hospital wards "clutching bunches of flowers and gifts" (p. 127). Adah can only be happy for them. She receives no flowers and no cards. As a matter of fact "they had no friends, and Francis did not think flowers were necessary" (p. 127). She wonders why men take such a long time to change or adapt. Although she and her husband are not white, Francis ought to have known that flowers are the order of the day in England. Another neighbour in the hospital is in number eight. She is Greek, "large and voluble" (p. 127). A gorgeous woman with ten house-coats and a nylon night dress" with a satin bow in the front, tacked in nicely between her large breasts” (p. 127). Adah gets bothered about her own night dress which is not hers, but the hospital's. She hopes Francis would know that and buy her own.

However, Francis is a different kind of person. He does not like to keep up with the Joneses next door" and more importantly he is stingy, he has never given his wife a present, in spite of giving him "this Mohammed Ali of a son" (p. 128). Adah suffers an embarrassment. A nurse asks her to wear her (the nurse's) night dress declaring: "Mrs Obi, you must tell your husband, when he comes, to bring you your night dress" (p. 129) because "you are not really meant to wear the hospital gown after your baby has been born" (p. 129). While Adah's inability to own a night dress makes her feel inferior, it also makes her think everybody is talking about her. She is the nigger woman with no flowers, no cards, no visitors, except her husband who usually comes five minutes before the closing time, looking as if he hates it all" (p. 130). On the other hand, Francis is "so pleased with himself" (p. 131) that he has no time to think about what could please others, especially his wife. Between Adah and Francis, they constitute a study in contrasts. While she is happy that she is in a position to afford herself two or three night dresses, Francis talks about something which he says is very important: a book on Cost and Works Accountancy which he claims he can now pay for, although it is Adah's salary he is banking on using to do the purchase. He speaks reassuringly: "I am paying for the whole course on Monday, so that the whole lot can be sent to me as soon as possible" (p. 132). Such is Adah's disgust with Francis for his self-centredness that the story's narrator asks: "What does one say to such a man? That he is an idiot? That he is selfish? That he is a rogue? Or a murderer? Nothing Adah could think of could convey her feelings adequately" (p. 132). When Adah asks Francis, "Suppose I had died a few days ago, who would have taken care of them?" That is the children, Francis answers: "If you are worried about who is going to look after the children, if you had died, well, I'll tell you this. My mother brought us all up and I don't see..." (pp. 132-133). So frustrating is Francis' answer to Adah that she retorts: "If you don't go out of this ward, or stop talking, I shall throw this milk jug at you. I hate you now, Francis, and one day I shall leave you" (p. 133).

The women in the hospital and who had become Adah's acquaintances gradually go home for Christmas. The sleek lady quietly says goodbye to Adah, and one morning "she slipped out of the ward, padding noiselessly" as if she was "simply going for a bath" (p. 135). She died not too long after leaving the hospital. The women remaining in the hospital, including Adah, are not given the details; "all they knew was that she had died" (p. 135). Visitors rush into the hospital wards "clutching bunches of flowers and gifts" (p. 127). Adah can only be happy for them. She receives no flowers and no cards. As a matter of fact "they had no friends, and Francis did not think flowers were necessary" (p. 127). She wonders why men take such a long time to change or adapt. Although she and her husband are not white, Francis ought to have known that flowers are the order of the day in England. Another neighbour in the hospital is in number eight. She is Greek, "large and voluble" (p. 127). A gorgeous woman with ten house-coats and a nylon night dress" with a satin bow in the front tacked in nicely between her large breasts” (p. 127). Adah gets bothered about her own night dress which is not hers, but the hospital's. She hopes Francis would know that and buy her own. However, Francis is a different kind of person. He does not like to keep up with the Joneses next door" and more importantly he is stingy, he has never given his wife a present, in spite of giving him "this Mohammed Ali of a son" (p. 128).

 Adah suffers an embarrassment. A nurse asks her to wear her (the nurse's) night dress declaring:

 "Mrs Obi, you must tell your husband, when he comes, to bring you your night dress" (p.129) because "you are not really meant to wear the hospital gown after your baby has been born" (p.129).  While Adah's inability to own a night dress makes her feel inferior, it also makes her think everybody is talking about her. She is the nigger woman with no flowers, no cards, no visitors, except her husband who usually comes five minutes before the closing time, looking as if he hates it all" (p. 130). On the other hand, Francis is "so pleased with himself" (p. 131) that he has no time to think about what could please others, especially his wife. Between Adah and Francis, they constitute a study in contrasts. While she is happy that she is in a position to afford herself two or three night dresses, Francis talks about something which he says is very important: a book on Cost and Works Accountancy which he claims he can now pay for, although it is Adah's salary he is banking on using to do the purchase. He speaks reassuringly:

"I am paying for the whole course on Monday, so that the whole lot can be sent to me as soon as possible" (p. 132).

 Such is Adah's disgust with Francis for his self-centredness that the story's narrator asks: "What does one say to such a man? That he is an idiot? That he is selfish? That he is a rogue? Or a murderer? Nothing Adah could think of could convey her feelings adequately" (p. 132). When Adah asks Francis, "Suppose I had died a few days ago, who would have taken care of them?" That is the children, Francis answers: "If you are worried about who is going to look after the children, if you had died, well, I'll tell you this. My mother brought us all up and I don't see..." (pp. 132-133). So frustrating is Francis' answer to Adah that she retorts: "If you don't go out of this ward, or stop talking, I shall throw this milk jug at you. I hate you now, Francis, and one day I shall leave you" (p. 133).  The women in the hospital and who had become Adah's acquaintances gradually go home for Christmas. The sleek lady quietly says goodbye to Adah, and one morning "she slipped out of thevward, padding noiselessly" as if she was "simply going for a bath" (p. 135). She died not too long after leaving the hospital. The women remaining in the hospital, including Adah, are not given the details; "all they knew was that she had died" (p. 135). on the day she is to leave the hospital, Adah puts on her African costume. A day or two to her departure the blue night dress arrives. She is not proud of it because the dress is not beautiful. The non-availability of the dress has made her to keep to herself. On the day she is to go, Francis visits with her lappa. Adah ties it round herself hurriedly but would not go back to the ward. She forgets to say goodbye nicely to her former neighbours, for after all "she could never get that very same group of people, in the same ward having their babies again. It could never be repeated" (p. 138) 

Significance

The University College Hospital experience of a few days is treated in detail by the author because it identifies an important event in Adah's life. It marks her third experience as a mother, experience of racialism, human relationship, treatment of the poor and the Black and Francis' lack of love, stinginess and conservatism.  The inmates of the ward enjoy each other but they are also conscious of their backgrounds and would usually keep their impressions to themselves. The women support one another. Their support for Adah when she is in low spirits at the hospital is worth noticing. They remind her of the beauty in the world and the need to embrace life rather than death  These are different treatments by the husbands of the women. The men are essentially loving, caring and available. But Francis is stiff, unavailable uncaring and selfish. Where other husbands bring flowers and cards, Francis does not, whereas, Adah cherishes these things a lot. Where other husbands are available to cuddle their wives, Francis arrives five minutes before closing time. The husband's treatment of the sleek woman shows that there could be love in marital life. Whereas the sleek lady is treated as a queen by her husband, Francis has no respect, and no fondness for his wife.  Adah seems to be envious of the other women. She expects flowers and cards from her husband and neighbours in Ashdown or Hawley Street but she and Francis have no friends as such. Then she cultivates sadness for herself when she has not prepared herself for such expectation. Adah seems to be someone who weighs her balance improperly. She bothers herself so much for not having a nightdress even as she knows her husband and children depend on her salary. The foundation for a divorce is irretrievably laid in this segment of the story. The hospital experience is a bad one for Adah. She is meant to consider the hospital event as a revelation of how unlucky she is in life. The climax of these sad moments is when there is no pity and emotional commitment in Francis' response to "suppose I had died a few days ago, who would have taken care of the children?

She is a very emotional person. For not saying goodbye nicely, Adah seems to be laying her disappointments on the wrong persons. When her husband visits with her lappa on the day of her departure, she quickly ties the African dress and takes a hurried goodbye. This does not speak well of her 

 Summary of Page 139-152 in Second Class Citizen

Francis works for once, disharmony in his family and Vicky's ear (pp. 139-152) 

The Obis live in one room, while their lavatory is downstairs. The tight compartment becomes an advantage when all of England is very cold. But the children suffer for this tight' living the children will not go out for recreation. Francis goes to work for the first time. He works as a postman for two weeks in a terrible winter Adah feels guilty for this exposure to a hard life, in which he is expected to carry "a big bag of letters and parcels... up the stairs leading into flats, and down the stairs to those living in basements” (p. 139). Francis works because Adah has not been working owing to her birth pain and after-delivery ailment. Thus no earnings came to the family,  What bothers Francis the more is his fate in the cruelty of English dogs. As a post man he encounters these dogs whose owners love so much: "they would rather the dogs butcher a black man, than let the black man kill the dog” (p. 140). This possibility worries both husband and wife but rather than want to know who has had the experience before, Adah plays down on it in order not to be accused of "wanting to know too much" (p. 140). However, Adah is afraid for Francis. She raises in her mind the picture of Francis "running, running for his life and the dogs in hot pursuit" (p. 140). A thought such as “I may never see him again. The dogs may have eaten him up by the evening" (p. 141) often crosses her mind and leaves her with a painful fear.

A walk outside their one-room apartment in Mr Noble's house reversed her feeling for Francis. Adah discovers she has been very ill. Yet Francis had not been kind nor shown concern. We are told that "anger welled up inside her" (p. 141) such that she can nearly say: "Let the dogs eat Francis up, she could not care less" (p. 142). Francis returns from work to inform his wife how hectic the day's labour had been: "he covered the worst houses ever built in England. He was sure those houses were specially built to torment him" (p. 142). Although Adah has not shown interest in his claims this time, Francis continues, "for he loved the sound of his own voice" (p. 143). It is Christmas time. Although Adah is not a Jehovah's Witness, she dodges buying toys for her children, claiming their father is one. The Witness people never believe that Christ was born in December nor do they celebrate his birth in October which they claim is his birth month. This way, those who practise the faith avoid Christmas. Adah clings on to this to avoid Christmas expenses. However, Mrs Konrad, her boss sends a big parcel of children's toys. This is the way Adah's family squares up with the Nobles who "bought a big doll as big as a child of two... and all sorts of things for their five children" (p. 144). Adah gives more attention to her children's welfare. Rather than expend the two pounds a week housekeeping money Francis approves for her on toys, she makes do with Mrs Konrad's gifts and spends "more on food" (p. 145). Adah cares for the children quite much, including putting them to bed, while Francis watches the television in Mr Noble's house. Francis loves the television set but cannot afford one. Another evidence of Adah's care for their children: "She cleaned Titi and put on her red dress with spotty pockets, which Adah had bought from one of the shops along Finchley Road" (pp. 147-148). Vicky falls ill on Christmas day. The family doctor will not come. Francis insists that a doctor will come on Christmas day because it is the law. Adah thinks differently in spite of the law. More importantly the white doctor will not inconvenience himself because of a black boy who is ill. Francis returns home with two policemen. Not only is Vicky unwell, Adah is unwell herself: she walks on "wobbly feet that had refused to get strong and her eyes that kept seeing blue and yellow balloons all mixed up" (p. 149). Francis is set to arrest the white doctor for not coming to treat his child. The Indian doctor who is the locum to the white doctor and accused of “bleeding" is said to think "he is white" even though "he is as black as the devil" (p. 150). A Chinese doctor visits. Adah is shaken and worried. He is a second-class person like the Obis. "This did not help Adah much, but it was nice to hear it" (p. 151). China man examines Vicky. His question seems funny but it is pertinent: "Have you any bugs here? You know, bed-bugs? "We are told that upon hearing the question, "Adah prayed for the ground to swallow her up" (p. 151). The fact is that Vicky's ear had been bitten by bed-bugs. That is how the Obis get to know that their single room is infested with bed-bugs.

Significance of Page 139 to 152

Francis works for the first time in their stay in England. Adah had been the only worker, whose salary fends for everyone, including the husband. Now Francis works for two weeks as a postman. The strenuousness of his movements and the fact that dogs constitute an obstacle to the postman's job worry Adah as she fears for the husband's life. But because Francis himself is a selfish person, Adah withdraws her sympathy for him, wishing the dogs eat Francis up." This segment of the story paints a picture of where the Obis live, particularly the terrain of the outside of Mr Noble's house. Adah can only walk on the topography, "her feet wobbling, her head light, and her vision blurred." Not even little Titi could walk on the landscape without falling down in spite of his enjoying the experience. Francis carries himself heavily. He is not only self-centred, he places a lot of emphasis on how much energy he expends on his job as a postman. Yet he had been fed all the while by his wife not only in England, but even in Nigeria. Adah is an intelligent woman who avoids celebrating Christmas for her children by claiming that their father is a Jehovah's Witness who does not celebrate Christmas. She saves her funds but spends a good proportion of her money on the children's feeding. This is evidence of how smart Adah is.

 Vicky's car ailment on Christmas day is an embarrassment. Their regular doctor, a white man would not come although the law holds him accountable. The Indian doctor that shows up as a locum to the regular white doctor is said to be arrogant and overbearing. The Chinese doctor who shows up subsequently is able to identify the source of the ailment: bed-bug infestation. The play on skin colours of the doctors shows how important colour pigmentation is in England. Although the China man, a second-class fellow like Francis and Adah, is looked down upon by the Obis, he is the one who identifies what is wrong with Vicky.

Summary of Page 153 to 178

The relationship between Francis and Adah deteriorates (pp. 153-178)

A character of where the Obis live which Adah never fails to notice is the ever singing birds. Those who live on Willes Road in Kentish Town often saw a particular bird, "grey, small, solitary but contented in its solitude" (p. 153). It is a grey bird. We are told that Adah “stood still on the other side of the road watching this grey bird, singing, singing, hopping from one window ledge to another, happy in its lonely freedom" (p. 153). in Lagos, Adah could not take note of whether birds sang or not. Perhaps, now being in spring after winter forced the birds out and made their songs easily noticeable. She also asks: "Has Nature been too merciful to us, robbing us of the ability to wake ourselves up from our tropical slumber to know that a simple thing like a song of a grey bird on a wet Monday morning in spring can be inspiring" (pp. 153-154). Adah does her bathing at a fee. She loves bathing in a public bath on a Monday morning when many people must have gone to work. Her only snag for Monday morning bath is she does not get enough heated water as boilers are usually switched off during the weekends.

Francis discourages his wife from going to the Family Planning Clinic. His reason is that men knew how to control themselves better, the way it was done in the Bible" (p. 154). She turns down this suggestion not because she does not trust her husband but because "her husband could hurt her without meaning to" (p. 155).

Adah begs to be given the Pill. The nurse prefers she discusses with her husband. The organizers of the clinic would prefer husband and wife taking the family planning decision together. However, Francis is a difficult husband. He will raise hell, especially if he knows that his wife is making enquiries about family planning behind his back. What she could do to solve the dilemma becomes a problem. All she resolves to do is swear not to be pregnant again. Francis discusses his wife with his family. Because of this, Adah is worried that if Francis' family gets to know that she is equipping herself against further child-bearing without her husband's knowledge, they would interpret it to mean that Adah is keen to have that in order to "equip herself with something that would allow her to sleep around and not to have more children" (p. 159).

Francis is a traditionally-minded person. As soon as he learns about the wife's eagerness to do family planning, there is a row in the midnight during which he "got the whole truth out of her" (p. 160). He is scandalized that "he married a woman, married in the name of God and again married in the name of Oboshi, the goddess of Ibuza (who came to London and became clever enough within a year..." (p. 160). Francis sends out some punches to her mouth. Pa Noble's appearance reduces the punishment Francis promises to write to his mother and father. As we are informed, "Adah was not surprised at this" but she does not want anything to spoil her relationship with her mother-in-law. This makes her cry. She turns lonely again "just as she was when Pa died and Ma married again and she had to live in a relative's house” (p. 161). Francis digs the grave of their marriage when he involves the Nobles and other tenants and reveals the source of their disagreement: 'Everybody now knew that the man she was working for and supporting was not only a fool, but that he was too much of a fool to know that he was acting foolishly" (p. 161). 

Significance of Page 53 to 78

Adah's happy feeling over the grey bird is a contrast to what faces her soon after. Thus the grey bird symbolizes/foreshadows what is to happen to her relationship with Francis.

The voice of a single grey bird in England contrasts with the very many singing birds in Lagos where Adah comes from. The winter had not allowed birds to exist because of cold whereas Lagos has birds all year round and the inhabitants do not seem to take notice of them. This is probably why the early European who came to Africa thought the black man was lazy because of his over-abundant environment which robbed him of the ability to think for himself" (p.154). Francis is a conservative fellow. In the modern time, he is averse to family planning. In such a time, he wants to continue giving birth like animals without any sort of control. His idea of control is rather primitive and may not work. Francis is also an ultra-traditionalist who never sees his wife as a partner and can discuss his wife with his parents, the landlord and the other tenants. By so doing, he cheapens the union and deepens the foundation for their irreconcilable differences.

When Adah begs the nurse to give her the Pill, she is asked to involve the husband who needs to support her being given the drug. She feels rather frustrated over not having control even over her body. All the options seem not to favour her.  

Summary of Page 163-178 in Second Class Citizen

 Adah's fourth pregnancy amidst the further deepening of family crisis (pp. 163-178)

Adah's worst fear happens. She is pregnant again! She takes her situation calmly as it seems that this is going to be her lot in life. She consults their Indian doctor and pleads for the termination of the pregnancy The doctor seems to empathize with Adah. He blames her for not consulting him on the use of 'cap', whereas Adah does not know he is also into family planning. He gives her some white pills ostensibly to check the pregnancy. She does not tell her husband because of the latter's tendency to spread news of the intimacy of their household to those who have no business with it - "to the Nobles, to his parents and to everybody" (p. 164).

 In England, Adah does not go to church. Whereas in Lagos, church is festival-like, in London it is not so. The "London 'church' was a big grey building with stained-glass windows, high ornamental ceilings, very cold, full of rows and rows of empty chairs... In London, churches were cheerless" (p. 164). The emptiness of the London church does not enthuse her to go to church whereas in Lagos, the bellowing of the responses took away some of your sorrows" (p. 165). Meanwhile, the gulf between husband and wife has widened. The anger of the 'cap' incident and the expected child make reconciliation rather remote. While she grows nearer to God and to those with whom she works, she grows away from Francis" (p. 165). She is not going to tell Francis about the pregnancy "and she did not feel guilty about it." This because letting him know "would not be of any help" (p. 165). The narrator brings in Peggy, the Irish library assistant at the Chalk Farm Library with whom Adah works. She is recently heartbroken because her "Italian summer-holiday boyfriend did not fulfil his promises (p. 165). Peggy is so downcast with the fellow that she is always talking about this young man and what she was going to do to him, and how she was going to get her own back" (p. 165)

Adah's big boss at the Chalk Farm Library is Mr Barking. He is thin and bad-tempered, although without a touch of malice" (p. 165). His daughter had married a man who maltreated her and put her in a mental state. Mr Barking is so hateful of this son-in-law that "he was determined to squash that marriage if it cost him his life" (p. 166). Bill is a big handsome Canadian. He speaks ill of the English that one wonders why he came to England in the first place. He orders all his clothings and food from Canada and would not take the British Library Association Examinations because "he did not trust the British system of education" (p. 166). Bill is Adah's first real friend outside her family.

There are one or two people not taken up here who work in that library from different parts of the world. They all would occasionally talk about their problems. Adah laughs at such points for which Peggy once asks her, "What the bloody hell are you laughing for?" (p. 168). Bill serves as Adah's advocate, saying that she has no problems. She's happily married to a brilliant husband..." (p. 168). Adah does not contradict him.  Husband and wife fight all the time. We are told that "Mr Noble was fed up with their fights and had asked them to move (p. 168). As if this is not enough, all the women in Mr Noble's house write to Adah "begging her to control her husband because he was chasing them all" (p. 168)   Three months after, it is clear that the Indian doctor's drug against the pregnancy had not worked. When she takes her case to the doctor, insisting that the child is sitting there pretty," the latter is as angry as the complainant: "I did not give you the pills to abort the child," splutters the Indian.

Adah threatens with, "if my child is imperfect in any way, you are responsible. You know that" Boy, Adah's younger brother, sends her all his savings, insisting she leaves Francis and return to Nigeria to re-take her job at the Consulate. He seems to have heard about the 'cap' issue because Francis had written about the matter to his parents. Adah sits in a park near Gospel Oak village ruminating over her life when a black man's hand touches her shoulder. It is Mr Okpara's. He asks her if she had had a fight with her husband before introducing himself. His approach of settling the misunderstanding between Francis and Adah is:

"Let's go and beg his forgiveness. He would let you in" (p. 170). That is the Igbocentric approach of containing family feud. For Adah, Mr Okpara's proposition is deficient but she does not let him know immediately. She should have asked the man (Okpara) if among the Igbo people "the old people lived in one room, whether the men gave babies to their wives in such quick succession” (p. 171). She wants to know if men of Okpara's time did not have other amusements-tribal dances, age-group meetings "from which they arrived too drunk with palmwine to have the energy to ask for their wives." Francis' only recreation apart from turning this book and that book, getting up only to eat and go down to the Nobles to watch their television" (p. 171) is sex.  Mr Okpara meets Francis. In spite of the man being a fellow Igbo, older and well-dressed, "Francis was Francis, not ashamed of being Francis” (p. 172). He “lashed his tongue at Okpara told him to go back home and mind his own business" (p. 173). However, Mr Okpara being an Igbo man at heart does not feel insulted nor does he leave immediately. He continues to appeal to the couple, even giving a hard-biting advice like telling Francis to be "a man" and to "get a job and study in the evenings” rather than "staying at home and singing to his children from the hymn book of Jehova's Witnesses" (p. 174).

As soon as Adah tells Francis that she is expecting another child, "the laughter that greeted this announcement was like a mad monkey's in the zoo. It was so animal-like, so inhuman, so mirthless and yet so brutal" (p. 174). She is about five months pregnant before she tells him. The Indian doctor is now her strongest ally. He is sorry for misinforming Adah about the drug he had given her. Consequently, instead of giving Francis her pay-packet for him to dole out two pounds for housekeeping, "she would buy everything the doctors and the midwives told her to eat" (p. 175). Many rows follow this decision until she draws the red line: "You must go out and work. If not, I shall only cater for my children" (p. 176). Francis challenges her to write down the statement that she will not feed him anymore, and Adah quickly does so.  Dada, their fourth child, arrives without much trouble compared to Bubu's entry. We are told that she (Dada) "came small... painless, and perfect" (p. 177). Francis refuses to come for both mother and child; Adah and her baby return by taxi, unaccompanied.

Significance of Page 163 to 178 in Second Class Citizen

Adah's desperation is marked by her asking their Indian doctor to abort the pregnancy. Although he gives her some pills, she simply assumes the drugs are meant to kill the foetus. The tendency of Francis spreading the news of his family events further deepens the family misunderstanding Adah does not go to church in England. The church in England is cold and sodden, whereas in Nigeria, it has a festive air. Adah uses the church, a supposedly lively event, to emphasize how passionless the London environment is. Moreover, the church in London is empty, left for very few people to attend. The 'cap'incident and the fourth pregnancy which Francis is ignorant of, widen the gulf between the couple. Adah is embarrassed and embittered by her husband's inclination to reveal to others what should have remained in the familiarity of the home. While Adah's solution to the fourth pregnancy is abortion, the Indian doctor advances the life of the foetus. This leads to a sharp difference between the two, but it is the later smoothening of the relationship between patient and doctor that eventually ensures a healthy, normal birth unlike Adah's trauma of a Caesarian at the third pregnancy. The unhappy relationship between Francis and Adah is further externalized by the involvement of Mr Okpara, an Igbo residing in England. Francis' treatment of an Igbo elder who intervenes with the best of intentions portrays the former as one who is ill-bred and uncultured. It is the incident here that forewarns of the incurable nature of the misunderstanding between husband and wife Mr Okpara's intervention reveals and exposes Francis' unmanliness. He chides Francis for his weaknesses and asks him to live up to manly disposition as the head of the family. Francis has nothing but scorn and contempt for the outsider. Francis' monkey-like laughter as soon as he gets to know that Adah is pregnant again, no doubt depicts his disrespect for the wife as well as exposes him as one who is easily frightened by occurrences around him.

The incident in this segment of the story warns of the imminent collapse of the Francis-Adah marriage. It marks Francis' loss of power in the relationship. He also loses the awe in which be thinks Adah holds him when he asks his wife to write down the statement that she will no longer feed him and Adah quickly writes it down. For the first time, his wife looks him in the face and tells him to "get out and work." 

Summary of Page 179 to 192 in Second Class Citizen

 The burning of Adah's manuscript and the irretrieval collapse of the marriage (pp. 179-192)

 Dada's coming in May (Spring) has been marked by the continuous shining of the sun. Adah, for the first time, enjoys her five-month rest during which she does nothing but look after four babies, each of them under five years, and compose The Bride Price manuscript. Adah has had to enjoy the rest period, wishing in fact that she is a total housewife. This enjoyment makes her desire to be mother and wife and no more. Francis, whose bounden duty it is to take care of his household as society or even religion demands does not want to work. Although he has been compelled by his wife to go out and work," he does so rather reluctantly. We are informed that he "started to stay away from work on any pretext.

When it rained heavily.... He would not leave home until it was about ten minutes to nine, and he was supposed to be at work by nine (p. 180). Adah begins to write a manuscript which she intends to give the title The Bride Price: "The more she wrote, the more she knew she could write and the more she enjoyed writing" (p. 180). As she writes "she was oblivious of everything except her children" (p. 181).  Her new mood derived from her exercise of her writing skill which makes her forget that her husband, Francis, "came from another culture(pp. 179-181). He is not one to "adapt to new demands with ease, that his ideas about women were still the same." He is one who believes "a woman was a second-class human, to be slept with at any time...(p. 181).

However, Adah is a stubborn woman; in spite of what she is going through in Francis' hands, she will not succumb to his antics: "although she understood all that was happening to him, she was not going to be this kind of a wife" (p. 181). Adah knows she is changing; however her hope that Francis will change is a dashed one. All the time, Adah believes, "surely he would change somehow." Apparently he never changes. Bill and Peggy and others read Adah's manuscript and acknowledge her craft as a writer. She is encouraged and she asks herself: "Could Peggy and Bill be right? Could she be a writer?" (p.182) So confident has she become as a writer that she decides she will show the manuscript to Francis. Adah tells Francis about her manuscript but he replies that "he would rather watch The Saint on the new television which they had hired” (p. 184). Upon her insistence that he read The Bride Price, this is Francis' response: "You keep forgetting you are a woman and you are black." He describes black women as "brainless females" who should merely "think of nothing except how to breastfeed her baby" (p. 184).

Francis refuses to read Adah's manuscript. "He was not going to read Adah's rubbish and that Was that" (p. 184). We are informed that Adah is hurt, not because he will not read the manuscript, but because he calls it rubbish. This stance by the husband disturbs her greatly without reading the manuscript, Francis burns it. When Adah notices that he is burning something and asks him why he cannot throw all those paper into the dustbin, instead of having it burnt, and in that way raise an awful smell in the room, his response is mind-shattering: “I was afraid you'd dig them out of the bin, So I had to burn them" (p. 186).

 Adah is to frustrated that she can only remind him that Bill "called that story my brainchild, she then asks him "Do you hate me so much that you could kill my child?" The answer from Francis is like other replies, fiendish and atrocious: "I don't care if it is your child or not. I have read it, and my family would never be happy if a wife of mine was permitted to write a book like that (p. 187)

The manuscript burning is the last straw in the stream of wicked acts targeted at the marriage bond which should have existed between Francis and Adah. To her, "Francis could kill her child. She could forgive him all he had done before, but not this” (p. 187). As soon as Adah gets a new job at the British Museum, Francis gives up his job, thinking it will be like before, Little does he know that the union is over. She has made up her mind that her money will be for her and her children. As she decides to leave the marriage, Francis physically stops her from taking anything useful with her except their four children: "So Adah walked to freedom, with nothing but four babies, her new job and a box of rags" (p. 188). However, as the couple wants to part, they exchange swear-terms. Francis says if she thinks he will ever look for her, she should rather consider him a bastard; Adah accepts Francis' declaration: "Adah was happy about this, she did not want to see him again, never on this earth" (p. 188). A month later Francis discovers where Adah and the children are living by following "Titi and  Vicky on their way home from school" (p. 188). Adah's question is ordinarily embarrassing but Francis takes everything in his stride: "I thought you said that you would never come to see us. What are you here for?" (p. 188) Rather than answer, we are informed that "he forced himself into her room" (p. 189). An ultra conservatist, he invokes the Igbo dictum, "nothing like divorce ornseparation" in marriage. Rather "once a man's wife, always a man's wife until you die” (p. 189). Only Devlin, the Irish man, who lives on the top floor saves Adah and her children. Francis had come for a fight with a knife and was almost strangulating Adah when the Irish man breaks the door. Rather than kill her, he now begins to break a few properties she had brought into their new abode, including the new radiogram she purchased since they left him about four weeks previously Their case goes to court. Adah does not revenge for the bruises and cuts and bumps she had suffered in the hands of Francis. We are told that "she was not suing for maintenance, she did not even know she was entitled to any. She simply wanted her safety and protection for the children (p. 190) She fears Francis being sent to prison and wonders “what good that [could) do to her.” However, as the court proceedings continue, Francis denies both his husbandhood of Adah and the fatherhood of the children by pleading that there had not been a marriage in the first place. Adah has no documents to support her claims: "Francis had burnt them all. To him, Adah and the kids ceased to exist" (p. 191). 

Significance of Page 172 to 192

Dada, the fourth child, comes in sunshine and comes with sunshine. Ironically darkness descends on the marriage as it ends in separation. While Adah wishes to live as a housewife so as to enjoy her life to the fullest, Francis is not keen to work. The latter seems to be enjoying the fact that his wife feeds him. This gives a hint as to the nature of their marriage, The title of Adah's manuscript, The Bride Price is instructive. Her own bride price, even if higher than that of her mates who did not read to her level, does not fetch her more happiness. The burning of the manuscript of such a title is symbolic of the destruction of Adah's marital life.

  The burning of the manuscript is not just the destruction of the marriage but has been equated by Adah to mean the destruction of a 'brainchild' and the possible killing of her child which Francis does not deny. Francis' wickedness is made more manifest not only by the burning of Adah's brainchild, but also by allowing Adah to go with her children and denying them any other useful household item. In the end, he even denies that a marriage between him and Adah ever took place. The collapse of the marriage is due to the inability of Francis to accept change. He wants to run a modern family, even in England, with the old Igbo matrimonial style, claiming it is the man who decides everything that happens in the family. Francis' marriage also collapses because while he wants to determine what happens in it, he fears work and prefers his wife continuously feeding him. Francis further diminishes his manhood not only by going to Adah's new abode which he had earlier sworn he would never visit, but even precipitates a fight there, an act which in Igbo culture is considered unmanly. Francis indicates that he is dishonest and unreliable. Whereas he comes to Adah's new place to claim his husbandhood of his wife, when the matter becomes a court case and he fears imprisonment, he denies there was ever a marriage.. 

  Major characters in Second-Class Citizen

Adah Obi (nee Ofili)

Role

 Originally Adah Ofili, Adah Obi is her name in marriage. She is an Ibuza woman, married to an Ibuza man, named Francis. By the time she is quarrelling with her husband, both of them are probably in their early twenties. She is the daughter of Ma and Pa who are artisans - Ma, a seamstress and Pa, a railway moulder She is not on the beautiful side; she is said to be "cranky and ugly" and "all skin and bone" (P. 20).  She is a brilliant girl whose brother, Boy, is considered more important than she is. Her brother is sent to school while she is being encouraged to take to a trade, probably sewing. She is a prolific woman; in a few years she has four children, and the fifth was on the way as she parted ways with Francis. We are told that Ada was so fast on child delivery that "she was given the nickname 'Touch Not' among the other wives of her age group" (p. 28). that she has lost it. Cousin Vincent gives her a good thrashing which draws no tears from her eyes. Her stubbornness is also manifested in her tangle with the headmaster who canes her for laughing when in fact her laughter or smile has nothing to do with the man. Nicknamed "the Ibo tigress," she bites Latifu, the boy who backs her for the headmaster's strokes of the cane. With the pilfered sum, Adah buys the entrance examination form, passes the entrance and obtains a scholarship with which she attends a secondary school which she would not have attended, her father having died and her mother having remarried. She is a self-willed fellow who does not "believe in that stuff of loving your enemy" (p. 24). She is unhappy with Cousin Vincent to the extent that when she hears that he has failed his Cambridge School Certificate examinations, "Adah burst out laughing. God had heard her prayers” (p. 24). Because of the nature of her family, for practically having no home, early marriage is acceptable to her. Although she is originally pestered by elderly suitors whom she rejects, Francis whom she accepts his hand in marriage "was not an old baldy” (p. 25). She is said to have been happy that Francis "was too poor to pay five hundred pounds bride price Ma and the other members of her family were asking for" (p. 25).

Motivated by Lawyer Nweze's reception for having become a barrister in the UK, Adah makes "a secret vow to herself that she would go to the United Kingdom one day" (p. 17). We are further informed that she would go to the United Kingdom one day was a dream she kept to herself (p. 17). The day she is informed they both would go overseas "she started to dance an African Calypso". She is glad to know "she was soon going to be called 'been-to" (p. 29). Before Francis leaves for England, he drops his preference relying on what his father's view is: "Father said you're earning more than most people who have been to England. Why lose your job just to go and see London?" (p. 30) Rather than confront Francis on the suggestion she cautions herself to be as cunning as a serpent but as harmless as a dove" (p. 30). That way, she allows her husband to depart for England first before she negotiates her way to the UK through winning over her mother-in-law and Francis' Pa by slow and quiet argument, taking into consideration their own interests. While Adah reminds her father-in-law of her knowledge of "leave without pay" which enables one to retain one's job at home, she hands over her golden jewellery to her mother-in-law, to the latter's surprise. Her differences with her husband would often result in what looks like a confrontation. On whether or not English people joke about death, she insists Francis is lying, which stings the latter to the marrows. Another argument centres on the use of the land by English people compared to how it is used in Lagos which is a basis for disagreement between husband and wife. Yet another point of disagreement is the house and location of their accommodation in the slum. She wails within her, "Oh Francis ... how could you have done this to us?" (p. 42). The altercation gets to a point when Francis "lifted his hand as if to slap her but thought better of it" (p. 42). We are presented at a stage of the story that Adah is an opportunist. We surmise that she had married Francis because she needed a home and "the immigration authorities were making it very difficult for single girls to come to England" (p. 43). We must not forget she had made coming to the UK an utmost priority. No wonder we are told that “even if she had nothing to thank Francisfor, she could still thank him for making it possible for her to come to England" and also "for giving her her own children" (p. 43). Thus it is as if she has used Francis as a latch with which to get to achieve her desires. Adah is a hardworking lady who wants the best for herself, her children and her husband. She constantly engages herself and fends for others - her children, her husband's education, her parents-in-law and Francis' sisters. When she comes to England, she takes care of her family and where her landlord and landlady no longer tolerate them, she goes in search of a new place, the Noble's place. Even as a mother and a worker, she writes a manuscript which her husband later burns.  She seems to lack tolerance for those who either do not do things the way she wants or those who fail her. Although Francis has his own problems, Adah's intolerance seems to have exacerbated their misunderstandings. The same thing happens in her relationship with Trudy. We hear her voice all through without any opportunity for the child-minder to tell her own story. She accuses Trudy of sleeping with her husband without giving her a chance to defend herself. Even Miss Stirling, the children's officer who takes in her report against Trudy with sufficient grace, incurs her anger. She wants everyone who knows about her complaints against the child-minder to see the matter from her point of view. From the moment there's the initial loss of faith with Trudy,"she took everything Trudy said with a pinch of salt" (p. 58).  Apart fro m her bigoted approach to things, she seems to be incredulous. An ambulance comes to take Vicky, her first son, to hospital. She doubts the offer from the Royal Free Hospital and wonders if Vicky is going to "a second-class hospital, a free one, just because they were blacks" (p. 66). We are further told: "Adah did not believe in anything good coming from something you did not pay for" (p. 66). 

 She is a censorious person, and a bit on the termagant side of life. We have made reference to her squabble with Trudy under whose care Vicky takes ill; her wrangles with her husband portray her as a turbulent fellow. Her painting of the character of her husband shows that she is ill-at-ease with everything about Francis. The narrator's description of Francis leaves us with the belief that it is Adah giving vent to her frustration about him: "Francis had a small mouth, with tiny lips, too tiny for a typical African, so when he pouted those lips like that, he looked so unreal that he reminded the on-looker of other animals, not anything human" (p. 74). Initially, describing her husband as having a face "like a warm sunshine after a thunderous rain" (p. 27), Adah can now afford to tell Francis to his face after a Caesarean in a hospital, “If you do not go out of this ward, or stop talking, I shall throw this milk jug at you. I hate you now, Francis, and one day I shall leave you" (p. 133). 

Adah's comportment when she is in hospital shows that she has no confidence in herself. She is virtually jealous of fellow hospital inmates who have something she has not. As she sees the new shawls used to cover the other babies, she wonders why her baby's shawl "was not new it was off- white and not soft” (p. 137). She also desires a new night dress and for not having one, she forgets to say "good-bye, nicely" (p. 128) to fellow inmates with whom she had exchanged jokes and pleasantries. Apart from how close her pregnancies come, her other reason emanates from the night-dress episode in the hospital: "She was not going to allow herself to get pregnant again. Never" (p. 156). burns. 

Adah is God-conscious. That is why she constantly makes reference to the Presence", which permission to do family plaming, she has to forge his signature which she later regrets. Convinced that she could not achieve much except having to twist the facts," we are told that “she prayed to God again and again to forgive her" (p. 156). manuscript of The Bride Price which Bill calls her brainchild. It is this brainchild that Francis   Being a worker and the breadwinner of the Orbis family, Adah is richer than Francis who abhors work. Notice that when Adah is under the apron strings of Francis, the family lived in a one-room apartment; after leaving him, she and her children live in two rooms.

In the end, all the struggle between Francis and Adah in the name of marriage is a nullity. Even the marriage could not start as it was initially planned because there was no ring. Thus apart from the constant squabbles between husband and wife, there is no document to show that they are married: "Francis said they had never been married... She could not even produce her passport and the children's birth certificates. Francis had burnt them all. To him, Adah and the kids ceased to exist" (p. 191).  Although she takes her husband to court, she is not ready to have him jailed. This is evidence that there is 'the Presence' in her which guides her against taking extreme positions.

Significance

 Although both Francis and Adah are Ibuzans, it does not stop them from quarrelling with each other. Their belonging to the same town does not ensure harmony.  It is ironical that her ability to give birth at a fast rate rather than be a source of joy to her is partly responsible for constant frustration in the relationship between husband and wife.  In spite of the age difference between her and Boy, the latter is sent to school while the learning of sewing is reserved for her. As the novel is ending, there is no information on Boy which suggests he has done better than Adah who was being debarred from going to school.

 The incidents of her being caned prove decisively that she is a stubborn fellow. It is this stubbornness that she takes to her marriage which probably precipitates the collapse of the marital union.  Her intransigence extends into assertiveness and hard-heartedness. She does not believe in one loving one's enemy as codified in the Christian religion which she admits is her faith. Thus when she hears that Cousin Vincent fails his examinations, Adah is quite gladdened  Her being happy that Francis cannot pay her bride price paints her as strange. But as we see later, with the non-payment of the bride price by Francis and the latter burning of all documents pertaining to their marriage, can Francis' claim that “they had never been married" be faulted?

 Adah is a quick-witted woman whose motto is: "be as cunning as a serpent but as harmless as a dove." With this principle, she is able to overcome/win over the Obis who had not been disposed to allowing her leave for England. We should also recall that issues important to Adah are usually introduced when Francis demands sex from her. Although this may be seen as vile and immoral, it is clear that she knows how to cater for her problems. It is a similar thing that Adah does when she considers her mother-in-law's support as crucial in her desire to go to the UK. She hands over all her jewellery to Francis' mother to the latter's consternation. her constant quarrel with her husband on sundry issues is in fact the friction often experienced when traditionality is in interaction with modernity. Francis is a traditionally-minded fellow who faces a modern-minded person and thinks he can absorb her. Notice the way she comports herself in hospital, being largely jealous of the other women for one thing or the other they have which she does not have. For example, she adores the woman who had no child for 17 years and yet her husband accepts her. She is worried because she has no new night dress. Such is her frustration that she leaves the hospital without saying goodbye nicely to fellow inmates.

Francis Obt

Podle

Born in the 1940s like his wife, his age is close to his wife's. Francis wants to be an accountant and decides to go to England in order to achieve his aim.  He and Adah are ready to marry, each having his or her reason for wanting the other. We are informed that he had told her that "he married her in the first place because she could work harder than most girls of her age and because she was orphaned very early in life” (p. 45).

Francis is a male bom among many females. Thus he enjoys a closeness with his parents in a culture where premium is placed on malehood.  He is a self-conscious African who enjoys throwing about his maleness, the respected gender in his immediate culture. In his relationship with his wife, "he was the male, and he was right to tell her what she was going to do" (p. 30). Thus he enjoys beating his wife and considers it normal to be doing so.  Francis forgets to bring along the marriage ring on the first day. Although the ring comes on the second day, it is evidence of irresponsibility. He complains often. The apartness in the relationship between husband and wife first begins when an inconsequential matter is given prominence by Francis. While still in Barcelona, on his way to England, he complains that Adah "did not cry for me and goes on to say "You were  very happy to see me go, were you not?" (p. 34) Described by the narrator as a man "from another culture” (p. 179), Francis is a conservative fellow. He kisses his wife in public only once which makes her think England may have changed him. But not yet. The way he addresses her; his mode of dressing (see p. 81); his unreadiness to allow his children touch his radio; his constant quarrelsomeness; his tendency to consult his parents over difficult issues within his own immediate family; his readiness to see something wrong in looking after his own children; his inability to relieve his wife when the latter is tired; his attitude to family planning; his attitude to Adah's manuscript; his thought that children are the business of mothers rather their fathers as well, etc, indicate that Francis is a traditional man living in a modern environment Thus we can say that he is an uncooperative husband. When his wife feels "so heavy this morning" and asks him, "Could you please take the children to Trudy for me?" his answer is "Oh God" (p.61). Even to secure a room when the landlord and the wife do not want them again, he only agrees when Adah virtually makes it a condition for giving him sex. He is said to be there "pleading like a fool" by asking his own wife, "Have I sver refused anything you said? Are you not like my 

(i) Francis appears like one who enjoys poverty somehow. He relies on his wife to feed him; his mother to me in this country? Have I ever refused your command?" (p. 95). mode of dressing denies him respect before the wife; he likes going down to the Nobles to watch television, he allows his wife to pay his sisters' school fees, the accommodation of his family as arranged by him is always in a one-room rented building, etc. Which is why throughout the story nobody visited them. His few friends are fellow Jehovah Witness members. The narrator informs that "Francis did not believe in friendship” (p. 104). We are told that Francis' only recreation is sex. He "could never have a mind as healthy as those men" (p. 171). (k) He is always picking quarrels with his wife. It is true that it takes two to tango, it could have been manly to avoid occasions where such misunderstandings would blossom. When he insists that his wife did not wish to appear in my send-off photograph" (p. 34), he lays the foundation for some of their future feuds. Earlier, he had insisted in his first letter to his wife from abroad that at the airport, Adah had not cried, as if weeping is evidence of genuine love. From some of his actions, evidence abounds which shows that Francis is picky and fault-finding.  Although he does not easily make friends, Francis converts Trudy, his children's minder into his mistress. Adah accuses him of philandering with Trudy, but he neither denies it nor does he prove her wrong  His burning of Adah's manuscript is evidence of his wicked tendencies. As we learn later, he also burns his marriage certificate and his children's birth certificates. And when Adah asks him why he had burnt her brainchild, Francis responds "I don't care if it is your child or not" (p. 187).  Francis' membership of Jehovah's Witness is borne out of a desire to have few friends and less expenditure and to use it to preach the virtuous woman, which Adah knows is targeted at her.  He is a bit on the violent side. Apart from the more than one occasion he engages the wife in fights, the last one in which he smashes his wife's new radiogram, and the new teaset and the dislocation of the flowery pattern in her new living room show that he is a violent fellow. Apart from this, he nearly strangulates Adah but for Mr Devlin, her Irish co-tenant, who intervenes and separates them.

  Although Francis is Igbo-centred in his thinking and actions, meaning that he allows the Igbo way of life to direct his relationship with his wife and which generates most of their misunderstandings, he objects to Mr Okpara's intervention in his quarrel with Adah. Okpara uses the Igbo-centred approach to reconcile the couple, yet Francis is not enthused. Mr Okpara's approach is for him and Adah to "go and beg his forgiveness" and "he would let you in" (p. 170) even as he had not heard Adah out. However, we are told that Francis "resented this intrusion into his family life” (p. 173) which is un-Igbo.  

Significant

Both Francis and his wife are young. From time to time their youthfulness seems to stand in the It is a relationship based on what each hopes to gain from each other. He marries Adah because he considers her hardworking and for the fact that she is an orphan. In other words, he saw in Adah His intolerance of Adah may have arisen from the fact that he is a man among women. In a culture where men are considered more important than women, little wonder that he finds it difficult to Francis' failure to produce their wedding ring on the very first day they had wanted to marry 

The Bride Price

way of their relationship.

one who would be malleable to his antics.

accept what a woman says or even listen to what she says.

(d)

symbolizes that the marriage would have a hiccups

in the end. Another symbolism is recalled by

their last fight when Adah now lives with the children when

he beats her thoroughly. Whereas he

had complained that Adah did not cry for him on his departure day from Nigeria, this final cry

from which she is saved by Mr Devlin seems to have made up for the one she had not cried as he

stepped out of Nigeria.

(e) Similarly, Adal's missing out from Francis' final send-off photograph as he exits Nigeria equalsF Francis'denial of their marriage as well as the products of that marriage, whose evidence he destroy burning. Francis' life is due to his ambivalent (two-sided) lifestyle. While he is a conservative, believingin the Igbo attitude to existence, he marries a woman who respects Westernization moret she does her Igbo background. But even then, when it comes to succumbing to the Igboa approach to living, Francis is found wanting. His non-tolerance of Okpara's intervention in hism maritallife is a proof that he picks and chooses from the two cultures he is exposed to.Francis harbours behaviours which ensure that his marriage will not work. He does not love work and is comfortable with his wife feeding him. Thus he seems to prefer embracing lack and insufficiency. He is said not to smile; he is also said to have an aversion for friendship whereas marriage is about intimacy and affection.  Another activity of his which strikes at the root of his marriage is infidelity. Francis hobnobs with Trudy, his children's minder, to the extent that Adah notices. Although this occasion could not be proved decisively, his silence to the charge indicates there may be some truth in it. His tendency to be a Jehovah's Witness anytime he likes evinces dishonesty and unreliability: "he became a Jehovah's Witness whenever he felt like it" (p. 32). See also p.122. His capacity for wickedness is exhibited by his constant beating of his wife, his burning of her manuscript and his smashing of her newly acquired household property. There is a tendency to believe Adah's accusations against Francis since no character, friend of relation in the story talks about him. We get to hear his faults and things he fails to do well from his wife while the few times he speaks he seems to justify those allegations. For instance when Adah tells the readers that Francis made no friends, we see Adah's own friends or those she was friendly with - Mrs Konrad, Peggy, Bill, Janet, etc

Francis takes their confidential matters to his parents and to neihbours. Because he had never been allowed to make his own mistakes... he had never made his own decisions” (p.51). He often consults his parents over decisions he is expected to make. Everything Francis does indicates that he is not sure of himself. Upon Vicky's illness, he fails to comport himself as men would do because she did not know how to do such things, how to be a man. Instead he cried like a woman, with Adah" (p. 69). Again, when the couple approaches Hawley Street in search of a new accommodation, Francis “started to blow his nose, lagging behind as if he were going to face castration" (p. 83). 

 Minor characters in Second-Class Citizen

Babalola (p. 52)

He came to London to study just like the Obis. Initially, he was unmarried and on a Northern Nigerian scholarship although he was not doing any studies. He has lots of money on him, being on scholarship. He has a “glossy flat and is always "entertaining" His philosophy of life is to live for today while Allah "would take care of the future" (p. 53). After a while, the source of Babalola's money is cut off and it stops flowing. His friends gradually disappear when they discover he is getting poorer. He moves from the highbrow area he had been living in to Ashdown Street in Kentish Town, a much more modest area.  Babalola takes Janet, a sixteen year-old pregnant English girl home, and begins to entertain his few remaining friends with her until they both fall in love. After her first pregnancy with the West Indian boy, she gets pregnant for Babalola and they live as husband and wife.  His decision to make Janet all his own turns his friends into his enemies. It was he who connected Adah to Trudy, the child minder.  

 Mr Barking (p. 166)

 Mr Barking is Adah's boss at the Chalk Farm Library. He is said to be thin and ill-tempered. His daughter got married to a worthless fellow, whose marriage he is determined to end even if it would cost him his life. Because of the poor marriage, Mr Barking's daughter turns mentally ill.  Mr Barking has a wife about whom he hardly discusses. Yet it is this wife who makes the sandwiches he brings to the workplace, and which apparently he enjoys.  He does not like to join in the light-hearted talk in the library and always keeps to himself. It is assumed that he likes to be alone because of thoughts about his daughter.  

Beautiful Nurse (p. 67)

 She is the nurse with a soft voice who had told Adah to go home from the hospital where Vicky had been admitted for Virus Meningitis disease. Adah refuses to leave the Royal Free Hospital premises as she had been advised by this nurse. Shedozes off on a wooden bench. When she wakes up, it is this beautiful nurse that she encounters again. Because of her insistence on not going, the nurse asks Adah if Vicky is her only child. Adah responds: "there was another, but she was only a girl." The beautiful nurse retorts: "Only a girl? What do you mean by 'only a girl"? She is a person too. you know, just like your son." Adah has a lot of Igbo cultural information which she is unable to give the beautiful creatures regarding the importance of the male child. 

Big Pa (Francis' father) (p. 28)

 Big Pa is Francis' father. Francis consults him and the mother whenever he has decisional problems to solve.

 Considered as elders, he and his wife are very influential in the lives of Francis and Adah before the younger persons come to England. Whatever Adah regrets most about this parental influence is that her own parents did not live long enough to also exert their own authority on the marriage He had "suffered from unemployment when he was a young man and knew that the type of job Adah had then did not grow on trees" (pp. 35-36). Thus when Adah tells the in-laws that her going to England will be regarded as "leave without pay" (p. 36), they are softened on the matter of her joining her husband in England. Big Pa understands matters like this more than his wi He and his wife brought Francis up in such a way that they took decisions for Francis, especially on those matters that the latter found difficult to solve. As a consequence, Francis often consulted he and his wife on issues in his own immediate family, 

5. Bill (p. 166) 

 He is a big, handsome Canadian. He is said to look down on anything English which is why he flies in all his major needs from home. He uses the word 'Britisher' for the English as if he were an American and would not study for the British Library Association Examinations. (b) A year earlier, he married Eileen, the Children's Librarian whom the narrator describes as "tall and beautiful, a more perfect match you could never imagine" (p. 166).

 Bill knows a little about everything. He likes black writers whereas Adah, a black lady, only knows about Chinua Achebe and Flora Nwapa for which Bill reproved her for being an intelligent black girl with little knowledge of her own black people. Adah agrees with him and likes him as a consequence.  He is an intelligent man and talks about authors and their new books, especially during staff breaks. Bill almost always reads new books before others James Baldwin's books teach Adah that black is beautiful. Bill confirms this assertion to be true Bill is Adah's first real friend outside her family. She trusts his judgment just as she had trusted her late father's opinion.  As Bill's flat becomes smaller because he and his wife, Eileen, are expecting their third child, he thinks of returning to Canada where he had been a racho newscaster. We are told that Bill had come to England to ward off his mother's desire to have him marry a certain girl. When everybody involved in the library chit-chat starts talking about their individual worriesand Adah merely laughs, a character like Peggy wonders as to why she is laughing. Bill comes to Adah's defence, namely "she has no problems. She is happily married to a brilliant husband..." (p. 168). Adah will not oppose him. Bill is the first to discover the writer' in Adah. He rates her first manuscript, The Bride Price, rather highly. He calls this manuscript Adah's brainchild.

Boy (p. 9)

Boy is Adah's younger brother. There is no evidence that there is another sibling. He is favoured to go to school more than Adah. When Adah is not allowed to start school, she is asked to take Boy to Ladi-Lak Institute When Adah is about to leave in the Oriel for England, Boy in a brown African robe that was too big for him" starts to cry, "wiping his eyes with a velvet hat" (p. 36). (In her travail with Francis in England, Adah regrets tha parents are not around nor Boy who was "miles away, and could not be of any help" (p. 133).  Boy "never liked Francis." We are informed that Boy "knew even before Adah found out that Francis looked like those men who could live off women because of his good looks” (p. 161).  When Francis heats up his relationship with Adah over this cap issue," Boy sends the sister "  his savings asking her to leave Francis and his children and come back to Nigeria where her work at the Consulate would be waiting for her" (p. 169). He is angry because Francis had written to his parents on the cap issue.  It does not seem that Boy had gone far in education in spite of his having had a head start more than his sister.

7. Boy with craw-craw (p. 11)

 His name is not revealed in the story. He later becomes a health lecturer in Lagos City Hospital He has craw-craw on his head and makes Adah's first day in school very memorable. (c) He gives Adah a bit of his pencil with which the former scribbles away while "enjoying the smell of craw-craw and dried sweat" (p. 12).

8. Bubu (p. 119)

 He is the third child whose coming is a heavy burden for his mother. When he arrives via a Caesarean, looking "so big and so hairy" (p. 119), he is described as "this Mohammed Ali of a son" (p. 12) He does not cry like other babies but is hungry like a wolf. He is too busy with his mouth "sucking his big fingers, swallowing the wind” (p. 119). He sleeps often but once it is night "then Bubu would wake and wake in style, loud and manding. He is popular in the hospital ward, although at night he is a terror. So troublesome is he that's special emergency nursery was fitted out at the end of the corridor for him alone" (p. 124). Part of the proof that Francis is stingy and inconsiderate is his failure to give Adah a present, particularly because of this big baby. Adah does not mind that Francis will likely buy this gift with her own money  

Cecilia and Angelina (p. 28)

The two girls are some of Francis' four sisters. Adah pays their school fees and does not regret doing so. While at work, Adah has rest of mind because the sisters will take care of her two children,

Chinese doctor (p. 150)

When the Indian doctor refuses to come and see ailing Vicky on Christmas Day, it is the Chinese doctor who comes instead. From his eyes and shape of his "round head like that of a calabash" (p. 150) A dah knows that he is a China man, a second-class citizen like herself and cannot prove superior to her. He examines Vicky, including the latter's temperature and his earlobes. His eyes which are sharp roam round the room while he seems to be scratching his bottom "but was doing it gently” (p. 151). He soon discovers that the room is infested with bedbugs. He chides the couple (Francis and Adah) for calling the police when the Indian doctor refuses to come. It is he who says that Vicky has a bug-bite and that it is not a serious matter because his grandmother also suffers from such bites and suggests what is to be done

Mr Cole (p. 10)

Mr Cole is a Sierra Leonian living next door to the Ofilis on Akinwumi Street. He is a teacher at the Methodist School just by the corner. It is his class that Adah searches for when she enters the Methodist School compound, and whenshe locates it she goes in. The entire pupils giggle, started by one of them. Mr Cole is a handsome and huge person. A real African, black and leathery, his "blackness shone like polished black leather" (p. 11). Notwithstanding that the pupils make fun of her entry, Mr Cole gives her a reassuring smile. Unlike his pupils, Mr Cole does not laugh because he understands the situation. He leads Adah to the boy with craw-craw on his head and asks her to sit beside him without wanting to know why she had come. When the day's schooling ends, he takes her home after buying boli for her to eat. It is not clear if it is Mr Cole that reports Ma to the police for not sending her daughter to school However, it is after this encounter with Adah that Ma is arrested and punished with excessive gari-drinking 

12. Cousin Vincent (p. 22)

 Cousin Vincent is Adah's cousin on her mother's side. He is a young man who has a wife. He is a struggling fellow yet to pass his school certificate examinations. Adah goes to live with husband and wife when her father, Pa dies and her mother, Ma, remarries. He gives Adah two shillings to buy a pound of steak from a market” (p. 22). Rather than do what shenoist asked ter dos Adahauses the money to buy an entrance form into Methodist Girls High School and later claims that she had lost it. Nobody seems to believe her. Cousin Vincent sends her out again with a three penny piece to buy the type of cane called the koboko" (p. 23). It is with this koboko that punishment is administered on Adah after Cousin Vincent had assured her he would not stop caning her until she said the truth.  Cousin Vincent administers a hundred and three strokes without Adah doing as if she is under pain. Adah's cousin tells her that she will never talk to her again: "not in this world nor in the world to come" (p. 23).  Thus later, when Adah hears that Cousin Vincent fails his Cambridge School Certificate examinations, she bursts out laughing because to her "God had heard her prayers” (p. 24).

13. Cynthia (p. 62)

She is one of the library staff with whom Adah works. In spite of what the girls generally say about marriage, her view is optimistic.  She is engaged to be married "and was sure hers was going to work” (p. 62).  When she notices Adah's stomach rumbling, she will offer her married co-worker some food. It is Cynthia who first informs Adah that her children had had a health problem: Victor (Vicky) is in danger, but not dead. Mrs Konrad drives Adah to the hospital.

14. Mr Eke (p. 42)

He is Francis' contemporary who when he learns of his family joining him in England, moves out of Ashdown Street into a more suitable accommodation.

15. Dark Indian doctor (p. 169)

 He is Adah's doctor by the time she gets pregnant for the fourth time.  He is elderly although "one could easily take him for a young man" (p. 163). His wife is also a doctor; they had met at Cambridge where both of them were students. He is well-known among "the blacks living in that part of Kentish Town at that time." With such credentials, Adah thinks he will understand her plight as a foreigner with children studying in London. She appeals to him to terminate her new pregnancy. The doctor shook his head, sympathized." He then asks her why she had failed to come "to us for the cap." He blames Adah for not having told her about it. With the way their conversation has gone, Adah thinks she has a sympathizer in the dark Indian As it is too early to confirm if she is indeed pregnant, he gives her pills which she thinks will remove the pregnancy.  When she later goes to tell him the child is sitting there pretty" and accuses him of not keeping to his promise of helping her, the dark Indian doctor ripostes: "I did not give you the pills to abort the child" (p. 169) With this answer, she makes up her mind to have the baby but warns that if her child is deficient in any way "you are responsible. You know that" (p. 169).  From that day, the dark Indian doctor and Adah become allies and he works with her against another Caesarean section. He prescribes diet for Adah so that in the end, she has a peaceful labour during the birth of Dada, her fourth child.

16. Mr Devlin (p. 189)

The old Irish co-tenant with Adah and her children in their new abode. He saves Adah from her merciless beating by her husband. He breaks Adah's door and saves her and her children.

17. Fay (p. 167)

A lady librarian, she is engaged to an English man who "was away in Cambridge reading law” (p.167).  A boyfriend of Fay's, overtaken by jealousy because of Fay's intendant at Cambridge, smashes her car. The damage is such that it will cost Fay a fortune to repair.  Fay does not like to associate herself with black people "because she was too white, a mulatto"  She is very beautiful "in a film-star type of way with smooth, glossy skin" and is at least thirty years old. Adah thinks that such an age for a woman without marriage is an outrage then" (p. 168).

18. Greek woman (p. 136)

 One of the women Adah encounters in the hospital where she has Bubu. Her bed is opposite Adah's. although the latter would not talk with her because of her anger over the nightdress episode.

19. Headmaster (p. 21)

He is the headmaster of Adah's primary school who announces the list of secondary schools the students could apply for their secondary education career.  He misunderstands Adah who smiles to herself when her inner ear hears what the Presence reveals about her future. It is this self satisfying smile the headmaster takes to mean she is laughing at what he had said.  All efforts Adah makes to convince him that she had not been insolent prove abortive as he orders four tough-looking boys to raise her posterior for his cane strokes.  Not like her Cousin Vincent's swishing which she had taken with sufficient calmness, the headmaster's "was so intense that Adah was beyond screaming" (p. 21).  At the height of the pain the headmaster administers on her buttocks, Adah sinks her teeth into Latifu's back. Her teeth had dug so deep into the young man's back that "fragments of his flesh were stuck between her teeth" (p. 21). Adah gets a nickname after: "the Ibo tigress" (p. 21). The headmaster threatens Adah with jail for the deep bite, but nothing comes out of it in the end.

20. Dr Hudson (p. 111) 

 She is a surgeon and runs a surgery at the Crescent. It is to her surgery that Adah runs when the foetus kicks hard at her stomach. To get to the surgery Adah's walk is duck-like: "she padded just like a duck, first to the right then to the left" (p. 111) It is not a straight träble anticowgh is has found bocorner on the surgery and sat down." (p. 111) The pain is rather unbearable although it is not labour, "those hot ones that make a mad person of any woman In the midst of the baby's inflicted pain a woman employed to do housework leads Adah to a chair in the surgery. Already she and Francis had agreed she would have the baby at home. As a consequence, she tells the doctor (Hudson) that she is not having her baby at University College Hospital but at home in their room at Willes Road. Dr Hudson asks the pregnant Adah why she has changed her mind, "seeing all the trouble she had taken in booking her in at that particular hospital because the waiting list was long" (p. 113). She asks her other related questions, including "Then what had got into her head to make her refuse to go into hospital?" (p. 113).  A great talker, the doctor talks on and on. It is like a sermon to Adah, the second that day. Earlier, her husband had preached to her on "how Jehova was going to bless the virtuous woman" (p. 109). Adah finds it difficult to explain why she will not give birth in a hospital. The reason for avoiding a hospital is to save six pounds if the baby is delivered at home, in their one-room apartment. Explanation, she suspects will lead to questions which she will not be able to answer. For instance, should Adah be asked why her husband cannot go out to work to make up for the six pounds the child birth will cost in hospital, "Adah would have to tell the doctor woman that her husband believed in Armageddon. So there was no need for him to exert himself too much in this world" (p. 113).

21. Irene (p. 175)

 She is a West Indian girl who has a baby for a Nigerian who fails to marry her because he insists the baby is not his. She shows Adah that she can live on Assistance until her children grow up. Her name is Irene. When Francis fails to send Adah flowers while she is in hospital over Bubu's birth, she gives three pounds to Irene and told her to post three cards a day after the baby was born" (p. 175).  Adah asks Irene to send her two big bunches of flowers - one on her arriva with "Francis' name attached to it with sentimental words"; the other bunch is meant to come in when she has had "her safe delivery" (p. 175).  Should Adah die in labour, Irene is instructed to turn the bunches into a wreath with her children's names attached. We are told that "Irene got sentimental and started to cry" (p. 175).

22. Janet (p. 52)

a) A cockney girl , Janet is Babalola's wife. Originally a girl Babalola picks up with her pregnancy and makes available to his friends for their entertainment, he later falls in love with her and stops his friends and neighbours from having access to her anymore, for which some of them turn into enemies. The pregnancy with which she meets Babalola is by a nameless West Indian. Her mother's new husband (Janet's father died a year previously leaving her mother with seven children) refuses to have her siblings and herself except she gives the child she is carrying away. But Janet wants her baby With Babalola's offer of marital possibility to her she “glowed” and becomes pregnant for her new man.  Janet is Adah's friend. She is intelligent. Adah learns that she is not as loose as she had been made to appear.  Her baby, Tony, is “a noisy eighteen month-old baby who was a good playmate for Titi" (p. 54). Adah tells Janet her troubles and in turn Janet confides in the former. She it is who asks Adah to look for a daily-minder for her children "until the nurseries had vacancies for them” (p. 54).  It is probably on this score that Janet's husband, Babalola decides to connect Adah to Trudy After Adah's quarrel with Trudy, Janet agrees to baby-sit for the class. It is she who reminds Adah that "two rooms made a flat. Didn't Adah know?” (p. 83).  Janet directs Adah to Mr Noble's house. She says, "just go to Willes Road, ask for the black man's house and it will be shown to you" (p. 96). Adah eventually gets a room there.

23. Mrs Konrad (p. 47)

 She is the Finchley Central Library chief librarian under whose headship Adah works.  She is a Czech who is very friendly and welcomes Adah at the library.  She is a wide lady, with wide hips and wide waist with "a face like a flattened O” (p. 47). She has fine lines around her eyes and these lines deepened when she smiled" (p. 47).  She is not given too much make-up and has her hair cropped “just like a man's used to be” (p. 48).  Mr Konrad's skirts were gathered and local and she keeps to any fashion she has adopted without being moved by what is the vogue. Come rain, come shine she wears her gathered skirts. With this "together with unusually tight blouses, gave her the look of an overblown ballet dancer” (p. 48).  At a point Adah is pining over their poverty, especially not having any Christmas gifts for her children, Mrs Konrad, her boss at the North Finchley Library, sends toys - a doll with eyes that blinked for Titi, a little guitar for Vicky and a squeaking hedgehog for Bubu. Adah is excited by these unexpected gifts. 

24. Landlord and landlady (p. 49)

They own the house where the Obis first live. They don't tolerate children's noises since they have none. They therefore insist on the Obis moving out of the building until Adah and her husband afford a new place.

25. Latifu (p. 22)

The boy who carries Adah on his back while the headmaster canes her mercilessly. At the height of the pain inflicted on her by the headmaster, Adah sinks her teeth into her back. The headmaster promises to send the aggressive girl to jail. He probably fails to do so because the bite on Latifu's back may not have been so deep to merit imprisonment.

26. Ma Ofill (Ma on Ada's side) (p. 8)

She is Adah's mother. A seamstress, she is married to Pa who used to work in the railways as a metal moulder. She is a fierce woman who fights when provoked. She prefers Boy going to school to Adah doing so. She believes that girls rather than go to school spend a year or two there to learn how to write their names and thereafter learn how to sew.  She used to ask Adah to take Boy to Ladi-Lak Institute which is reputed to be expensive. Adah believes that it is she who had opposed her further schooling unlike her father who would have made sure that "I started school with Boy" (p. 10). It is for Ma's failure to send Adah to school that the police arrests and punishes her with gari-water drinking At the death of her husband, Ma remarries, sending her children to relations. She dies at thirty-eight. She participates actively at Lawyer Nweze's reception.

27. Mother-in-law (Ma on Francis' side) (p. 28)

This is Francis' mother whose daughter-in-law, Adah, reveres so much. She loves her mother-in-law so much that she will not like to offend her. When Francis leaves for England, Adah finds it difficult to extricate herself from his mother. Adah virtually has to bribe her with her golden jewellery to negotiate her exit. Both Adah and mother-in-law are close. We are told that she was everything that Ma (Adah's mother) was not." She is quiet, beautiful and motherly. So close are Adah and her mother-in-law that people think the latter is Adah's real mother. The love and respect Adah has for her seems to have extended Adah's torture in the hands of Francis. This is because Adah does not want the news of their misunderstanding abroad to reach home. It seems that Francis is aware of that, and so capitalizes on it by writing home in order to quieten her.

28. Mr Noble (p. 89)

 He is an old Nigerian whose name initially had not been Mr Noble. He got the name upon arriving England when he became a second-rate (second-class citizen) person. That was in the early 1960s.  So many stories chase him about "so confusing and so contradictory that he became a living legend" (p. 89). Rumours about him include his having been a retired civil servant, son of a certain chief in Benin City; he has six wives and twenty children whom he leaves behind to come and study Law in England. In the end, he does not make a law degree.  We are told that his failure to make a law degree is due to "a gross miscalculation” (p. 90). He fails to get to England with sufficient sum of money as the money he comes in with "was not even enough to see him through GCE or Matriculation" examinations. He presses on, however. He decides to work and study He looks for jobs but gets none until he becomes a lift man at a tube station whose work is to  shout “Mind the doors" all day and to collect tickets and sometimes pennies from fare-dodgers" (p. 90).  He is constantly drinking, becoming a jester or clown, made so by mates at work or those he meets in clubs. Nearly naked at each of these performances he is entitled to a pint of alcohol. Alter a while, he starts to behave like a child. These acts earn him the nickname, Noble, which later  After taking up 'Mr Noble' as his name, "things became a little easier for him" (p. 90). With his clownishness he boasts that "Africans were very strong" (p. 90). Working at the railway, be becomes his name. decides to shoulder a lift without electricity provided. But somehow something happens and his shoulder is trapped, "among the twisted metal of the lift door. His entire arm becomes paralyzou The railway pays him “a lump sum as a compensation for his injury" (p. 91).  The reality being that he is not likely to be a lawyer, he invests the compensation in purchasing an old terrace house on Willes Road, just by Kentish Town station. It is in Mr Noble's house that the Obis live. Part of Mr Noble's clownishness is what happens between him and the two old sisters and a son who occupy two of the floors of the rundown building he has just bought. Thinking that his having taken delivery of the house means complete ownership, he fails to realize that in England the law sides with the tenant. We are told that because the two old sisters are controlled tenants, they cannot be taken out of the building without the law's concern. All efforts by Mr Noble to send them and their son away fails from the position of the law. Mr Noble adopts psychological pressures. He tells the elderly sisters that his mother was the greatest witch in the whole of Black Africa" (p. 92). He assures them that he has reported them to her and that she will kill them. He makes song and dance with this information even when he saw the old ladies in the street" (p. 92). Mr Noble's house begins to feel the strain of severe winter weather. It is dilapidated building which need repairs. Not only does he not have money, "the old ladies did not pay enough rent" (p. 93). After a while, one of the old women dies: "In one of the cold weeks that followed, the other sister died. The son fled in terror.” Mr Noble boasts about these events proclaiming that his “mother killed them from her grave" (p. 93). Many people, including his tenants, believe Mr Noble has the capacity to kill. While Mr Noble enjoys the popularity of his claims to killing his old tenants, "nobody would live in his house" (p. 93). Although there is housing shortage, tenants are not keen about his house. The Obis are lucky to have found a room in his crumbling house and quickly snatch it up.Mr Noble is said to look like “a black ghost for his head was hairless and he seemed to have dyed the skin on his head black” (p. 97). On his face are written bottled up sorrows, disappointments and maybe occasional joys." We are also informed that "he had a hollow in the middle of his  neck” and that “two prominent bones formed a triangle which encased this hollow” (p. 97). He wore many clothes upon vests and old jumpers in his bid to fight cold, and when he laughs, the narrator notices that such a perfect set of teeth is (given] to such an ugly man” (p. 98). Pa Noble takes snuff in his "wide nostrils, then wheezed and sneezed" (p. 101). Mr Noble has a television set which Francis often enjoys watching. On one rare occasion when Adah calls her husband, he is unhappy that his wife had drawn his attention when she "knew that he was watching a pantomime on television” (p. 148). At the point he is showing such an anger, "Vicky's right ear was getting as big as that of an elephant" (p. 148) At the height of Francis' family planning dispute with his wife, he calls Mr Noble and the tenants. As soon as Mr Noble knows why they are gathered he reminds his tenant (Francis) that his wife (Adah) has some health issues and sent all the inquisitive tenants away," insisting that "there was nothing bad in Adah getting birth control gear" except that “she should have told her husband" (p.161). 

29. Mrs Noble (Sue) (p. 92)

She is Mr Noble's wife. A white woman married as a consolation for Mr Noble's failure to make his law degree, gives him many children. Sue is her name. She is amused by her husband's claim that he has reported his headstrong elderly tenants to his (Mr Noble's) mother.  She is a large-boned Birmingham woman "still young and still pretty, with masses of auburn hair hanging loose about her shoulders” (p. 99). She is warm-hearted, friendly, loud and unreserved. She is the type of woman "who would not hesitate to tell you the first thing that came into her head" (p. 100). She is a good hostess. As the Obis arrive as their guests, Sue makes every effort to make the visitors comfortable: "she lumped together two or three piles of clothes, some damp, others dry, to make room for Adah and Francis" (p. 100).  At Sue's joke or any action similar to that, Adah "looked bleak” but the hostess (landlady to-be) "roared with laughter" (p. 100). Adah is confused since she would not know "whether she (Sue) was laughing with or against her." However, Adah later discovers that anytime Sue thinks she has cracked a joke "she laughed like that, forcing her listeners to laugh with her whether they saw the joke or not" (pp. 100-101). She calls her husband 'Papa' and talks so much "about everything but about nothing in particular" (p. 101). It is as if she feels that she will fail "as a hostess if there was any silence at all” (p. 101).  Mrs Noble's tea party is for children. Very elaborate with her preparations, cups, plates and napkins decorated in "Christmas paper, all shining and bright" (p. 147) are placed everywhere. The foods are coloured as well even though many of them are sugary. Adah gets her children ready, instructing Titi “to eat everything on her plate because Mrs Noble would be very angry if she made a mess of her food" (p. 147). It is at this party that Vicky's ailment is more pronounced: it is about his ear which is getting bigger than an elephant's. Being a Christmas Day, the Indian doctor refuses to come for Vicky. She is a kind person. As the party she had organized comes to an end, "Mrs Noble brought the left-over jellies to Vicky. Vicky refused to eat them; he had never seen food look so colourful" (p.

30. Nurse (p. 129)

 She is unnamed. She is a young nurse at the hospital where Bubu is born by a Caesarean. She is the one given the task of informing Adah to stop using the hospital night-dress. She informs Mrs Obi that the hospital gown is meant to be used after one's baby has been delivered. The hospital night-dress is adorned in the labour room. After this message, she smiles and disappears. Based on this message, Adah is pained that her husband has not thought of buying her a new night-dress. As a consequence, Adah thinks that she is being discussed in the hospital ward. Her bitterness against her husband increases the more. The nurse's intimation further makes her think of how the other inmates may have been rating her. She is the nigger woman with no flowers, no cards, no visitors, except her husband who usually comes five minutes before the closing time" (p. 130). The night-dress problem and all bad feeling it generates in Adalı make her think of telling the nurse not to display her baby. The sadness makes Mrs Obi shun speaking with the Greek Woman on the bed opposite her. However, the nurse was showing them all, the women, the doctors, anybody who happened to be around that, this was their special baby, bom miraculously, for whom the mother had suffered so" (p. 137).

31. Lawyer Nweze (p. 8)

 He is the first Ibuza lawyer, trained in the United Kingdom. An event is organized by Ibuza women to welcome him. He is treated as a Messiah, one who "would go into politics and fight for the rights of the people of Ibuza... Oh, yes Lawyer Nweze was going to do all sorts of things for the people of Ibuza"  Most of the blouses sewed for the occasion are made by Ma (Adah's mother) who is a seamstress. The noise from this reception inspires Adah to aspire to go to the UK. The Ibuza women practise their songs several times and showed off their uniform to which they had given the name Ezidiji de ogoli , ome oba" (p. 15). The occasion holds at the wharf as the women "welcome someone who had been to have a taste of that civilization" (p. 15). The women are beautiful in their new uniform bearing pale blue drawings of feathers on it. We are told that the headscarf is red, the shoes they wear are of black patent leather called 'nine-nine' while the new gourds are covered with colourful beads: "When these gourds were rattled, they produced sounds like the Spanish samba, with a wild sort of animal overtone" (p. 16). The story about Lawyer Nweze is mythic and gaps in the tale are filled in by Pa, Adah's father. All Ibuza men, like their women, go to welcome him on the day, a Sunday. One thing that impresses the men about the lawyer is that "he did not bring a white woman with him" (p. 16). And if he had tried to do so, "Oboshi would have sent leprosy on her" (p. 16).

32. Mr Okpara (p. 170)

 Adah is sitting in a park near Gospel Oak village ruminating over her recent experiences. She is silently crying over her life with Francis and how the initial glimmer of hope in her life has turned into a mirage because of her bad experiences of later years. Then a hand touches her on her shoulder, a black man's, a Nigerian's, an Igbo man's hand. A sensitive and experienced man, Mr Okpara guesses that she may have had a fight with her husband.  Although Adah has had no fight with Francis at that point, Mr Okpara's guess is near enough: she is in a very sad and gloomy mood.  Mr Okpara introduces himself and asserts that he knows Adah to be an Igbo woman. He does not ask for what may have happened between her and her husband but simply would want both of them to go beg her husband to have her back. The narrator comments that that is "typical Ibo psychology, men never do wrong, only the women, they have to beg for forgiveness, because they are bought, paid for... obedient slaves” (p. 170) Adah leads Mr Okpara to their house. He and his wife who is a secretary in the Civil Service have been in England for a while. He has now finished his studies in the UK and will return to Nigeria in about four months' time. Mr Okpara tells Adah that he and his wife have outgrown quarrels, “but they still quarreled” (p. 170) all the same. He reminds Adah of an Igbo proverb which says that the home is built for many things “but particularly for quarrels" (p. 171).  Although she appreciates Mr Okpara's Igbo proverbs, their condition of living in the UK and what obtains at home in families are different: they (Francis and Adah) live in one room with their children; Francis sits in the room all day "turning the pages of this book and that book," gets up to eat; has no job; with sex as his only recreation. However, she does not raise these issues with

Mr Okpara.

 Mr Okpara meets Francis in their one room. Mr Okpara is described as "immaculate" in his dressing: "his white shirt was dazzling... He was wearing a black three-piece suit, and his black shoes shone" (p. 172). Francis, on the other hand, is "looking as untidy as ever." He has an unshaved face and does not really care as nothing will change who he is: "Francis was Francis, not ashamed of being Francis" (p. 172).  Francis denies having 'touched' Adah and says "she simply went out. "He says he does not know where she had gone out to, but he had been sure she would return because of her children. Mr Okpara advises them not to quarrel between themselves as everyone in England minds his or her business. As a result, "most lonely African students usually had emotional breakdowns" (p. 173). He wants to know if he (Francis) would want his wife to have such a breakdown and further asks if that "would not be a drain on his purse” (p. 173).  Rather than appreciate Mr Okpara's intervention, Francis resents it. We are informed that "he lashed his tongue at Okpara, told him to go back home and mind his own business” (p. 173). Mr Okpara rather than be angry and shy away, persists in his reconciliatory effort. He advises Francis to get a job rather than sing Jehovah Witness' songs to the children. Otherwise "he would lose his manhood and these children he was singing to would soon realize that it was their mother that bought them clothes and food" (p. 174).  We are informed that as Mr Okpara raises his last point, "Francis stared at him as he said this because it was a great humiliation to an African not to be respected by his own children" (p. 174). In the weeks and months that follow, Mr Okpara and his pretty little wife."did their best but  Francis would always be Francis” (p. 174). 

33. The Ojos (p. 52)

They are co-tenants of the Obis. They are Nigerians who had not come to England with their four children. They are among those who advise the Obis to send their children back to Nigeria. The Ojos and the other tenants tell the Obis that "only first-class citizens lived with their children, not the blacks" (p. 52).

34. Pa Ofili (Adah's father) (p. 8)

 He worked in the railway as a metal moulder.  Pa is an Ibuza man. He is one of those who calls United Kingdom with a heavy sound like the type of noise one associated with bombs. It was so deep, so mysterious..." Adah's father, Pa,  always voices United Kingdom in "hushed tones, weaving such a respectful expression as if he were speaking of God's Holiest of Holies" (p. 8). Adah's parents, of which her father is one, are of the view that Lagos is a bad place, “bad forbringing up children because here they picked up the Yoruba-Ngbati accent" (p.8).   He shaves with a curved knife which he sharpens on a broken slate. Pa rubs some carbolic soap lather on his chin before using the sharpened curved knife. His sudden death is a big set-back for Adah's ambition to be educated. It puts her educational quest in jeopardy. Adah sees him more as a friend than one's father. The reason is that if she offends, he will give her a few strokes and forget the offence, but if it is Ma, "she would smack and smack, and then nag and nag all day long" (p. 12).  When Ma is charged with child neglect, Pa arrives from his work place to plead for her release by the police. When she is eventually released, Pa fishes out the cane and gave her (Adah) a few strokes for Ma's benefit... they were not hard strokes” (p. 14). Pa loves Adah because he thinks that the latter "was the very picture of his mother" (p. 14). The few gaps in the magical story of Nweze's arrival from England is filled in by Pa. He is the person who discovers that Lawyer Nweze "could not swallow pounded yam anymore; he could not even eat a piece of bone" (p. 16). As for Lawyer Nweze's meat, it "had to be stewed for days until it was almost a pulp" (p. 16) which does not suit Pa's manner of food. Such a pulpish meat reminds him of the watery food we ate in the army" (p. 16). This indicates that Pa Ofili fought in the Second World War.  and his friends agree that Lawyer Nweze's failure to return with a white woman is a goodthing. He and his friends also toast to the goddess of the River Oboshi "for not allowing Lawyer Nweze to go astray" (p. 17).

35. Peggy (p. 165)

 Peggy and Adah meet as staff of Chalk Farm Library. She is a library assistant. She is an Irish girl with "a funny hair style.” When he meets Adah, she had been heartbroken because her Italian summer-holiday boyfriend has failed to fulfil his promises to her. She is 23 years old, although she is not very beautiful.  Adah and Peggy often talk about this Italian fellow. We are told that the love between Peggy and this boyfriend of his "was love at first sight, and many promises were made" (p. 165). Peggy is always talking about what she will do to this defaulting boyfriend, and "how she was going to get her own back." She informs Adah she had given so much of herself to the young man that “she would regret it all her life" (p. 165).  When all the young people who work in the library gather and discuss their problems, Adah willmerely laugh for which Peggy snaps at her: "What the bloody hell are you laughing for?" (p. 168).  Peggy and Bill read Adah's manuscript and acknowledge her mastery as a writer. Peggy says Bill answers for Adah: "She has no problems. She is happily married to a brilliant husband” (p. 168). This is not necessarily true. Adah is only masking her headaches, as she fails to contradict about The Bride Price manuscript: "It was so funny, I could not put it down. It was so comical" (p. 185).

36. Two policemen (p. 149)

We are not given their names. We are keen to talk about them because they prove to be wiser than Francis who asks them to arrest an Indian doctor who fails to come for Vicky's enlarged ear on Christmas Day. Rather than do what Francis asks for, they engage him in a dialogue on the matter. The two policemen look at Vicky's ear, and agree with Francis that "it was growing much more rapidly than the rest of his body" (p.149). One of the policemen speaks in a cool voice and sounds like somebody with “lots and lots of reasoning who was capable of using that reasoning when everybody around him was going mad' (150). The policeman in question is tall and has a moustache. He assures Francis that another doctor will come, possibly the Indian doctor's locum/substitute.

37. Miss Stirling (p. 57)

 She is the children's officer who oversees issues about children. Trudy, the child-minder works under her. Her office is on Malden Road "in front of Trudy's registered house”(p. 73). She wears a red dress and rimless spectacles, the type academics in old photographs usually wore" (p. 57). In all Adah's dispute with Trudy she fails to get a word in" although she "tut-tutted a great deal" (p. 57). When the first doctor comes for Vicky, she stands there "wringing her hands” (p. 64). She and the doctor agree Vicky is probably "too weak to talk” (p. 65). However, Vicky soon talks. In spite of her appearing non-committal in the Adah-Trudy matter, Trudy is eventually punished by having her name removed "from the council list of approved child-minders" (p. 73).  She announces that a nursery has been found for Titi and that Vicky will have a place once he is out of hospital

38. Titi (p. 26)

Titi is Adah's first child, a girl. When she was born, Adah's relations did not congratulate her because she had not related with them for a long while. She is a strong girl who hardly falls ill. Whereas Vicky is known to have been ill twice in the story, Titi is playful. She and her mother, Adah, take a stroll away from their one room apartment on Willes Road, next to Athlone Street Library. On this outside strolling, Titi "skipped up and down, down and up on the dangerous snow” (p. 141). She is a lively little girl who joins in the singing of Adeste Fideles with the mother. On Mrs Noble's tea party day, Titi's mother instructs her "to eat everything on her plate." She accepts to do that but wonders "why people should be forced to eat everything that was set before them" (p.147).

39. Trudy (p. 55)

 She is introduced to Adah by Mr Babalola. A baby-minder. She is charged to look after Adah's two babies in addition to two by her. She lives a block away from the Obis. Francis takes the children to her in the morning and collects them at six after Trudy had washed them and given them tea'(p. 55). She is described as “this fat, loose-fleshed woman with dyed hair and pussy-cat eyes” (p. 72).  After a few weeks of Trudy's minding of the children, Titi stops talking altogether, a child known to be a chatterbox. Once Adah notices this, she takes the babies to Trudy herself. She discovers that Trudy's milkman delivers only two pints every morning whereas Trudy claims that her children take three pints a day and that her milkman "delivered not the two Adah saw, but five pints every day" (p. 55).  Like the Obis, Trudy lives in a slummy area, in a house that had been condemned ages ago" (p.55). At the house's backyard are rubbish, broken furniture, uncovered dustbin, toilet of the old type with faulty plumbing quite smelly and damp. When Adah asks of her own children, having seen Trudy's, she discovers at the direction of the child-minder, that Vicky "had been pulling  rubbish out of the bin" while Titi "was washing her hands and face with the water leaking from the toilet" (p. 57).  Baffied, Adah takes her children to the children's officer, Miss Stirling. Trudy joins them in floods of tears. Her excuse is that it is her visitor who takes away her attention from the children. Adah does not believe her, however, it is on that day that Trudy's actions destroy one of the myths Adah had nurtured about whites: the myth that they don't.lie. The narrator says Adah "could not stop thinking about her discovery that the whites were just as fallible as everyone else" (p. 58).  Adah calls Trudy a prostitute, though behind her when she is quarrelling with her husband, However, before Trudy she is accused of sleeping with Francis. Adah remarks, "I even allow my husband to sleep with her as part of the payment" (p. 73), a statement Trudy does not deny. Instead "Trudy looked as if somebody was forcing her to eat shit" (p. 73). Trudy's name is removed from the list of approved child-minders as punishment for her carelessness. On her own, however, she leaves Malden Road and “moved to somewhere in Camden Town, so that if Vicky had died, Adah could not have carried out her threats" (p. 73). 

40. Vicky (p. 35)

Adah's first son, Vicky is part of the mother's pride as a woman. He is faced with two major health crises in the novel . The first health challenge is the virus meningitis he suffers as a result of Trudy's care-free attitude towards looking after him and the sister, Titi. The mother, Adah, is so bothered ailment that she threatens Trudy: "I am going to kill you. Do you hear me? I am going to kill you, anything happens to my child" (p. 72). The second health issue is when one of Vicky's ears begins to enlarge on a Christmas Day. All efforts made by the father, including inviting two policemen to arrest the Indian doctor, fail. It is instead a Chinese doctor who comes and reveals that the enlarged ear is due to a bug-bite 

41. West Indian girl (p. 157)

An unnamed West Indian girl who is a mother at such a young age. She is undressed like Adah for the doctor to see them. It is about the birth control gear. Adah takes note of her and goes to sit down beside her. She is the only woman with a baby. As Adah has a baby, too, she thinks it will be wise to hefriend the West Indian girl so that both of them can in turn look after the other's child. Adah smiles (157). Unlike Adah whose husband does not want birth control, the West Indian girl's husband did not mind." Before their meeting, the West Indian girl had taken the pill. However, the younger mother covered with the kind of rash that reminded Adah of the rash caused by prickly heat in African p. 187). Although this is inconveniencing, especially regarding appearance, the constant itching is a problem to her. It is how the West Indian girl looks like somebody with chicken-pox" that discourages her from taking the pill.