Summary of Second Class Citizen

Content Of The Page

• Summary of Second Class Citizen 
• Major Events in Second Class Citizen 
• Synopsis 

 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..