(Here’s an Audiovisual Lecture on Analyzing African Prose: Second Class Citizen: https://youtu.be/z_JmxcPlU68)
AUTHOR’S BACKGROUND
Buchi Emecheta (1944-2017) was a Nigerian novelist. In 1960, she travelled to London where she studied and worked. The things she experienced during her stay in London inspired her writing in various ways. Most of her writings, including Second Class Citizen, portray gender discrimination and racial prejudice.
SIGNIFICANCE OF TITLE
Who is a second-class citizen? It’s a person who is deprived of the rights of a citizen in a country where he or she is indeed a citizen according to the law. This societal ill forms the thematic preoccupation of Second Class Citizen, a novel written by Buchi Emecheta. In this novel, Buchi depicts the agonies of a young Nigerian woman who is faces discrimination as a girl child her own country and is subsequently subjected to racial discrimination in London. As a girl-child, Ada faces discrimination in her parents’ house when her parents choose to sponsor her brother’s education but are only interested in getting her to marry a man. She struggles to be sent to school, as education is considered unnecessary for girls. Although she is eventually permitted to attend school, this change of mind happens because her people hope to receive a higher bride price from whoever is going to marry her in future. Owing to pressures from her relatives, she eventually marries Francis in order to feel secure. In her family and in the larger society, Ada’s experiences as a girl child continue to indicate that she is treated as a second-class citizen. On getting to London, she realizes that she is equally a second class citizen in England as a black African in that racist society.
3. SETTING
The novel is set in Lagos, Nigeria during World War II. In the novel, we find a male-dominated Nigerian society characterized by fierce discrimination against the girl child. The novel also depicts her experiences in a racist London society where the black Africans were treated as second-class citizens. Thus, the novel is a portrayal of the plight of a young woman who is treated as a second-class citizen in her own country based on her gender and later becomes a victim of racial discrimination as a black immigrant in London.
4. OVERVIEW
Second-Class Citizen is a novel by Buchi Emecheta, a Nigerian novelist. The novel tells the story of a poor young Nigerian woman, Adah, from her childhood in Nigeria to adulthood in England Around the age of eight, Adah nurses a burning desire to live and school in England. However, her dream is faced with stiff barriers because she is a victim of gender discrimination even in her own family: her parents decide to send her brother to school but arrange for her to be married out to a man. The novel gives us a picture of how Adah faces discrimination from the while society in London based on her race as a black African, and how she also faces gender discrimination from her husband, Francis
5. CHARACTERIZATION
ADAH: She is the protagonist of Second-Class Citizen. Born in Lagos in the 1940s as Adah Ofili, she becomes Adah Obi after marrying Francis Obi. The novel is mainly about her life and experiences a girl-child in a male-dominated Nigerian society, and later as a black African immigrant in a racist London society. She also has to endure the abuses of her husband. After enduring his abuses and he refuses to change, she eventually leaves him. In the face of all odds, she is a hard-working, educated woman who loves and protects her children.
FRANCIS OBI: He is Adah’s husband, whom she marries as a teenager. He is unable to pay her high bride-price, but Adah likes him and marries him in order to feel secure. Even though Francis studies accountancy, he doesn’t seem to make much progress. When he fails all of his exams, he blames his failure on Adah. He has the typical African belief that as a man he is superior to his wife; yet he doesn’t take the responsibility of providing financially for his wife and children
Mr Cole: He is Adah’s neighbour who works as a teacher in a Methodist Primary School. Adah always sneaks out of the house to his class in her determination to be educated like other children.
VICTOR: He is Adah’s sickly son. Adah has to get him the best doctors (from China and India) for him to be medically fine.
JANET: She is a girl from Cockney who marries a Nigerian man, Mr. Babalola. At the age of 16, Janet becomes pregnant for West Indian man, and her parents send her out of their house. Mr. Babalola receives Janet and shares her with his friends. Babalola’s relationship becomes more serious after the man’s scholarship is stopped and he discovers that he needs Janet’s financial assistance for his survival in London. Janet and Adah are friends, and they have a lot in common, especially in supporting their husbands financially and at the same being subjected to domestic abuse.
THEMES
GENDER DISCRIMINATION: The theme of gender discrimination is evident in Ada’s experiences from her childhood. As a Nigerian girl, however, she faces a lot of limitations placed upon her gender. She has to fight to be sent to school, as education is seen as unnecessary for girls. When she is eventually allowed to go to school, it is only because her education will enable her family to charge a higher “bride-price” when they eventually marry her out to a man. Owing to pressures from her relatives, she eventually marries Francis. In her family and in the larger society, Ada’s experiences as a girl child continue to indicate that she is treated as a second-class citizen. Her experiences with her husband, Francis, also continue to indicate that women are oppressed even by their spouses as a result of the general belief that men are superior to women.
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION: The novel portrays the racism against the black Africans in London. This can be seen in the instances when Adah is looking for accommodation for her family. Most of the adverts about vacant accommodation indicate that the black people are not permitted to live there (the advert usually says: “Sorry, no coloreds.”) When she speaks with a white woman on phone about an accommodation, Adah has to hide her identity as a black woman in order to be allowed to view the apartment. When they get there and the white woman discovers they are black, she dismisses them with the lie that there were no rooms there.
MOTHERHOOD AND THE PLIGHT OF THE AFRICAN WOMAN: The novel gives us a picture of a young woman who is saddled with the burdens of pregnancy, childbirth and catering for the entire household. In spite of her situation, she deeply loves her children and will do everything to guarantee their wellbeing.
TRIBALISM
In the novel, we find that there is ethnic or tribal discrimination even among the Nigerian immigrants in London. This is shown in instances where Yoruba and Igbo people express suspicious and hateful views against one another. On one occasion, Adah has to hide her identity as an Igbo person from a Yoruba landlord whose rooms she wants to rent for her and her children. Even in the first apartment where Ada and Francis lived in London, they experience discrimination from other Nigerian immigrants based on tribe and social class.
DREAM AND DETERMINATION: There is an old saying that “where there is a will, there is a way.” Buchi Emecheta illustrates this saying through the life of the protagonist (Ada) who out of sheer determination pursues her dream to its fulfillment in spite of all the forces of sexism and racism militating against her ambition. In Nigeria, she is treated as a second-class citizen when her parents are initially unwilling to give her education but want to arrange her marriage instead. In London, she discovers she is also a second-class citizen as a black African immigrant, and also as a woman whose husband has the same Nigerian sense of male superiority. In spite of her plight, however, Adah pursues her dream of becoming educated. Her determination to become educated forms part of her struggle for personal development and freedom from the limitations imposed on the girl child by society.
EDUCATION AS A TOOL FOR WOMEN’S LIBERATION: Through the character of Adah in the novel, Buchi Emecheta illustrates the importance of education as a tool for women’s liberation from the bondage and limitations imposed on them by society. It is through education that people like Adah are able to set themselves free from the abuses of an oppressive husband who assumes that women are mere items of furniture in the house and that their place is either in the kitchen, in the labor room, or in the other room.
For a more detailed audiovisual analysis of the novel, watch the following video lecture: https://youtu.be/z_JmxcPlU68
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- Good Success in English: A Study Package or Good Success in English: A Study Package for Effective English Learning
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About the Author
Benjamin Abugu is a university graduate with a flair for content writing. He is an English teacher with over twelve years experience, a published author of many books (both paperback and eBook editions), a blogger and Youtuber.
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