An exploration of themes of race, gender and the colonial mindset in Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen (1978)
Approaching a novel like Second Class Citizen, with such complex and personally relevant themes is always a slightly intimidating experience for me. Emecheta’s simple and well-woven writing style however, made it an extremely rewarding read, as engaging as it was eye-opening. The novel addresses issues of gender, class and race through the life of the protagonist Adah, who the reader follows through her early childhood in Nigeria and subsequently during her intial years in England. The genre of the work does not fit into any neatly compartmentalised category of “drama”, “romance” or “comedy” and can instead be categorised as post-colonial, feminist writing. The novel begins with her life as a child, desperate to gain an education in a chauvinistic society and culture. It is startling that the primary opposition she faces in this part of her life, is not from the male authority figure in her household but in fact from her mother. Her father seems more sympathetic to her desire to learn, in that he is not outrightly opposed to Adah receiving an education but does not seem to go to any lenghts to ensure it. This was particularly interesting as it made me rethink the identity of those helping propogate the patriarchy and whether that blame falls solely on the shoulders of the male section of society.
Unfortunately however, her father dies and she is then condemned to live in a relative’s house, working as a servant. This is primarily due to the fact that all the family savings were directed toward helping Adah’s brother Boy complete his education. The choice of the name “Boy” is particularly significant as it classes this mostly voiceless character as the representation of the ‘silent male’ in a partiarchal society. That is, a man or boy who is part of a partiarchal structure, benefits from it and therefore does nothing to subvert it, even in his immediate family. Overcoming immense odds, she obtains a scholarship and pursues her education which is one again interrupted due to societal demands of marriage. Having very little choice in the matter, she marries a man and has two children with him. Once again, we are confronted by the structurally misogynistic system when Adah’s husband expects her to stay in Nigeria and help him finance his own life in England. Adah however joins him in England with her children before long but this much dreamed of life in England is not without its own trials.
Understanding Adah’s story and particularly her cultural experiences necessitates some level of insight into the society of Ibuza people in Nigeria. (Pg. 7) The colonial mindset of being subservient to white people, appears to be a signifcant factor as Adah herself expresses an understanding of the United Kingdom as akin to “heaven” (Pg 8) and travelling to England is her ultimate goal. The scene of the women from Ibuza’s preparation for a lawyer returning from the UK’s arrival is also particularly striking. The assertion that “nobody would dream” of greeting this important man with their hair “naturally in curls”(Pg. 8) reflects an inherent distaste for the natural African aesthetic in favour of a ‘white appearance’ which are reflections of both the colonial as well racially oppressive structure. On doing some background reading on the tribe itself, I found that “Ibuza” is infact an Anglicisation of “Igbuzo” by the early British missionaries and visitors to the town as they found the native name difficult to pronounce. Adah and (by extension) Emecheta’s usage of the Anglicised name of her tribe indicates the extent to which the colonial agenda has permeated into the minds of the people.
In the Ibuza community “an Igbo offspring is a product of his father’s lineage” and the social structure “..is patrilineal in outlook”. [1] This is clearly reflected in the novel where Adah is not considered half as important as a male offspring, addressed in the line “she was a girl who has arrived when everyone was expecting and predicting a boy.” (Pg. 7) This theme of discrimination against Adah on the basis of her sex continues throughout the novel, first at the hands of her mother and later and most significantly at the hands of her husband, Francis. Francis is Adah’s husband and largely represents the patriarchal and hypocritical structures within the novel. She marries him, a student of accounts and even works to send him abroad, in the hopes that she will be able to pursue her own studies. However Francis proves to be the archetype of the regressive and chauvinistic African man, to the extent that Adah later realises that only her financial contribution made her valuable to him. Emecheta herself comments, “the fact that she was still laying the golden eggs stopped Francis from walking out on her. As before, her pay bound him to her but the difference was that she now knew it” [2]
This may be interpreted as a reversal of classical gender roles, subverting the paradigm of the man’s role of being the “breadwinner” (Jagne&Parekh, Pg. 150) [3]. Adah also displays some of the false conciousness depicted by her mother in propogating sexist idealogy by externalising and thereby justifying Francis’ behaviour such as his physical abuse and infidelity. This is evident in the line “Francis was not a bad man, just a man who could no longer cope with the over-demanding society he found himself in.” (Pg 110) However, simultaenously she recognises that the burden of societal expectations and “psychological pressures”(Pg 122) falls primarily on her as a woman, whereas Francis’ behaviour must be given the benefit of the doubt.
Although Adah’s situation has modified considerably from beginning to end, there is blatant irony in the fact that many of the struggles she underwent as a young child in Nigeria are mirrored in her struggles as an adult woman, mother and wife in England. This sheds light on the commonality of misogynistic and racist structures around the world and their impact on a woman of colour during various stages of her life. Societal structures of marriage, education (or lack thereof) and even religion are identified as tools of oppression that help keep women like Adah oppressed. In reference to Francis, Adah muses “He changed his religion to suit his whims. When he realized that equipping Adah with birth-control gear would release her from the bondage of child-bearing, Francis went Catholic.” (Pg 122) Here, it is possible to observe that the partiarchal structure foregrounds even religion, in that a man’s whims are greater than any obligations felt toward a divine entity.
The story is narrated in third person but follows the life and voice of a particular character, Adah and gives voice to her outlook on the world around her. This includes identifying other characters based on her relation to them, such as “ma” and “pa. As such we experience the world through Adah’s experiences and are privy only to her thoughts. The stylistic devices used in the novel are fascinating, owing to how they fuse organically with and are in fact essential to the content of the narrative itself. Like other postcolonial writers, Emecheta brings in collocations to place the work clearly in it’s cultural and geographical context. “Hot combs” (Pg. 8) is an example of this, referring to a hair straightening iron. Word coinages are also an example of this and are frequently used in Emecheta’s writing. Some of these are mispronunciations or appropriations of existing English words such as “lappas“(Pg. 2) instead of wrappers and “pilizon” referring to prison. Other words are rooted in the Nigerian language and are relevant due to their cultural connotations. These include boli (Pg 6) referring to rashes andkoboko (Pg 17) meaning a long cane.
Emecheta also uses phrases and words in the Nigerian languages of Igbo (her tribe) and Yoruba (from Lagos), which the author herself was exposed to. “Ezidiji ji de ogoli, ome oba”, a proverb that translates to “When a good man holds a woman, she becomes like the queen” (Pg 9) gives the reader some organic context into the practices and cultural rhetoric of the society in question. Phrases and cultural references in Nigerian languages are used alongside English idioms and western cultural allusions reflecting the dissonant identity experienced by an immigrant in a post-colonial context. These references are varied and range from Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle (Pg 11) to Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland (Pg 27) as well as a biblical allusion to Mary Magdelena (Pg 88). Her effective and almost careless use of western idioms and proverbs including “took to their heels” (Pg 47) and “when in Rome, do as Rome does” (Pg 123) reflect an immersion in the English language as well its socio-cultural and religious superstructures. The literary and biblical allusions used in the novel serve to emphasise not only Adah’s comprehensive education and ability as a librarian but also reflect Emecheta’s own cultural immersion in the western cultural and literary canon.
Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class citizen sheds light on the interconnected themes of race, gender and the colonial hangover. It sets the story of Adah against the backdrop of a racially prejudiced society, misogynistic family structures and the immigrant condition in a European country. Notions and realities of social and economic class are also negotiated with, in the shift from Adah’s comfortable lifestyle as a librarian in Nigeria to a working class situation in England as well as her attitudes towards other immigrants and domestic help. Ultimately however, Adah’s story is not merely a race or gender narrative but a narrative of survival. A story of how Adah, and indeed Emecheta herself, repeatedly overcame the odds to survive as an individual in a society with no place or voice for her.
Bibliography:
[1] “Igbo Culture and Socialization – KWENU.” Ed. Uzoma Onyemaechi. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, n.d. Web. 12 July 2016.
[2] Odinye, Ie. “Feminism and Self-Assessertion of Female Characters in Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen and Zaynab Alkalis The Stillborn.” UJAH: Unizik Journal of Arts and Humanities Ujah J. Art Hum 11.1 (2011): n. pag. Web. 12 July 2016.
[3] Parekh, Pushpa Naidu, and Siga Fatima. Jagne. Postcolonial African Writers: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Westport, Conn: Greenwood, 1998. Web. 12 July 2016.
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