Summary Themes of SECOND CLASS CITIZEN - Buchi Emecheta

SECOND CLASS CITIZEN 

BUCHI EMECHETA 

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

On July 21, 1944 in Yaba near Lagos, Nigeria, Buchi Emecheta was born to Jeremy Nwabudike and Alice Okwuekwu Emecheta.  At a young age, Emecheta was orphaned and she spent her earlyhood years being educated at a missionary school. In 1960, at the age of sixteen, Emecheta was married to Sylvester Onwordi, a student to whom she had been engaged since she was eleven.  Her marriage as well as her childhood are alluded to on her semis autobiographical novel, Second Class Citizen.  She passed away in January 2017.

BACKGROUND TO THE NOVEL

Status of women is a very critical and compelling issues all over the world, especially in Africa.  African women are a negligible force with little socio-political involvement. In the novel, Emecheta uses gender and sexuality to express the many ways in which society treats women and the obstacles that they have to overcome.  The novel addresses so many ills which African patriarchy has done on women.  Adah,  the main character of the novels a child who wants Western Education but is denied the opportunity to get one because of mere fact that she is a girl and the privilege of school goes to boys of the family even though she is the one that wants the education dearly. Adah has to wait to start school until she forces her parents into sending her to school. The central character of Second-Class Citizen is representative of many women created by Emecheta. Through education, they are able to challenge the masculinist assumption that they should be defined as mere domestic properties whose value resides in their ability to bear children and in their willingness to remain confined at home. 

PLOT SUMMARY OF THE NOVEL

The story starts off introducing Adah, the main character and talks about her childhood, which she doesn’t remember a lot about. At this point, Adah is about eight years old. Adah comes from such a society where the male child is valued far above the female one. So her birth does not elicit so much joy because she was a girl who arrived when everyone was expecting and predicting a boy. As a girl-child, she is seen to be a disappointment to her parents, to her immediate family, to her tribe and nobody thought of recording her birth. Although Adah is eight at this time, she has dreams of becoming greater than the celebrated Lawyer, Nweze, who has just arrived from England where he has gone for studies. The Ibuza people living in Lagos are busy preparing to welcome Lawyer Nweze, the first Lawyer from the United Kingdom. The way in which people talk about London raises Ada’s dreams towards becoming a ‘been to’ one day.

One day as Ada’s brother, Boy, has gone to school and Adah is made to stay at home with Ma, she sneaks to school. She ran as fast as she could before anyone could stop her. She ran into Mr Cole’s class, her neighbour and this attracted the attention of all the pupils. However, Mr Cole understands and gives her a receptive disposition. Adah’s unknown whereabouts attracts the police as Ma is detained for child neglect until Adah is eventually found to have gone to school. For her act of child neglect, Ma is forced by the police to drink a bowl of garri as her own bit of sanction. Ada’s curiosity forces her parents to register her into the school immediately after Ma is released from the police station. Her passionate drive for school makes Pa registered Adah into Ladi-Lak institute.

While Adah is still studying at Ladi-Lak institute, her father dies, Pa went to the hospital for something and dies. Adah is forced to live with her uncle, her mother’s elder brother. Ma was inherited by Pa's brother, and Boy was to live with one of Pa's cousins. Adah's education would have been stopped but someone suggests that the more Adah is, the bigger her bride-price. So, she is put back to school. 

In her cousin’s house, Adah passes through series of maltreatments. Adah buries the two shillings given to her for a pound of steak and uses it to pay for scholarship examination for she would had to fo to the Methodist Girls’ High school or die. This makes Cousin Vincent give her a hundred and three strokes in anger. Yet, Adah is not ready to shift grounds. Adah gains admission into the Methodist Girls’ High School and graduates five years after. Adah marries Francis in order to achieve her dream of going to London.

Francis, a very quiet man was reading to be an accountant. Francis was too poor to pay five hundred pounds bride-price. Adah makes up the bride-price and they have their marriage at the registry in Lagos. After a short while, Adah gives birth to her first child, Titi. Adah sponsors Francis to London and continues working in Lagos to cater for herself, Titi, Francis and entire Francis family. After quite some time, Adah convinces her mother and father-in-laws that she needs to be with Francis in London as her going to London will bring a lot of benefits to the family. Adah takes Titi and heads for London

Adah’s joy knows no bounds as she is now on her way to The United Kingdom the land of her dream. She wishes that Pa is still alive to witness that her own daughter has made it to the hallowed United Kingdom, just like Lawyer Nweze. Eventual, Adah arrives but England give her a cold welcome. She was prepared to bear the cold welcome even if it came from her land of dreams. On the other hand, Adah sees her husband, Francis, who has come to welcome them. On reaching to where Francis lives, it is an eye-sore. The apartment is as filthy as a slum. As Adah wants to express her displeasure over the house, Francis, let’s her know that she may be a millionaire in Lagos but the day she steps into England, she becomes a Second Class Citizen. And Adah accepts her fate. 

After three months in London, Adah starts to work under the wing of the Chief Librarian, at North Finchley Central Library. On seeing how people queue up to borrow fictional works to read, Adah develops great passion in reading. Adah finds it difficult combining her work and taking care of her children as Francis has made it clear to her that he can not go on looking after her children for her. Adah is forced to take her little kids to Trudy to take care of them. Adah is however, dismayed one day as she walks into Trudy's compound unannounced. She finds her children playing on the heaps of dirt at Trudy’s backyard. Trudy is reported to children’s officers. 

Vicky, Adah’s second child is sick and Adah is phoned from her place of work. He has been diagnosed with virus meningitis. Adah’s goes to Trudy to accused her of giving her son, Vicky virus and she threatens to kill her should her son dies. Francis supports Vicky and opposes his wife. Adah is advised to take her children to Nursery places instead of Trudy. Adah later reported Trudy in the children department and her named is removed from child-minders lists. 

Francis and Adah were given notice to quit their one room apartment within a month and the reason is racism driven. Adah and Francis intensify efforts in looking for another apartment. So many apartments are being advertised with the tag: No coloured on them. It dawn on them that finding an apartment for blacks and coloureds is a difficult task. 

Adah and Francis later gets an apartment at Pa Nobles house. Pa Nobles comes to England to read law but he cannot make it, he starts working at the railway. He has accident in the railway and the railway authorities compensate him for his injury. But all his mates goes to court and testify on his behalf and so Pa Noble was pensioned off for the second time. He uses the money in buying an old terrace. Adah and Francis are lucky to have secured a room in Pa Noble's house. 

Weeks after setting down in Pa Noble’s house, Adah experiences complications. She goes to the clinic for check-up. She later undergo caesarean operation in the hospital against Francis earlier idea that she should have the baby at home in other for them to get the welfare package. Adah gives birth to Bubu. Adah feels dejected when other patients in the world are being showered with different gifts, flowered. Her own husband could not bring her gifts, he couldn’t even bring her new dress and Adah wore surgery gown for days. At the end, she leaves the hospital in shame. 

Francis starts a job as a postman. He complains bitterly about the terror of the English dogs and the high level of pigeon holes. With the complaints and callous attitude of Francis, Adah resolves to be indifferent. During Christmas, there is no money for any celebration. However, Adah receives gifts from the library and this brings her consolation. On the same day, Vicky's ears are swelling up, the doctor diagnoses Vicky and finds out that the swelling is caused by bedbug bite. Mrs Noble organizes party of the children afterwards. 

 Adah finds out she has become e pregnant again. She resolves to visit the family planning clinic. She forges her husband’s signature on the document she was given from the clinic. Adah chooses the cap, a birth control device among two other options. Francis discovers and it causes a big quarrel that calls the attention of Pa Noble and other neighbours. She continues to have quarrels at home that she resolves that her marriage with Francis is finished as soon as Francis called the Nobles and other tenants. A week later, Francis realises he has failure his examination again as his result was sent to him.  

Adah manages to scale through a part of her library examination and starts work at the chalk Farm Library. These she meets Bill, a Canadian, who introduces to her the works of James Baldwin, an African-American writer. This boosts her interest in fiction. She values the more her friendship with her colleague as she draws away from her husband. Her fights with Francis now becomes frequent as Pa Nobel asks them to quit the apartment. An Igbo man, Okara intervened but his intervention did not move Francis. It makes matter worse as Adah is pregnant again. She has the baby (Dada) in grand style as she does not want a repeat of what happened when she had Bubu. After her delivery, Adah make it known to Francis that she will no longer feed him. This decision of Adah forces Francis to go out as a clerical officer in the post office. While nursing Dada, Adah goes into writing The Bride Price, a novel which on completion, was well rated by Bill and other colleagues. 

Adah gladly convinces Francis to read the manuscript. Francis later burn the manuscript after reading ot because he doesn’t want her to be a writer. Adah was so mad that she cried Francis has killed her child. She believes the manuscript is her brainchild. Adah gets a new job at a library officer at the British Museum. After a fight with her husband, she makes the landlady invite the police, Adah moves into a two-room flat with her four children. Francis prevents her from taking anything away but the police propels him to allow Adah to carry her box of rags. She has broken finger and swollen lips as a result of the fight. In the Archway Hospital where Adah has gone to receive treatment, she discovers that she is pregnant again. Francis comes to lure her back bit he fails. The marriage finally dissolved in court. 

THEMES

1. Dream and Reality

Second Class Citizen, which tells the story of Adah from her childhood to her early years in London begins with a discussion of dreams. The eight-year-old Adah, who was born in Lagos during World War II, can only dream of going to school since she is not allowed to attend because she is not a boy. Adah’s dream is to go to the United Kingdom to study and to see the greatness that she is sure is there. Her troubles begin from the first moment she realizes what her dream is. But she is not allowed to go to school because she is a girl and the family does not want to spend the money for her to go. She is a girl of her own mind and she goes to school anyway which ends up getting her mother in trouble. Adah describes her dream as something that has always resided in her subconscious. At the end, her dream is made a reality as Adah sees herself and her children in the UK. 

 Being a girl in a society that expects and celebrates male children and attempts to express contempt over women in specific gender roles, Adah defies such expectations by claiming her individual identity in terms of her dream to visit the UK, by claiming education and marriage on her own terms to help facilitate the fulfilment of the dreams. 

2. Class and Gender

In the novel, the author painfully addressed the fact that women are subjected to class, race and gender based oppression or discrimination.  In Second Class Citizen, Adah's life is torn between Ibuza, Lagos and UK. Her dream is to study. She desires to be a writer but her desire is cut short by her egoistic and unemotional husband and largely indifferent White society. Adah overcomes strict gender domination and countless setbacks to achieve an independent life for herself and her children. 

The title of the novel Second-Class Citizen has the interpretation of class divide within the novel. Class and gender structures are reproduced in the setting, resulting in a mimicking of the colonial era that persists in the post colonial period. Adah’s expectations of society are influenced by several factors, including the post colonial setting of Nigeria,  the high regards given when discussing the colonial motherland UK,  her gender in terms the influencing patriarchal structure, her transition to elite class and subsequent demotion to a second class citizen in the UK. 

3. Racial Discrimination and Oppression 

Some of the main points of struggle for Adah are being a black woman in a predominantly white society. In England of Adah’s days, black immigrants are solely discriminated against. To get accommodation for the blacks is difficult and with some stringent conditions. The house where Francis could get for his family has no bathroom, no kitchen and its toilet is located outside. Seeing Adah’s feeling, Francis assures her that she could be a millionaire but tje day she lands in England, she becomes a second class Citizen. She can’t discriminate against her own people because they are all second class Citizen. With these, Adah discovers that London is jot indeed the kingdom of heaven as she thinks. In fact, over there in London, the middle class black is the one that is lucky enough to get the post of bus conductor. Adah discovers that anything inferior is for the blacks while anything thay is pure and beautiful belong to the white. 

4. Positive and Negative Impacts of Western Education: in the Novel, Emecheta shows that education is a companion which no misfortune can depress and no enemy can enslave. Adah seeks to acquire western education right from her childhood. Education is what helps Ada escape the masculinity and tyranny of Francis. She desires greatly to give her children English education as she believes this would be a means of liberating herself from poverty and advancing herself. 

On the other hand, western education seems to have taken negative toll on Africans. Those who to the United Kingdom like Lawyer Nweze, are no longer at ease with their native culture. His civilization is seen in many of his lifestyle. Lawyer Nweze has lost his native cultural values. He has to sense of togetherness again in him. He betrays his people and is made a minister in Northern Nigeria. The author shows that western education breeds corruption, greed and I humanity. 

5. Masculinity and domestic Violence: Throughout the novel, the author shows that women are able to challenge the masculinist assumption that they should be defined as mere domestic properties whose values resides in their ability to bear children and their willingness to remain confined at home. Francis firmly believes that a woman’s place is in the home. On tje other hand, he is fully dependent on Adah, who supports the family with her salary as a librarian. Francis demonstrates act of masculinity when he burns Adah’s manuscripts of The bride-price forcing Adah to swing between hope and despair. Francis is a wife beater. Adah becomes a pathetic victim of domestic violence. She got swollen lips and broken finger as a result of her fight with Francis. By the end of the Novel, Adah refuses to be further harassed by her husband and separates from him. 

CHARACTERIZATION 

1. Adah: She is the protagonist of the novel. She is ambitious, and full of dreams. She is very intelligent and her intelligence got her into Methodist Girls’ College. She works in the American Consulate Library before she marries Francis. In England, her determination manifests when she gets job which the second-class citizens don’t easily get. She is bold and courageous. She does not allow the superiority of the English people to intimidate her. She rejects the status of the second-class citizen and the tag of an inferior sex. She is in contrast to her husband who gives up easily. She has attitude of human kindness. 

2. Francis: He is too religious and too callous. He is weak and does not have a voice of his own. He allows his parents to always make decisions for him. He is easily influenced by the attitude of the people in London. He is a woman beater and a chauvinist. He believes that women are second-class human beings. He Hayes to be told the bitter truth about his life. He is not determined and hardworking. This reflects in his constant in his constant failure in his examination and lacks progress. He is a chronic womanizer. He sleeps with Trudy and always molests his neighbours sexually. He is opportunistic and selfish. His selfishness is shown when he is forced to work. He spends a huge amount of his earning only on himself and would not allow anybody to touch his radio. 

3. Pa (Adah’s father) He is a railway soldier worker and once a soldier. He does not engage in too much talking. He calls Adah by pet name and cares for her. He registers Adah in the prestigious Ladi-Lak Institute. He believes that Adah is his mother that has come back as she promised to come back. He dies and leaves his family devastated . 

4. Ma (Adah Mother): She prefers that Adah learns sewing like her than going to school. She is one of the women who welcome Lawyer Nweze at Lagos Wharf. She is inherited by her husband’s brother after the death of her husband. She dies at a prime age of thirty. 

5. Boy: He is Adah's younger brother. He is given the privilege to receive western education first because he is a male child. After seeing him off the Ladi-Lak Institute, Adah develops the great passion to be in school like Boy. He is given over to live with one of his uncles when Pa dies. Boy is caring. He is the only confidant of Adah. 

6. Trudy: She is a white lady who takes care of Adah’s children. She has two children of her own bi it she agreed to look after Adah’s children as well. She seems to be having an affair with Francis. Trudy is both careless and dirty. Trudy is reported in Children’s Department and she is withdrawn as a child care giver. 

7. Pa Nobel: He is one of the people swallowed up by England to settle for Second-class citizens. Pa Nobel has stayed in England for a very long time that he has no memory of Nigeria and his own people again. He becomes a lift man at tube station. He is a clown and a jester. He would remove his trousers for a pint of beer for the whites who want to know whether blacks have tails or not. He broke his shoulders in an attempt to lift load in order to prove to the whites that blacks are stronger.. He is compensated and pensioner off by the authorities.  He uses his money to buy a house which Adah and Francis later came to live in

Opinion:

How would you compare Adah and Francis in the story