Second Class Citizen

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1974

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-10

Chapters 11-13

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Background

Authorial Context: Florence Onyebuchi “Buchi” Emecheta

Buchi Emecheta was born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1944, which aligns her birth with that of her protagonist, Adah. Her parents were from Ibuza, and she was kept out of school during her childhood in accordance with gender expectations of that time. Her parents intended for her brother to attend school while Emecheta remained at home, but Emecheta convinced them of the value of education, securing a place first at a missionary school, then at Methodist Girls’ School in Lagos.

Emecheta was engaged to Sylvester Onwordi when she was 11 years old, and the two were married in 1960, when Emecheta was 16. Over the next five years, Emecheta gave birth to five children and moved to London with Onwordi. The marriage was unpleasant, and Onwordi was physically abusive. Emecheta wrote during her spare time, eventually publishing over 20 books. Her first was In The Ditch (1972), which is composed of writings Emecheta had published in New Statesmen magazine. Both In The Ditch and Second Class Citizen center on Adah, who is an autobiographical imagining of Emecheta herself, with Adah’s life mirroring Emecheta’s own experiences.

Emecheta’s works tend to focus on the struggles of Black people, women, and immigrants, and follow her own experiences as a Black woman immigrating to the United Kingdom. Second Class Citizen, told through Adah, follows Emecheta’s life closely. As Adah struggles to balance the limitations imposed by cultural expectations with the opportunities she sees in England, she experiences the discrimination and abuse that Emecheta faced both as a Black woman in England and as a Nigerian wife with five children. The novel is episodic; there is no cumulative ending, nor is the beginning an essential starting point to Adah or Emecheta’s life. Second Class Citizen, then, is a retelling of some sections of Emecheta’s life, using the character of Adah to address the same situations and issues that Emecheta herself overcame.

In addition to writing, Emecheta worked with a number of universities, including the University of Calabar in Nigeria, working with a variety of cultural and literary groups until her death in 2017. Emecheta continued fighting for equality and freedom for decades after Second Class Citizen was published.

Postcolonial Context: Race in 1960s England and Nigeria

Nigeria was a colony of the British Empire beginning in the early 19th century and culminating in an occupied protectorate in the early 20th century. England continually increased their influence over and involvement in Nigeria between 1807 and 1914, when Nigeria officially became the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria under England. A protectorate is a state that is under the control of another state that promises to protect the colony; it is another way of organizing an imperial system.

Nigeria and the Nigerian peoples were subjugated as less than English people, and many of the divisions noted in Second Class Citizen reflect colonial rule. The distinction between Ibo or Igbo people and Yoruba people reflects the amalgamation of cultures and ethnic groups that resulted from combining different colonies and protectorates on the part of the English, who likely did not understand the differences and nuance between such groups of people.

After Nigeria attained independence in 1960, many Nigerian peoples still immigrated to the United Kingdom to escape civil unrest and to achieve an education that could garner higher wages in both England and Nigeria. Many Nigerian students returned to Nigeria after receiving the education they desired in England. During the 20th century, England was in the process of addressing widespread racial discrimination, including segregation and the development of political groups that fought both for and against racial discrimination at the legal level.

These issues are presented in the novel through men like Francis, who came to England for an education but fell short, as well as conflicts in housing and employment that involve discrimination based on race. At one point, Adah pinches her nose while speaking on the phone to sound “white”; she and Francis are ultimately rejected when the landlady discovers that they are African immigrants. Despite the Race Relations Act of 1965, discrimination continues to the present day, including racially motivated violence against people of color and social inequity involving wages and housing in the United Kingdom.

Gender Context: Women’s Rights in Nigeria and England

Second Class Citizen in inherently intersectional: It addresses issues across multiple categories of identity and being. Adah and Emecheta are both Nigerian immigrants in England, but they are also women moving from one patriarchal society to another. References to women as less valuable or worthwhile than men are frequent, and discrimination against women is present both in English and Nigerian approaches to gender.

Before Nigerian independence, many women were involved in politics and political discussion. Southern Nigerian women gained the right to vote in the 1950s, and all Nigerian women gained this right in 1979. Women in Nigeria have struggled with attaining rights to property, employment, medical care, and safety due to complications arising during colonialism and the mix of religious and tribal cultures within Nigeria. Women have been limited due to polygamy and the fact that, in marriage, all property belongs to the husband, not to the wife or wives. Widespread practice of Islam and Christianity generally reduce the number of roles available to women in Nigeria. Restriction of women’s access to education, in particular, plays a significant role in understanding Adah’s character and Emecheta’s life, as their struggles to acquire and progress in education and in employment are consistently challenged by traditional ideas of childrearing and marriage.

Gender discrimination in England persists into the modern day, and the bias against women carries over from Adah’s experiences in Nigeria to England. England has a long history of feminist thought and struggle for rights, most notably the fight for suffrage (the right to vote). The 1960s, which comprises the bulk of Adah’s time in England in the novel, saw a series of reforms for women, including access to birth control for unmarried women, the legalization of abortion, laws to protect equal pay for women, and, in the 1970s, the introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act, which instituted protection against discrimination based on sex or marital status.

While Adah is consistently able to gain employment and support her family, rights protecting women from discrimination had not yet been established at the time of her marital struggles with Francis; this reflects the same kind of patriarchal oppression that Adah suffered in Nigeria. In fact, it is not until the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1973 that Adah would theoretically be able to divorce Francis on grounds of his adultery, behavior in the home, and prolonged separation after Adah left him. In both England and Nigeria, Adah’s sex and gender are relevant to an understanding of her experiences. These forms of discrimination work in tandem with those related to her race and ethnic background.