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

Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary: “Childhood”

Adah is eight years old. She lives in Ibuza, Nigeria, though she was born in Lagos, the capital of Nigeria, during World War II. Her parents praise Ibuza, and they dislike Lagos because of the legal system in Lagos. Adah’s mother and other women are getting ready to welcome a lawyer, Nweze, to town from the United Kingdom, though Adah associates the name United Kingdom with bombs dropping. Women buy cloth from the United Africa Company (UAC), and they straighten their hair in European fashion. Adah’s mother is a seamstress, and Adah is expected to attend school for only a couple of years before becoming a seamstress as well. Her younger brother, Boy, begins attending school first, which inspires Adah’s dream.

The school is the Ladi-Lak Institute and does not teach Yoruba, the native language. Adah blames her mother for keeping her out of school; she notes that she often lied or disobeyed her mother to lash out against her. Adah goes to the Methodist School, and her dresses are all too large for her. Her neighbor, Mr. Cole, teaches at the school. He welcomes her into class but suggests that Adah try to get her parents’ permission to attend. After class, Mr. Cole buys Adah a boli, or roasted plantain. The third-person narrator speculates that Adah’s mother instilled in her a distrust for women. Meanwhile, Adah’s mother is interrogated by policemen because she is accused of neglecting Adah.

The narrator explains that Adah’s name, Nne nna, Adah Eze, or Adah Nna, means “father’s mother” or “Princess, daughter of a king” (8) because her father believes that she is the reincarnation of his mother. Adah was born two months prematurely, and there is no record of her birth because her family does not value female children enough to bother with this process. The narrator notes that her name is hard to pronounce in Yoruba, but easier to pronounce for Europeans. Adah’s father and his friends thank the river goddess Obushi that Nweze, the UK lawyer, did not bring a white woman with him. The narrator reveals that the present-day Adah, living in the 1970s, laughs about old superstitions like Obushi, since the river Obishi represents has since been drilled for oil, among other issues.

Chapter 2 Summary: “Escape Into Elitism”

Adah’s father dies, and she is sent to live with her mother’s elder brother as a servant. Adah’s father’s brother inherits Adah’s mother, and Boy is sent to live with one of Adah’s father’s cousins. Adah continues school to increase her future dowry. Adah must get water early each morning, tend to her new father, and help around the house. Adah rejects all her suitors, as they are all older and bald. At school, Adah and the students are told that they need to go on to secondary school. Adah gets the nickname “Ibo tigress” for biting another student, and she finds out that the Ibo used to be cannibals. To take the entrance exam for the Methodist Girls High School, Adah steals two pennies from her cousin, and he beats her. Her family allows her to take the exam, so long as her chores are complete. Adah gets into the school with a full scholarship, and she does not go home during school vacations. She succeeds in high school, but she realizes that she needs to marry to secure a home.

Adah marries Francis, an accountant, and her family disowns her. The two of them have a humble wedding, and they have a daughter, Titi. Adah gets a job working at the American Consulate as a librarian, and her pay is nearly three times Francis’s. The two plan to send Francis to the UK, leaving Adah behind to care for their children and Francis’s family until she can save enough to bring herself and their children to the UK. Adah’s mother is dead, and she is pregnant with her second child in 18 months. Her own family does not visit or acknowledge her.

Francis and his father decide that only Francis should go to the UK, leaving Adah behind to provide for the family. Adah agrees but secretly plans to go herself at some point. Adah does not cry when Francis leaves, which leads him to accuse her of not loving him. She cries after he leaves because the plane reminds her of her father’s coffin. Adah convinces her mother-in-law that she, Adah, should also go to the UK to make more money. Adah overpays for the journey in order to leave as soon as possible, taking her children with her. Her brother is at the wharf to wave goodbye to her, and Adah is sad to leave her home country.

Chapter 3 Summary: “A Cold Welcome”

Adah arrives in Liverpool, England. She meets Francis, who seems to have become more English. He criticizes Adah for breaking with tradition. In London, Francis shows Adah their home, a small, one-room apartment. The neighbors are also from Nigeria, but they are of a lower class than Adah was in Lagos. Though Adah complains, Francis only gets angry, threatening to hit her and telling her that they are all second-class citizens in England.

After the fight, Francis insists on having sex with Adah. He calls her frigid, meaning abnormally indifferent to sex, and tells her to see a doctor. Adah gets a job as a senior library assistant at North Finchley Library, but realizes that she is pregnant with a third child. Francis complains that Adah is not sexually available enough, and Adah encourages him to seek out other women. He is upset about the pregnancy; Adah tries her best to conceal it to make sure she can still get the library position. Adah succeeds. She realizes that she cares for Francis, and feels uncomfortable knowing that he is only with her for her good fortune.

Chapters 1-3 Analysis

The opening chapters cover the largest amount of time in Adah’s life, setting a backdrop for the events that take place in England. Adah’s upbringing is portrayed as somewhat normal for Nigeria, with a few major differences in Adah’s personality. Adah’s insistence on an education and her willingness to go against her parents’ wishes mark her as a unique child. Her success in school, and the amount of money she is able to make with her education, identify Adah as a competent and talented person, neither of which appear to be in line with Nigerian cultural perspectives on women.

Emecheta develops a key theme, The Struggle for Independence Amidst Racism and Misogyny. Adah’s success in Nigeria is still dependent on her marriage and family, reflecting the challenges that women face, even when displaying extraordinary ability, simply because of the way their sex is perceived socially and culturally. Adah’s desire for personal and professional development contrasts with cultural norms. She is able to get into school, but she must fight for an education that her brother, Boy, is simply given. When her parents die, she becomes a servant in a new home, and she needs permission to continue her education on top of a multitude of chores and labor. Despite her success in school, she needs to marry Francis in order to avoid homelessness. Every step of Adah’s progress is hindered by requirements that are unique to her as a woman, and the solution is most commonly the permission or acquiescence of a man.

Adah’s experiences in Nigeria portray the state of Nigeria and Nigerian people. The arrival of the lawyer Nweze shows the admiration that Nigerian people seem to have for English culture and values. Through Nweze’s arrival, Emecheta develops another key theme, The Pull Toward Modernity and the Imperial Center. Nweze was educated in England, and the Nigerian people welcome him to get a “taste of civilization” through his experiences (15). However, some people, including Adah’s father, are nervous about this civilization; they show gratitude that Nweze did not marry a white woman and praise the river deity Obushi for it.

The narrator remarks that Adah would later laugh at superstition, citing the river Obushi’s inability to protect itself and its people; for Adah, the values and beliefs of her native culture ultimately fail in the face of English beliefs. These are markers of colonial and postcolonial struggles. The people native to Nigeria are confronted with a dynamic in which they are considered inferior to the English; this sense of inferiority becomes instilled through social and cultural practices, such as the fact that English is the primary language at the Methodist school. Methodism itself is not native to Nigeria, and the praising of Nweze’s education mirrors the desire within Nigeria to attain a more English level of “refinement.”

Adah’s arrival in Liverpool and Francis’s apartment in London reflect another cost of progress for her. England is cold and unpleasant, and Adah and Francis are only able to live in areas that are ill-maintained. At this time, Adah already has two children, and she is unable to prevent Francis from forcing himself on her, leading to still more children. Though their neighbors are also Nigerian immigrants, Adah realizes how, in England, the class distinctions drawn in Nigeria become irrelevant in the face of racial discrimination.

Francis’s assertion that all Black people are second-class citizens in England echoes the title of the book and establishes the intersectionality of Emecheta’s discussion. In Nigeria, Adah was able to overcome the discrimination she faced as a woman through hard work and careful maneuvering, but she is now in a country where such tactics may not work. Though Adah is “the goose that laid the golden eggs” for Francis and his family (41), Francis immediately establishes that only he is allowed to acclimate to English culture and society. When Adah first gets off the boat and Francis jokes about dying, he explains that English people joke about everything, but when Adah jokingly says that he is lying, his reaction is severe.

A similar pattern emerges as Francis considers physically abusing Adah for not being submissive enough. These events foreshadow upcoming conflict between Francis and Adah as Francis loses control of himself in the “freedom” offered by life in England and Adah struggles to make a better life for herself and her children.