Second Class Citizen

“Not like those of their children who later got caught up in the entangled web of industrialisation. Adah’s Ma had no experience of having to keep up mortgage payments: she never knew what it was to have a family car, or worry about its innards; she had no worries about pollution, the population explosion or race. Was it surprising, therefore, that she was happy, being unaware of the so-called joys of civilisation and all its pitfalls?”

As the Nigerian women go to meet Nweze, the narrator shows the mix of adherence to Nigerian culture and influence from imperialism in the country. Nigeria has not yet gotten “caught up” in industrialization, which deprives them of some luxuries possessed by Europeans. This also saves them from the struggles of industry that their children will face as more and more people flock to the “civilization” people like Nweze bring back from Europe.

“One might think on this evidence that Africans treated their children badly. But to Adah’s people and to Adah herself, this was not so at all; it was the custom. Children, especially girls, were taught to be very useful very early in life, and this had its advantages. For instance, Adah learned very early to be responsible for herself. Nobody was interested in her for her own sake, only in the money she would fetch, and the housework she could do and Adah, happy at being given this opportunity of survival, did not waste time thinking about its rights or wrongs. She had to survive.”

Emecheta describes Adah’s upbringing in Nigerian culture. She uses declarative sentences—”She had to survive”—and a matter-of-fact tone. In describing Adah’s childhood, Emecheta suggests that, as with any culture, one might view a practice as good or bad.

“They were married the following day. It was the saddest day in Adah’s whole life. She did not mind having to go home in a bus, neither did she mind not marrying in white, which she hated anyway, but still she was sad, very sad, for months after the marriage at the register office.”

This is one of the few indications that Adah does not want to be married in the novel. Later on, she idealizes a perfect marriage, but, in this moment, she resents that she must be married to simply live in Nigeria. She cannot live alone, and is forced to marry Francis. Her sadness does not seem specific to Francis as a husband, so much as to the institution of marriage as a hindrance to her plans.

“Liverpool was grey, smoky and looked uninhabited by humans. It reminded Adah of the loco-yard where they told her Pa had once worked as a moulder. In fact the architectural designs were the same. But if, as people said, there was plenty of money in England, why then did the natives give their visitors this poor cold welcome?”

Liverpool likely reminds Adah of the yard in which her father worked—that yard likely contained machinery and structures built by the English, carrying the same kind of “grey, smoky” atmosphere that she finds in England. The contrast between the wealth and prosperity that Adah has projected onto England and their actual weather and attitudes is one of the first cracks in Adah’s perception of English superiority.

“He was free at last from his parents, he was free to do what he liked, and not even hundreds of Adahs were going to curtail that new freedom. The ugly glare he gave Adah made that clear. Then he spat out in anger: ‘You must know, my dear young lady, that in Lagos you may be a million publicity officers for the Americans; you may be earning a million pounds a day; you may have hundreds of servants: you may be living like an élite, but the day you land in England, you are a second-class citizen. So you can’t discriminate against your own people, because we are all second-class.’”

This quote includes one of the first instances of the novel’s title being used in the novel itself. Francis uses it in the context of the narrator describing how Francis has adjusted to English living, and his newfound freedom within the lower-class lifestyle he is forced to lead in England. Francis tries to convince Adah that his laziness is justified by discrimination against people of color.

“As for Adah, she listened to Trudy destroying forever one of the myths she had been brought up to believe: that the white man never lied. She had grown up among white missionaries who were dedicated to their work, she had then worked among American diplomats who were working for their country in Nigeria, and since she came to England the only other whites she had actually mixed with were the girls in the library and Janet. She had never met the like of Trudy before. In fact she could not believe her ears; she just gaped in astonishment.”

Here, the novel destroys another myth carried over from colonialism. Adah’s perception of white people as superior is subverted by Trudy’s lies. Though the white people Adah has met so far seem to fit with the narrative portrayed in imperial endeavors, Trudy is a bad white person, something that Adah did not know existed. Trudy’s betrayal of Adah’s trust both endangers her children and dismantles Adah’s perception of England.

“Why was the name of the hospital Royal Free? Was it a hospital for poor people, for second-class people? Why did they put the word “free” in it? Fear started to shroud her then. Were they sending her Vicky to a second-class hospital, a free one, just because they were blacks? Oh, God, what had she let herself in for? They might even use her child’s organ to save the life of another child, who would probably be white, and rich and who would be admitted into a hospital that had no ‘free’ in it.”

Following Trudy’s lies and Francis’s insistence that people of color are treated poorly in England, Adah does not trust English institutions at all. Her fears are not just that Vicky will not receive proper care, but specifically that his organs might be used to save a white child. This orients the dynamic of discrimination toward not just harming people of color, but of using people of color as a tool by which to help white people. This is an accurate description of how colonialism functioned prior to independence.

“Francis looked at her, as if with new eyes. Somebody had warned him that the greatest mistake an African could make was to bring an educated girl to London and let her mix with middle-class English women. They soon know their rights. What was happening to them? Francis wondered.”

Francis struggles with English culture, which he previously embraced for allowing him freedom away from home. Now, he sees how Adah, too, is able to gain freedoms, and he feels an urge to suppress Adah’s desires and enjoyment. It is already implied that he is having affairs with other women; this is not in line with the Nigerian practice of polygamy, which would involve marrying more than one woman. He also is not providing for his family, and yet he feels that Adah owes him all of her energy and effort, while he does not feel that he owes her anything.

“You come to behave and act like a mad person if you are surrounded by mad people. Was that what people call adaptation? she wondered.”

Adah conflates adapting to Francis’s behavior with adapting to the immigrant community and the broader English culture as a whole. Portraying herself as happy strikes back at both her neighbors and the broader society that forces her to live in unsuitable conditions.

“All he said was, ‘You’ll be telling the world soon that you’re carrying another Jesus. But, if so, you will soon be forced to look for your own Joseph.’ ‘But Jesus was an Arab, was he not? So, to the English, Jesus is coloured. All the pictures show him with the type of pale colour you have. So can’t you see that these people worship a coloured man and yet refuse to take a coloured family into their home?’”

Adah is aware that the white Jesus portrayed in English churches does not accurately depict the figure of Jesus in history. Her comparison of herself and Francis to Mary and Joseph reflects the martyrdom that the she and Francis are suffering as a family, as the English reject immigrants despite the Christian tenets they claim to embrace. Francis takes her comparison to mean that Adah sees them as holy, stemming from his desire to contradict Adah at every point.

“When these men fell so disastrously, their dreams were crushed within them. The dream of becoming an aristocracy became a reality of being a black, a nobody, a second-class citizen.”

The narrative reveals the mentality of men like Francis, who become disillusioned about a profitable English education and succumb internally to the idea of inferiority. Francis, like other men, come to England to develop themselves, yet he, Babalola, and Mr. Noble all fail to meet their goals. Facing failure, these men find whatever lifestyle they can in England.

“Papa Noble told them that he was born in a tree. His mother fed him on breast milk until he was almost twelve. He had to be weaned because he was by then old enough to join the menfolk in the farm work. He never wore clothes until he was taken into the army. Yes, he said, all children in Nigeria were brought up like that. There was no food, people died of dysentery every day. He ate meat only twice in the year during the yam festival and the festival of his father’s gods.”

Mr. Noble lies to his wife about his upbringing in Nigeria, lies which he presumably also told his coworkers and acquaintances during his time in England. These lines establish Mr. Noble as a man who makes himself into a caricature of an African immigrant, as he portrays himself in line with English misconceptions about African life. His claims allow English people to feel superior, playing into their racism and earning him a certain rapport with white people.

“The funniest thing was that she felt it was her duty to work, not her husband’s. He was to have an easy life, the life of a mature student, studying at his own pace.”

Adah realizes that her life is built on a bargain with Francis, which he is failing to uphold. She is willing to work and care for the children, but there should be a balance when it comes to childcare, considering that Francis’s obligations are fewer than Adah’s. Francis does not study or go to class, and it is becoming clear that Francis has no real intention of becoming an accountant. Adah is coming to understand that he will never be a contributing member of the family.

“One thing she did know was that the greatest book on human psychology is the Bible. If you were lazy and did not wish to work, or if you had failed to make your way in society, you could always say, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ If you were a jet-set woman who believed in sleeping around, VD or no VD, you could always say Mary Magdalene had no husband, but didn’t she wash the feet of Our Lord?”

Though Adah appears to be a Christian throughout the novel, her faith in Christianity is wavering along with her preconceptions about the English and white people more broadly. She sees how the Bible is essentially a tool to be used in whatever way one chooses to employ in the moment. She understands that people use the Bible for their own motives.

“She was sorry for this, because she liked to watch the way the sleek woman’s husband usually sat by her bedside, taking her hand gently, both of them laughing quietly, sometimes just sitting there, he stroking her forehead, saying nothing, just sitting there, like lovers in the cheap movie pictures Adah had seen at home. You read about things like that, you saw actresses and actors acting things like that on the screen for money. It never occurred to Adah that such things could be real.”

Up until this point, Adah did not really believe that a good marriage could exist. Her friends at work would talk about good marriages, but she did not think it could be real. Her own marriage is terrible, and she is shocked to see her peers in happy relationships. This scene establishes how the women in the hospital influence Adah to understand more about her own situation.

“She watched the nurse showing Bubu around, she was sure the nurse was taking a long time in doing that just because Bubu’s shawl was old. She was sure that the women were all laughing at her and saying ‘poor n*****!’ She stood there, biting her nails, almost eating her own flesh in her anxiety. Give me my baby back, her heart cried painfully. But the nurse was showing them all, the women, the doctors, anybody who happened to be around, that this was their special baby, born miraculously, for whom the mother had suffered so.”

Adah expresses the internalized racism that England has instilled in her. It is unlikely that the women are making fun of her or her child, but she has a hard time believing that they aren’t. Experiences like hers with Trudy have convinced Adah that all English people think poorly of her; to some extent, she feels that she may actually be inferior, leading to a paranoia that others may see her as she sees herself.

“Adah listened, and yawned on purpose. Francis’s words did not cling this time. They went in through one ear, and came out of the other, without leaving a single scratch on her. That did not stop Francis, for he loved the sound of his own voice.”

Adah is beginning to revolt against Francis’s attempts at controlling her and the family. Her yawn is a minor way of fighting back; it serves to show how Francis is content to simply believe that he is in control. Adah is not actually talking back to Francis, and he is happy to continue pretending that he is in charge.

“Fancy getting somebody out in this weather and on this day, just because a child was ill. She guessed it was their right, but maybe this was a right that could be easily explained away, because they were blacks and because Vicky was only a baby and because it was Christmas Day. If anything should happen to Vicky now, Society would forgive the doctor, because he was a black child and had been taken ill on Christmas Day. Why then should Adah expect a doctor to call?”

In internalizing a sense of inferiority, Adah does not think she has a right to ask for medical care on a holiday. Adah makes excuses before the request, noting the weather as though this would be a reasonable excuse to let a child suffer. Her note that “Society” would forgive the doctor shows how she perceives her own concerns to be unimportant in the broader view of English culture.

“She was different. Her children were going to be different. They were all going to be black, they were going to enjoy being black, be proud of being black, a black of a different breed. That’s what they were going to be. Had she not now learned to listen to the songs of birds?”

Taken from the passage about the grey bird, Adah proposes a future that takes the best elements of both English and Nigerian culture to overcome the postcolonial situation in which she currently finds herself. She wants her children to grow up with a wider range of experience, learning to appreciate more about the world than a child raised only in English or Nigerian culture could.

“Adah was happy when Pa Noble came, because at least it made Francis stop hitting her. She was dizzy with pain and her head throbbed. Her mouth was bleeding. And once or twice during the proceedings she felt tempted to run out and call the police. But she thought better of it. Where would she go after that? She had no friends and she had no relations in London.”

Adah’s predicament is the same as many abused spouses. She cannot leave Francis without jeopardizing the well-being of herself and her children, even though staying with him is also bad for her and her children. The fact that she only thought about running “once or twice” indicates that, during most of the violence, it did not occur to her that she could leave.

“London, having thus killed Adah’s congregational God, created instead a personal God who loomed large and really alive. She did not have to go to church to see this One.”

Adah’s new conception of God seems to contradict the Christian God that Adah previously believed in, but it may still be that same God without a congregation. Adah is disillusioned about the morality and trustworthiness of other people, especially Francis; she resolves to take care of herself and her children without Francis or anyone else. The fact that Adah is not going to tell Francis about her current pregnancy underscores that she is figuring out how she will live alone.

“Typical Ibo psychology; men never do wrong, only the women; they have to beg for forgiveness, because they are bought, paid for and must remain like that, silent obedient slaves.”

Adah’s thoughts on Igbo psychology are also in line with English culture. In Igbo tradition, there may be additional elements, such as the bride price. Adah is again realizing the faults in both Nigerian and English cultures; both cultures are patriarchal, leading to situations in which Adah is expected to apologize to her abusive husband.

“She was not that type of woman. There were so many things she planned to do, and she did them. She knitted endless jumpers and cardigans for everybody, including thick big ones for Francis. It was a way of telling him that that was all she asked of life. Just to be a mother and a wife.”

Adah has turned away from the sadness she felt when she initially got married, when she was sad to even be married at all. Now, she understands that marriage and motherhood do not have to be the struggle that they have been for her thus far. Adah realizes how she wants to lead her life, even if Francis does not understand the life she wants.