What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky

The title of this story refers to the light that Enebeli sees in his daughter’s eyes—symbolically, the spark in her personality. Over the course of this story, Enebeli sees this light diminish under her mother’s care, developing the theme of How Mothers Shape Their Children. Unlike in “Wild,” where fathers are dead or absent and one character’s mother is cruel, here there are two loving parents. However, geographic distance and differing perspectives on gender amplify the parents’ slight rivalry over who has the most influence over their child, and the girl becomes caught in their tug-of-war over how to raise her.

In his wife’s absence, Enebeli takes on a more traditionally “maternal” parental role; he delights in watching his daughter’s personality develop and unfold, and he does not shy away from the more difficult or awkward moments of adolescence, such as the girl’s first menses. However, if Enebeli seems at first glance to fill a motherly role—nurturing, communicative, empathetic, etc.—the story suggests that it is his gender that enables him to do so. In Arimah’s stories, women are the primary enforcers of Patriarchal Control of Girls and Women. Enebeli can thus afford to be more lenient on matters of sex and romance than his wife. For example, when the principal informs him of his daughter’s overt pursuit of a boy, Enebeli is perplexed but not angry or alarmed. He does nothing, though “he should chastise the girl, he knows that, but she is his brightest ember and he would not have her dimmed” (57). By contrast, Enebeli’s wife responds with disapproval when her daughter tries to bridge the gap between them by sharing that the boy she likes has finally learned to kiss well: “[H]er mother silences her by saying, sadly, that she didn’t think she’d raised that kind of girl” (61-62).

As a result, Enebeli and his daughter grow closer, while the girl and her mother become increasingly at odds.

Though the mother serves the narrative role of antagonist, Arimah implies that her position is difficult. She is aware of her waning connection with her daughter but feels obliged to provide instruction that will only estrange her further. The physical distance exacerbates the problem, as “much is lost in transmission over the wires, and her long absence has diluted much of the influence a mother should have” (57). Moreover, Enebeli’s motives are not entirely unselfish: He likes having the girl’s affection all to himself and initially refuses to help bridge the growing distance between his wife and daughter because he is afraid of losing the girl just as he has physically (geographically) lost his wife.

Nevertheless, the story’s conclusion makes it clear that Enebeli’s loving acceptance of his daughter is preferable to his wife’s efforts to discipline and mold her. The story’s conclusion provides a glimpse of the future that Enebeli is fighting against:

[The daughter] grows cautious under the mothering of a woman who loves but cannot comprehend her. […] [S]he quiets in a country that rewards her brand of boldness, in her black of body, with an incredulous fascination that makes her put it away (63).

Under her mother’s care, the girl starts to doubt herself and to feel shame about her body and behavior. Arimah heightens the pathos of this portrait by juxtaposing it with Enebeli’s memory of the girl at 11: “He does not yet wonder where she gets this, this streak of fire. He only knows that it keeps the wolves of the world at bay and he must never let it die out” (63-64). That the story ends on this moment gives hope that the dimming of her spirit may not be permanent after all.