1. What do you expect?
• Title: “Second Class Citizen” as a novel that tells of the true horrors of being treated as inferior regardless of capabilities but judged severely based on the color of one’s skin and the place of one’s birth.
• The first chapter “Childhood” starts with an odd quote about dreaming. The oppression felt by the female is inflicted right from the start; when a child is born. This kind of suffering is expected to continue.
• One expects great hardship to be at the crux of this novel. Where continuous turmoil on emotional, physical and mental levels are always in flux and being felt.
• Oppression is always put alongside hope for a better life for the family and for the self. It will be interesting to see if this kind of hope continues or if it is eventually stamped out by the harshness that is foreboding.
2. What happens in the story?
• The story is filled with movement and is relatively fast spaced in terms of its time sequence.
• The main character Adah dreams of going to England but upon arriving to Liverpool she finds herself isolated from her familial support system, facing a broken marriage and an extremely unfair life ahead. All this coupled with her fear for her children’s safety and her own work makes her rethink her opinions of what a life in Ashdown will bring for her future.
• During her childhood Adah quickly became an orphaned and enslaved child with a passion for education. This grew until she became and extremely well educated young Nigerian woman who worked for the American Consulate. Out of necessity she marries Francis and has a child Titi with him. Her high living standards and persuasive skills allow her in-laws to be swayed by her charms. She ends by convincing them to send Francis to England. She follows soon after but her life there is anything but a dream. Her husband begins to become unfaithful, her work takes up much of her time and she has a few months of torturous living when she leaves her children with their day-sitter Trudy.
3. How is the story narrated?
• The story is narrated in third person and is limited to mainly hearing Adah’s voice and her thoughts. The narrator is not actively involved in the story but merely commenting with bias to Adah’s character.
• The reader is often given privy to Adah’s thoughts, she is a strong character with a fiery attitude and this is brought out especially well when the narrator describes her strong, overpowering emotions.
• There is dialogue but it is rather limited the narrator is more focused on describing an experience or situations that are not commented upon but the scene described resonate loudly with the reader.
• The mode of narration is sequential and relatively straightforward to read and understand. The narrator seems to speaking to the masses rather than an individual reader.
4. Who are the characters?
The characters are:
Adah
The protagonist of the novel and the main focus from the beginning. Her life is explained in great detail and the narrator is seen to be slightly biased towards her.
Boy
Is Adah’s brother with whom she has little contact. She is jealous of him being privileged by his gender alone as a child but surpasses him as an adult. He is seen crying for her as she sails away to England.
Mother and Father
Boy and Adah’s mother and father have short lives. Her father dies early on in the novel making her enslaved property for her father’s brothers. Her is seen as a weak figure who has no real character, her existence is reduced further after her husbands’ death. Adah misses her mother when her first child is born.
Francis
Francis is Adah’s weak willed, pompous husband. After leaving his family and heading to England he goes from being a passive listener and son to an arrogant self-righteous man. He cares not for Adah and their children. He sleeps with other women and does not enjoy the company of his children. He allows himself to be liberated but expresses a heavy Nigerian patriarchy on his wife.
The In-Laws
The in-laws, especially Francis’s mother and father are the law-makers. Their permission needs to be taken for every important decision. Adah is careful with them and complies to their wishes so that they may comply to hers.
Titi
Titi is Adah’s daughter and first child. Titi is talkative in Lagos but suddenly becomes mute in Ashdown because of her father’s threats. Titi spoke Yoruba and her father threatened to beat her if she didn’t start speaking English.
Victor/Vicky
Victor is Adah’s son and second child. He is a sweet baby but gets horribly ill with meningitis. It is his illness that prompts the children’s officer to allow the kids to go to a nursery.
The Landlords
The landlords are hateful and jealous people. They are jealous of Adah’s perseverance and her breaking of unwritten ‘black’ rules. They condemn the family through eviction for this.
Janet and Babalola
Are a mixed-race couple. Janet being a young cockney girl and Babaloba a North African man. They are good friends of Adah.
Mrs. Konrad
Mrs. Konrad is Adah’s kind employer. She is chubby and not at all fashion conscious.
Trudy
A terrible day-sitter who cares not for Vicky and Titi but her own two kids. She almost kills Victor through her neglect and she is constantly having affairs with men in her home when the kids are around.
Miss Sterling
Miss Sterling is a children’s officer she was the one who let Trudy get away with atrocities before finally allowing the kids to attend a nursery school.
Cynthia
A friend of Adah’s from work who comes to notify her when Victor is declared ill.
5. What is the setting and time of the story?
• The first two chapters of the story are set in Lagos, Nigeria when Adah is going through her childhood and education. The following chapters see her journey to Liverpool, England.
• The time is of colonial Africa where Nigeria is still under the rule of the British empire. So, the book is set in a time frame before the 1960s but after the 1920s.
6. What do you notice about how the story is written?
• The story is written simply for mass consumption. It is not decorated but filled with religious allusions to both tribal nature gods and symbols of Christianity. The author is creating a constant conflict between England and Nigeria, where England is seen as superior.
7. What does the story mean? Can you express its theme/themes?
• The story has several themes; the theme of hope is resounding. Adah is constantly striving for the best for herself and her family. She craves achievement and success.
• The theme of family is brought into question. Much peace is retained in a retraining family situation and there are always relatives to rely on, yet in England the family has more freedom and is getting destroyed in the process.
• Wealth and value are a theme that are equated to the same thing in Adah’s mind. The richer she is the more value she allows herself to have as an individual.
• Racism is seen as accepted but when it comes up it flairs with aggression and hatred. The injustice of it when Adah and Francis faced a prospective landlady was evident and deeply damaging.
• Title: “Second Class Citizen” as a novel that tells of the true horrors of being treated as inferior regardless of capabilities but judged severely based on the color of one’s skin and the place of one’s birth.
• The first chapter “Childhood” starts with an odd quote about dreaming. The oppression felt by the female is inflicted right from the start; when a child is born. This kind of suffering is expected to continue.
• One expects great hardship to be at the crux of this novel. Where continuous turmoil on emotional, physical and mental levels are always in flux and being felt.
• Oppression is always put alongside hope for a better life for the family and for the self. It will be interesting to see if this kind of hope continues or if it is eventually stamped out by the harshness that is foreboding.
2. What happens in the story?
• The story is filled with movement and is relatively fast spaced in terms of its time sequence.
• The main character Adah dreams of going to England but upon arriving to Liverpool she finds herself isolated from her familial support system, facing a broken marriage and an extremely unfair life ahead. All this coupled with her fear for her children’s safety and her own work makes her rethink her opinions of what a life in Ashdown will bring for her future.
• During her childhood Adah quickly became an orphaned and enslaved child with a passion for education. This grew until she became and extremely well educated young Nigerian woman who worked for the American Consulate. Out of necessity she marries Francis and has a child Titi with him. Her high living standards and persuasive skills allow her in-laws to be swayed by her charms. She ends by convincing them to send Francis to England. She follows soon after but her life there is anything but a dream. Her husband begins to become unfaithful, her work takes up much of her time and she has a few months of torturous living when she leaves her children with their day-sitter Trudy.
3. How is the story narrated?
• The story is narrated in third person and is limited to mainly hearing Adah’s voice and her thoughts. The narrator is not actively involved in the story but merely commenting with bias to Adah’s character.
• The reader is often given privy to Adah’s thoughts, she is a strong character with a fiery attitude and this is brought out especially well when the narrator describes her strong, overpowering emotions.
• There is dialogue but it is rather limited the narrator is more focused on describing an experience or situations that are not commented upon but the scene described resonate loudly with the reader.
• The mode of narration is sequential and relatively straightforward to read and understand. The narrator seems to speaking to the masses rather than an individual reader.
4. Who are the characters?
The characters are:
Adah
The protagonist of the novel and the main focus from the beginning. Her life is explained in great detail and the narrator is seen to be slightly biased towards her.
Boy
Is Adah’s brother with whom she has little contact. She is jealous of him being privileged by his gender alone as a child but surpasses him as an adult. He is seen crying for her as she sails away to England.
Mother and Father
Boy and Adah’s mother and father have short lives. Her father dies early on in the novel making her enslaved property for her father’s brothers. Her is seen as a weak figure who has no real character, her existence is reduced further after her husbands’ death. Adah misses her mother when her first child is born.
Francis
Francis is Adah’s weak willed, pompous husband. After leaving his family and heading to England he goes from being a passive listener and son to an arrogant self-righteous man. He cares not for Adah and their children. He sleeps with other women and does not enjoy the company of his children. He allows himself to be liberated but expresses a heavy Nigerian patriarchy on his wife.
The In-Laws
The in-laws, especially Francis’s mother and father are the law-makers. Their permission needs to be taken for every important decision. Adah is careful with them and complies to their wishes so that they may comply to hers.
Titi
Titi is Adah’s daughter and first child. Titi is talkative in Lagos but suddenly becomes mute in Ashdown because of her father’s threats. Titi spoke Yoruba and her father threatened to beat her if she didn’t start speaking English.
Victor/Vicky
Victor is Adah’s son and second child. He is a sweet baby but gets horribly ill with meningitis. It is his illness that prompts the children’s officer to allow the kids to go to a nursery.
The Landlords
The landlords are hateful and jealous people. They are jealous of Adah’s perseverance and her breaking of unwritten ‘black’ rules. They condemn the family through eviction for this.
Janet and Babalola
Are a mixed-race couple. Janet being a young cockney girl and Babaloba a North African man. They are good friends of Adah.
Mrs. Konrad
Mrs. Konrad is Adah’s kind employer. She is chubby and not at all fashion conscious.
Trudy
A terrible day-sitter who cares not for Vicky and Titi but her own two kids. She almost kills Victor through her neglect and she is constantly having affairs with men in her home when the kids are around.
Miss Sterling
Miss Sterling is a children’s officer she was the one who let Trudy get away with atrocities before finally allowing the kids to attend a nursery school.
Cynthia
A friend of Adah’s from work who comes to notify her when Victor is declared ill.
5. What is the setting and time of the story?
• The first two chapters of the story are set in Lagos, Nigeria when Adah is going through her childhood and education. The following chapters see her journey to Liverpool, England.
• The time is of colonial Africa where Nigeria is still under the rule of the British empire. So, the book is set in a time frame before the 1960s but after the 1920s.
6. What do you notice about how the story is written?
• The story is written simply for mass consumption. It is not decorated but filled with religious allusions to both tribal nature gods and symbols of Christianity. The author is creating a constant conflict between England and Nigeria, where England is seen as superior.
7. What does the story mean? Can you express its theme/themes?
• The story has several themes; the theme of hope is resounding. Adah is constantly striving for the best for herself and her family. She craves achievement and success.
• The theme of family is brought into question. Much peace is retained in a retraining family situation and there are always relatives to rely on, yet in England the family has more freedom and is getting destroyed in the process.
• Wealth and value are a theme that are equated to the same thing in Adah’s mind. The richer she is the more value she allows herself to have as an individual.
• Racism is seen as accepted but when it comes up it flairs with aggression and hatred. The injustice of it when Adah and Francis faced a prospective landlady was evident and deeply damaging.
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