Okoboshi ‘s the son having a great limp just who matches that have Chike (Aku-nna’s husband to be) more than Aku-nna. Later on, Okoboshi’s relatives kidnaps Aku-nna, a recommended village customized, in an attempt to create the lady Okoboshi’s girlfriend. Once kidnapping the woman, Okoboshi attempts to “devirgin” Aku-nna. Whenever Aku-nna very first sees your once this lady has already been kidnapped, she observes you to their smile “got a variety of crookedness about any of it; in the place of gracing the newest center [sic] out of their deal with, the www.datingmentor.org/little-people-dating fresh smile is taken lopsidedly with the one of is own ears. It was brand new laugh of an embittered child. He hated the girl, that much she could see.”
He’s more powerful than the woman is, but she outsmarts your. She lashes out which have verbal attacks in order to their pleasure. So it world between Okoboshi and Aku-nna try a pivotal point in the storyline. It’s the first time that Aku-nna takes a quite strong reputation when you look at the safeguarding by herself, using everything in the woman power to claim the life she wants, as opposed to the existence you to the woman society have tried to force for her. Okoboshi, inside admiration, stands for everything that Aku-nna discovers repugnant on their traditionally men-dominated people.
Aku-nna, brand new protagonist within novel, try thirteen years old and you will surviving in the brand new Nigerian city Lagos in the event the facts reveals. She actually is an intelligent girl who knows, without having to be advised physically, that she actually is “too insignificant” on sight out of the woman parents. She’s, whatsoever, just a female. She’s and narrow at times most at the mercy of condition. This lady parents refer to the girl since the an enthusiastic “ogbanje”-a full time income dead. The lady mom usually chides this lady because of the asking Aku-nna while making upwards the girl attention if she is going to alive or perish. They often appears that the only thing the girl mothers expect in order to, according so you’re able to Aku-nna, is the bride to be rate, the purchase price the girl future husband will pay for the girl.
Aku-nna, from the comfort of the beginning of the story, has some questions regarding this lady loved ones, the woman people, along with her character inside the community. She considers these concerns, but she never sounds her or him while the in her own society it’s noticed even worse than simply bad manners to inquire about them, particularly from a woman. But it is such issues one to push Aku-nna during the this tale. The woman is into a pursuit of responses.
Since if life from inside the Lagos, which had been however a little determined by conventional Ibo culture, isn’t bothersome sufficient, up on the woman dad’s dying Aku-nna is actually obligated to deal with also more strict perceptions of these lifestyle whenever she is taken returning to this new family’s ancestral town, Ibuza. Here Aku-nna is frequently criticized because of the woman modesty. She does not like soaking up new nude publicly. She is and additionally criticized just like the she’s allowed to remain the girl education. But it’s this lady friendship which have Chike, a great descendent off a servant, that’s her finally undoing.
It’s which have Chike that Aku-nna seems many comfy into the inquiring the individuals concerns having haunted their. She makes reference to with Chike’s character, that is both a portion of the Ibo community and yet unusually removed from they at the same time. Chike are her professor much more ways than simply in the missionary college that Aku-nna attends, and she drops crazy about him. But to say that the woman experience of Chike try her latest undoing may be also easy. There are other cutting-edge issues on it.
Once Aku-nna transforms fifteen, she’s adult used to things on Ibuza town. She discovers about the Eu ways in school and you can goes household and you will faces the fresh new “unchanging lifestyle off [her] very own people.” But really she is never capable of making herself feel safe inside the often community. One another Aku-nna along with her cousin are like “powerless fishes stuck inside a net: they might perhaps not … get back with the water, for they were caught up … but really they were however real time due to the fact fisherman was hectic debating within this himself whether it was well worth killing her or him.” In the long run, it’s Aku-nna’s inability so you’re able to totally free by herself regarding the tangled online away from this lady culture that, at least for the a beneficial emblematic level, reasons the girl passing.