Okoboshi is the young man having good limp who matches with Chike (Aku-nna’s future meer dan 50 dating sites husband) over Aku-nna. After, Okoboshi’s nearest and dearest kidnaps Aku-nna, a recommended community custom, so that you can make the woman Okoboshi’s spouse. After kidnapping this lady, Okoboshi attempts to “devirgin” Aku-nna. When Aku-nna very first observes him shortly after she’s got come kidnapped, she notices you to his smile “got a type of crookedness about any of it; in the place of gracing the newest middle [sic] out-of his face, the latest look is pulled lopsidedly into the one of his ears. It absolutely was the new laugh of an enthusiastic embittered young buck. He disliked this lady, anywhere near this much she often see.”
He could be stronger than she is, but she outsmarts your. She lashes out with verbal assaults so you’re able to their pride. That it world anywhere between Okoboshi and you may Aku-nna is actually a crucial point in the story. It will be the very first time that Aku-nna requires a very strong reputation when you look at the shielding herself, having fun with everything in her capability to claim the life span she wishes, rather than the lives one to this lady culture provides attempted to push on her. Okoboshi, within regard, signifies exactly what Aku-nna finds out repugnant regarding the her usually men-ruled community.
Aku-nna, the brand new protagonist contained in this book, are 13 yrs . old and residing in this new Nigerian area Lagos in the event that story opens. She is an intelligent young woman who knows, without having to be informed actually, you to she’s “too insignificant” in the eyes away from the woman mothers. She is, whatsoever, merely a girl. She is and additionally thin at minutes really susceptible to situation. Their parents relate to the woman while the an “ogbanje”-a full time income deceased. Her mom often chides their because of the inquiring Aku-nna and come up with right up the lady notice in the event the she is going to live or pass away. It have a tendency to appears that the one and only thing their mothers get excited to, in respect so you can Aku-nna, ‘s the bride-to-be rate, the cost her husband to be will pay for the lady.
Aku-nna, straight from the start of the story, has some questions about her relatives, the lady people, and her role in the community. She thinks about such issues, but she never voices them because the within her society it is experienced bad than just bad ways to ask them, particularly via a lady. But it is these questions one drive Aku-nna during so it story. The woman is towards a pursuit of answers.
Because if lives into the Lagos, that has been however quite influenced by antique Ibo people, isn’t problematic adequate, up on this lady father’s passing Aku-nna is actually obligated to face actually stricter interpretations of those way of living when she is drawn to the fresh family members’ ancestral community, Ibuza. Truth be told there Aku-nna is normally criticized on account of their modesty. She cannot such as soaking-up the new nude publicly. This woman is along with slammed as this woman is permitted to keep this lady education. But it’s her relationship having Chike, a descendent out-of a servant, that’s their final undoing.
It’s that have Chike that Aku-nna feels the quintessential comfortable when you look at the inquiring the individuals inquiries which have troubled the girl. She means with Chike’s part, that is both an element of the Ibo community and yet oddly taken from it meanwhile. Chike are the lady professor much more indicates than just within missionary school one Aku-nna attends, and you may she drops in love with him. But to declare that this lady connection with Chike try the lady final undoing tends to be also easy. There are many cutting-edge factors in it.
Once Aku-nna converts ten, she has person used to anything on the Ibuza village. She discovers towards Western european suggests in school and happens domestic and you will face the fresh new “unchanging lifestyle out-of [her] individual someone.” Yet , this woman is never ever capable of making herself feel safe into the often people. Each other Aku-nna and her aunt are like “helpless fishes trapped from inside the a web: they could perhaps not … get back for the ocean, to have they certainly were trapped … yet , they were still real time once the fisherman was active debating contained in this himself whether it are value killing them.” Eventually, it’s Aku-nna’s inability to 100 % free herself on the tangled net away from her people you to, no less than to the a beneficial emblematic top, causes the woman dying.