Okoboshi tries to push Aku-nna to the having sexual intercourse with him

Okoboshi Obidi

Okoboshi ‘s the young man which have an effective limp whom matches with Chike (Aku-nna’s future husband) over Aku-nna. Later, Okoboshi’s loved ones kidnaps Aku-nna, a recommended community personalized, in an effort to create her Okoboshi’s partner. After kidnapping the girl, Okoboshi attempts to “devirgin” Aku-nna. Whenever Aku-nna first notices your just after she’s got started kidnapped, she sees you to their look “got a type of crookedness regarding it; rather than gracing the middle [sic] away from their deal with, the new laugh is actually removed lopsidedly into the one of his ears. It absolutely was the new look regarding an enthusiastic embittered young buck. He disliked their, anywhere near this much she could see.”

He is more powerful than she’s, but she outsmarts your. She eyelashes aside with spoken problems to their satisfaction. So it scene between Okoboshi and Aku-nna was a pivotal reason for the storyline. It’s the first time you to Aku-nna requires a quite strong condition in the safeguarding by herself, having fun with everything in the girl capability to allege the life span she wants, as opposed to the lifetime one the woman culture enjoys attempted to force for her. Okoboshi, within regard, is short for whatever Aku-nna finds repugnant on her generally men-reigned over people.

Aku-nna Odia

Aku-nna, the newest protagonist within this novel, try thirteen years old and you can residing in the Nigerian area Lagos if the story opens. She’s an intelligent girl that knows, without having to be informed directly, that this woman is “also unimportant” in the sight of the girl mothers. She’s, after all, simply a lady. She actually is as well as thin at moments most subject to situation. Her moms and dads reference the woman while the an enthusiastic “ogbanje”-a full time income lifeless. Her mother usually chides the girl by the inquiring Aku-nna while making upwards her head in the event that she is going to alive or pass away. They usually seems that the one thing their moms and dads look forward so you can, according so you can Aku-nna, ‘s the fiance rate, the price the woman future husband will pay for this lady.

Aku-nna, right from the start of the storyline, has some questions about the woman family unit members, the girl people, and her role when you look at the area. She ponders these types of inquiries, but she never sounds him or her because inside her people it’s noticed worse than crappy manners to inquire about her or him, specifically from a girl. But it’s these types of inquiries one drive Aku-nna throughout which tale. The woman is towards the a pursuit of responses.

Since if lifetime when you look at the Lagos, which was however slightly dependent on antique Ibo culture, is not bothersome enough, abreast of the lady father’s dying Aku-nna is forced to deal with also more strict interpretations of these traditions when the woman is removed back to the fresh family members’ ancestral community, Ibuza. Around Aku-nna can be criticized due to this lady modesty. She doesn’t for example bathing in the new naked in public. This woman is also slammed given that she’s allowed to keep their education. However it is their friendship that have Chike, an excellent descendent off a servant, that’s the girl latest undoing.

It is that have Chike one Aku-nna seems the most safe inside the asking men and women questions having troubled this lady. She relates to with Chike’s part, that is each other the main Ibo community yet strangely removed from it meanwhile. Chike try her professor in more means than simply in the missionary university you to definitely Aku-nna attends, and you can she falls crazy about him. But to declare that her relationship with Chike is actually their finally undoing are also simple. There are many more complex issues with it.

By the point Aku-nna converts ten, this lady has xxx familiar with anything regarding the Ibuza community. She learns concerning the Eu suggests in school and you can goes house and you may face the latest “unchanging life away from [her] own individuals.” Yet , this woman is never able to make herself feel at ease for the sometimes people. One another Aku-nna and her brother are like “powerless fishes stuck inside a net: they may not … get back with the sea, to own these were swept up … but really they certainly were nevertheless real time due to the fact fisherman try active debating within himself if it is really worth eliminating her or him.” Finally, it is Aku-nna’s failure so you’re able to free herself from the tangled web of the girl society that, at least towards a good emblematic height, grounds the woman passing.