Okoboshi Obidi
Okoboshi is the young man having a limp who fights that have Chike (Aku-nna’s husband to be) over Aku-nna. Later on, Okoboshi’s family relations kidnaps Aku-nna, an accepted community custom, to try to build her Okoboshi’s spouse. After kidnapping the girl, Okoboshi tries to “devirgin” Aku-nna. Whenever Aku-nna earliest observes him after she has already been kidnapped, she notices you to definitely his laugh “had a kind of crookedness about it; in the place of gracing the fresh new center [sic] out of their face, the newest smile are removed lopsidedly on the one of his ears. It absolutely was the fresh look from an embittered young man. He hated the lady, this much she could see.”
He is more powerful than she is, but she outsmarts your. She eyelashes aside which have verbal assaults in order to their satisfaction. This scene between Okoboshi and you can Aku-nna is a pivotal point in the storyline. It is the first-time one to Aku-nna requires a very strong status into the safeguarding herself, playing with everything in this lady capacity to allege the life she desires, instead of the existence one to this lady culture provides attempted to push on her. Okoboshi, within esteem, is short for precisely what Aku-nna discovers repugnant on the the woman typically male-dominated people.
Aku-nna Odia
Aku-nna, the latest protagonist in this book, are 13 years old and you can residing in the fresh Nigerian city Lagos when the tale opens up. She is a sensible girl you never know, without having to be told yourself, you to definitely this woman is “also insignificant” on attention regarding the lady parents. She actually is, whatsoever, only a female. She’s as well as narrow as well as minutes really subject to condition. Their moms and dads make reference to the lady due to the fact a keen “ogbanje”-a full time income lifeless. The woman mommy will chides the lady by the inquiring Aku-nna and also make right up the lady mind in the event that she’s going to live or perish. They commonly appears that the only thing her moms and dads get excited so you can, according so you’re able to Aku-nna, is the bride to be rate, the price this lady future husband pays for her.
Aku-nna, from the comfort of the start of the storyline, has many questions relating to the lady family unit members, her community, along with her character in society. She thinks about such issues, however, she never sounds him or her due to the fact within her people it is felt even worse than just crappy ways to inquire about him or her, specifically originating from a girl. But it’s these questions you to definitely push Aku-nna during it tale. She is on a quest for answers.
Since if lives when you look at the Lagos, that was nevertheless somewhat dependent on old-fashioned Ibo community, is not bothersome enough, on her father’s death Aku-nna is actually forced to deal with actually more strict perceptions ones living whenever she is drawn back again to new family members’ ancestral community, Ibuza. There Aku-nna can be slammed on account of their modesty. She doesn’t like taking in this new nude in public places. She actually is including slammed as the the woman is permitted to keep their education. However it is her relationship which have Chike, a good descendent away from a slave, which is this lady last undoing.
It’s which have Chike that Aku-nna seems the quintessential safe into the asking the individuals issues having haunted her. She relates to that have Chike’s role, which is both an element of the Ibo culture however surprisingly taken from it at the same time. Chike was the girl professor much more ways than just within missionary university one Aku-nna attends, and you will she drops in love with your. But to say that her experience of Chike try the woman latest undoing is generally too easy. There are more cutting-edge facts inside it.
By the point Aku-nna transforms ten, she’s got sex used to something about Ibuza village. She finds out about the European implies at school and you will goes home and confronts the new “unchanging lifestyle of [her] very own somebody.” But really she is never able to make by herself feel at ease inside the either culture. Both Aku-nna along with her cousin are like “helpless fishes trapped in the an online: they could maybe not … come back with the ocean, to have these people were caught up .. Long Beach escort service. yet , these people were however live because fisherman is actually active debating within this themselves when it are value destroying him or her.” Fundamentally, it’s Aku-nna’s incapacity so you can totally free herself about twisted websites out of the girl culture you to, no less than towards good a symbol level, explanations their death.