Girl, Woman, Other

Girl, Woman, Other

by

Bernardine Evaristo

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Girl, Woman, Other makes teaching easy.

Amma Character Analysis

Amma is Yazz’s mother and Dominque’s best friend. Amma grew up with her father, Kwabena, a Ghanian journalist who was forced to immigrate to the UK after campaigning for the independence movement, and her multiracial, English-born mother, Helen. As a young person with fierce and radical feminist politics, Amma relentlessly criticized both her mother and father for lacking feminist perspective, only later understanding how generational differences and their unresolved traumas impacted their social and political views. Amma is now on the other side of the generational divide. Her daughter, Yazz, subjects her to the same incessant criticism she once doled out to her own parents. Amma became an activist in high school. In her twenties, she adopted a radical political identity and, with Dominique, formed the Bush Woman Theatre Company, which sought to dismantle the white-supremacist mainstream theater world and elevate women of color. Amma’s radical politics distances her from her oldest childhood friend, Shirley, who took the path of reform. Nonetheless, the two remain friends into adulthood, and this reflects one of the books overarching messages: that both the reformer and the radical have a role to play in social change. In the novel’s present, Amma is middle aged and has settled down in a polyamorous relationship with two partners, Dolores and Jackie, who are both white. Amma finally finds success in the mainstream theater world with her play, The Last Amazon of Dahomey, which opens at London’s National Theatre to five-star acclaim. This success leaves Amma torn between her old identity as a radical and her emerging identity as someone who is reforming systems from within.

Amma Quotes in Girl, Woman, Other

The Girl, Woman, Other quotes below are all either spoken by Amma or refer to Amma. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Diaspora, Culture, and Identity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1: Amma Quotes

Amma then spent decades on the fringe, a renegade lobbing hand grenades at the establishment that excluded her

until the mainstream began to absorb what was once radical and she found herself hopeful of enjoying it

which only happened when the first female artistic director assumed the helm of the National three years ago

after so long hearing a polite no from her predecessors,

Related Characters: Amma (speaker)
Related Symbols: The National Theatre
Page Number: 2
Explanation and Analysis:

look at it this way, Amma, she says, your father was born male in Ghana in the 1920s whereas you were born female in London in the 1960s

and your point is?

you really can’t expect him to ‘get you,’ as you put it

I let her know she’s an apologist for the patriarchy and complicit in a system that oppresses all women

she says human beings are complex

I tell her not to patronize me

Related Characters: Amma (speaker), Dominique (speaker), Kwabena
Page Number: 11
Explanation and Analysis:

they decided they needed to start their own theatre company to have careers as actors, because neither was prepared to betray their politics to find jobs

or shut up to keep them

it seemed the obvious way forward

they scribbled ideas for names on hard toilet paper snaffled from the loo

Bush Women Theatre Company best captured their intentions

they would be a voice in theatre where there was silence

black and Asian women’s stories would get out there

they would create theatre on their own terms

it became the company’s motto

On Our Own Terms

or Not At All.

Related Characters: Amma (speaker), Dominique
Related Symbols: The National Theatre
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:

she surprised herself at the strength of her grief

she then regretted never telling him she loved him, he was her father, a good man, of course she loved him, she knew that now he was gone, he was a patriarch but her mother was right when she said, he’s of his time and culture, Amma

my father was devastated at having to fell Ghana so abruptly, she eulogized at his memorial, attended by his elderly socialist comrades

it must have been so traumatic, to lose his home, his family, his friends, his culture, his first language, and to come to a country that didn’t want him

once he had children, he wanted us educated in England and that was it

my father believed in the higher purpose of left-wing politics and actively worked to make the world a better place

she didn’t tell them she’d taken her father for granted and carried her blinkered, self-righteous perspective of him from childhood through to his death, when in fact he’d done nothing wrong except fail to live up to her feminist expectations of him

Related Characters: Amma (speaker), Helen (speaker), Kwabena
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 1: Dominique Quotes

Nzinga had suggested that her relationship history of blonde girlfriends might be a sign of self-loathing; you have to ask yourself if you’ve been brainwashed by the white beauty ideal, sister, you have to work a lot harder on your black feminist politics, you know

Dominique wondered if she had a point, why did she go for stereotypical blondes? Amma had teased her about it without judging her, she herself was a product of various mixtures and often had partners of all colors

in contrast, Nzinga had grown up in the segregated South, although shouldn’t that make her pro-integration rather than against it?

Dominique wondered if she really was still being brainwashed by white society, and whether she really was failing at the identity she most cherished – the black feminist one

Related Characters: Dominique (speaker), Nzinga (speaker), Amma
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:

why did Nzinga think being in love with her meant she had to give up her independence and submit completely?

wasn’t that being like a male chauvinist?

Dominique felt like an altered version of herself after a while, her mind foggy, emotions primal, senses heightened

she enjoyed the sex and affection – outside in the fields when summer arrived, wantonly naked in the heat, unworried about anyone coming across them, what Nzinga called Dominique’s sexual healing, as if she’d been suffering terribly when she met her

Dominique let it pass

she wanted to talk this through with friends, Amma most of all, or the women at Spirit Moon, she needed a sounding board, it wasn’t going to happen, Nzinga kept them at a distance, kicked up a fuss when Dominique made overtures of friendship

Related Characters: Dominique (speaker), Nzinga (speaker), Amma
Page Number: 95
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Girl, Woman, Other LitChart as a printable PDF.
Girl, Woman, Other PDF

Amma Quotes in Girl, Woman, Other

The Girl, Woman, Other quotes below are all either spoken by Amma or refer to Amma. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Diaspora, Culture, and Identity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1: Amma Quotes

Amma then spent decades on the fringe, a renegade lobbing hand grenades at the establishment that excluded her

until the mainstream began to absorb what was once radical and she found herself hopeful of enjoying it

which only happened when the first female artistic director assumed the helm of the National three years ago

after so long hearing a polite no from her predecessors,

Related Characters: Amma (speaker)
Related Symbols: The National Theatre
Page Number: 2
Explanation and Analysis:

look at it this way, Amma, she says, your father was born male in Ghana in the 1920s whereas you were born female in London in the 1960s

and your point is?

you really can’t expect him to ‘get you,’ as you put it

I let her know she’s an apologist for the patriarchy and complicit in a system that oppresses all women

she says human beings are complex

I tell her not to patronize me

Related Characters: Amma (speaker), Dominique (speaker), Kwabena
Page Number: 11
Explanation and Analysis:

they decided they needed to start their own theatre company to have careers as actors, because neither was prepared to betray their politics to find jobs

or shut up to keep them

it seemed the obvious way forward

they scribbled ideas for names on hard toilet paper snaffled from the loo

Bush Women Theatre Company best captured their intentions

they would be a voice in theatre where there was silence

black and Asian women’s stories would get out there

they would create theatre on their own terms

it became the company’s motto

On Our Own Terms

or Not At All.

Related Characters: Amma (speaker), Dominique
Related Symbols: The National Theatre
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:

she surprised herself at the strength of her grief

she then regretted never telling him she loved him, he was her father, a good man, of course she loved him, she knew that now he was gone, he was a patriarch but her mother was right when she said, he’s of his time and culture, Amma

my father was devastated at having to fell Ghana so abruptly, she eulogized at his memorial, attended by his elderly socialist comrades

it must have been so traumatic, to lose his home, his family, his friends, his culture, his first language, and to come to a country that didn’t want him

once he had children, he wanted us educated in England and that was it

my father believed in the higher purpose of left-wing politics and actively worked to make the world a better place

she didn’t tell them she’d taken her father for granted and carried her blinkered, self-righteous perspective of him from childhood through to his death, when in fact he’d done nothing wrong except fail to live up to her feminist expectations of him

Related Characters: Amma (speaker), Helen (speaker), Kwabena
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 1: Dominique Quotes

Nzinga had suggested that her relationship history of blonde girlfriends might be a sign of self-loathing; you have to ask yourself if you’ve been brainwashed by the white beauty ideal, sister, you have to work a lot harder on your black feminist politics, you know

Dominique wondered if she had a point, why did she go for stereotypical blondes? Amma had teased her about it without judging her, she herself was a product of various mixtures and often had partners of all colors

in contrast, Nzinga had grown up in the segregated South, although shouldn’t that make her pro-integration rather than against it?

Dominique wondered if she really was still being brainwashed by white society, and whether she really was failing at the identity she most cherished – the black feminist one

Related Characters: Dominique (speaker), Nzinga (speaker), Amma
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:

why did Nzinga think being in love with her meant she had to give up her independence and submit completely?

wasn’t that being like a male chauvinist?

Dominique felt like an altered version of herself after a while, her mind foggy, emotions primal, senses heightened

she enjoyed the sex and affection – outside in the fields when summer arrived, wantonly naked in the heat, unworried about anyone coming across them, what Nzinga called Dominique’s sexual healing, as if she’d been suffering terribly when she met her

Dominique let it pass

she wanted to talk this through with friends, Amma most of all, or the women at Spirit Moon, she needed a sounding board, it wasn’t going to happen, Nzinga kept them at a distance, kicked up a fuss when Dominique made overtures of friendship

Related Characters: Dominique (speaker), Nzinga (speaker), Amma
Page Number: 95
Explanation and Analysis: