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Similes
Part 1: Esi
Explanation and Analysis—Training a Slave:
Esi witnesses a moment of situational irony when Big Man punishes Abronoma for her clumsiness. The village beauty watches as the slave girl—who has spilled oil and failed to tell good stories—patiently awaits her doom:
They were all outside, basking under the warm midday sun. Big Man tilted his head back and let out a laugh that rumbled like thunder in the rainy season. "Take her back where? Odo, there's only one way to train a slave." He turned to Esi, who was trying to climb a palm tree the way she'd seen the other kids do it, but her arms were too small to reach around. "Esi, go and get me my switch."
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Explanation and Analysis—Little Dove:
Like the enemy warriors, situational irony descends upon Esi’s village in the middle of the night. Once Abronoma’s message comes around to her father, he summons an army that marches into Big Man’s village. His daughter revels in the destruction:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Abronoma came in from the slave quarters, her laugh echoing through the hut. "My father is here!" she said, dancing this way and that. "I told you he would come to find me, and he has come!"
The girl scurried away, and Esi didn't know what would become of her. Outside, people were screaming and running. Children were crying.
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Part 1: Ness
Explanation and Analysis—Goodness and Ness:
Situational irony and idiom converge in Ness’s memories. Thinking back to her mother’s Twi, she remembers Esi’s beatings at the hands of their master and the unlikely origins of her name:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Before the lashes, her mother had called her Maame, after her own mother, but the master had whipped Esi for that too, whipped her until she cried out "My goodness!" —the words escaping her without thought, no doubt picked up from the cook, who used to say it to punctuate every sentence. And because those had been the only English words to escape Esi's mouth without her struggling to find them, she believed that what she was saying must have been something divine, like the gift of her daughter, and so that goodness had turned into, simply, Ness.
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