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Adah’s Pa
Boy Ofili is Adah’s younger brother. When their Ma and Pa send Boy to a prep school and keep Adah home, it motivates Adah to sneak off to school—which forces her parents to pay for her education. Though none of Adah’s family attends her wedding to Francis when she is a teenager, Boy does come to the wharf to see Adah off when she takes the ship from Nigeria to England. Later, when Francis writes a complaining letter to his parents that Adah has gotten a contraceptive device behind his back, Boy—who always thought Francis was a good-looking good-for-nothing—sends Adah his savings and asks her to come home.
Boy Quotes in Second Class Citizen
The Second Class Citizen quotes below are all either spoken by Boy or refer to Boy. 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:
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Chapter 2: Escape into Elitism Quotes
Boy was now all alone. He had to work very hard to keep the family name going. Adah had dropped out of it. She had become an Obi instead of the Ofili she used to be. Boy had resented this, but his presence at the wharf showed that he had accepted the fact that in Africa, and among the Ibos in particular, a girl was little more than a piece of property.
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Chapter 5: An Expensive Lesson Quotes
She told herself to stop being over-romantic and soft. No husband would have time to ask his pregnant wife how she was feeling so early in the morning. That only happened in True Stories and True Romances, not in real life, particularly not with Francis for that matter. But despite the hard talking to herself, she still yearned to be loved, to feel really married, to be cared for.
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Boy Character Timeline in Second Class Citizen
The timeline below shows where the character Boy appears in Second Class Citizen. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: Childhood
...though boys tend to get more schooling than girls. In a flashback, Adah’s younger brother Boy is attending school but she isn’t—her Ma thinks Adah will only need basic literacy and...
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One day, bored at home, Adah decides to sneak off to school: not Boy’s fancy prep school, but the inexpensive Methodist school where her family’s neighbor Mr. Cole works....
(full context)
...included the word “Adah”—so Adah she became. After this incident, Pa starts sending Adah to Boy’s fancy prep school. Unfortunately, Pa dies shortly thereafter—and both Adah and Boy are sent to...
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Chapter 2: Escape into Elitism
...dies. As is customary, the family disperses: Ma’s brother takes Adah as a servant, and Boy goes to live with Pa’s cousin. The family’s money goes to Boy’s education; Ma’s brother...
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...giving birth to her daughter Titi. None of Adah’s relatives come see her, not even Boy: her family is disappointed in her for not becoming a doctor after finishing secondary school....
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...of the boat that will take Adah, Titi, and Vicky to the UK, Adah spots Boy on the wharf, crying over her departure. Adah begins to weep at the sight of...
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Chapter 11: Population Control
...idea of contraception is ejaculating on the floor. She plans to write to her brother Boy, who never liked Francis. The next week, Francis fails his exams and Adah realizes she’s...
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Chapter 12: The Collapse
...pregnant after trying to get contraception. After hearing about the letter Francis sent his parents, Boy sent her money and asked her to return to Nigeria, and she wonders whether she...
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