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Titi
Vicky is Adah and Francis’s second child, a son whose full name is Victor, though Adah never calls him that. Adah gives birth to Vicky shortly after Francis leaves for England. When Adah has difficulty finding childcare in London, she ends up paying a white woman named Trudy to look after Titi and Vicky while she works. Trudy is a neglectful babysitter who leaves the children to roam her filthy, garbage-filled backyard. When Vicky comes down with viral meningitis, Adah blames Trudy—and Francis, whom Adah believes is having an affair with Trudy. She threatens to kill both Trudy and Francis if Vicky dies.
Vicky Quotes in Second Class Citizen
The Second Class Citizen quotes below are all either spoken by Vicky or refer to Vicky. 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 3: A Cold Welcome Quotes
“You must know, my dear young lady, that in Lagos […] you may be earning a million pounds a day; you may have hundreds of servants: you may be living like an élite, but the day you land in England, you are a second-class citizen.”
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Chapter 4: The Daily Minders Quotes
Everybody talked and speculated. The trouble was that Ada was like a peacock, who kept wanting to win all the time. Only first-class citizens lived with their children, not the blacks.
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Chapter 5: An Expensive Lesson Quotes
Among her people, she could have killed Trudy, and other mothers would have stood solidly behind her. Now, she was not even given the joy of knocking senseless this fat, loose-fleshed woman with dyed hair and pussy-cat eyes. She belonged to the nation of people who had introduced “law and order.”
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Chapter 6: “Sorry, No Coloureds” Quotes
This was where she differed from Francis and the others. They believed that one had to start with the inferior and stay there, because being black meant being inferior. Well, Adah did not yet believe that wholly, but what she did know was that being regarded as inferior had a psychological effect on her. The result was that she started to act in the way expected of her because she was still new in England, but after a while, she was not going to accept it from anyone. She was going to regard herself as the equal of any white.
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You come to behave and act like a mad person if you are surrounded by mad people. Was that what people called adaptation? she wondered.
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Chapter 9: Learning the Rules Quotes
“I brought my children here to save them from the clutches of your family, and, God help me, they are going back as different people; never, never are they going to be the type of person you are. My sons will learn to treat their wives as people, individuals, not like goats that have been taught to talk.”
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Chapter 10: Applying the Rules Quotes
At least some of the provisions of the Welfare State worked for both second- and first-class citizens alike.
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Chapter 13: The Ditch Pull Quotes
Francis could kill her child. She could forgive him all he had done before, but not this.
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Vicky Character Timeline in Second Class Citizen
The timeline below shows where the character Vicky appears in Second Class Citizen. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2: Escape into Elitism
After Francis leaves, Adah sends him money, bears their second child (a boy named Vicky), and returns to work 12 days later. When several months have passed, Francis informs the...
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From the deck 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...
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Chapter 3: A Cold Welcome
...coming to meet her, declares that he can “die in peace” having seen his son Vicky. When Adah expresses shock at this wording, Francis claims that in England, people joke about...
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Chapter 4: The Daily Minders
During the summer, Francis watches Titi and Vicky while Adah works. One day, though, he asks Adah who will mind “your children” when...
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...Adah, trying to be gentle, reminds Francis that he was going to mind Titi and Vicky until they got a nursery spot. Francis accuses Adah of making that decision solo. Later,...
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...Then Mr. Babalola suggests Trudy, a mother of two who agrees to mind Titi and Vicky. Francis begins dropping the children off at Trudy’s after breakfast and picking them up at...
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...speaking after a couple weeks of childcare at Trudy’s. Adah, alarmed, starts taking Titi and Vicky to Trudy’s herself. Trudy has been taking Titi and Vicky’s milk coupons and telling Adah...
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...laughing with a man who’s holding onto her. Adah demands to know where Titi and Vicky are; she almost calls Trudy a sex worker but stays quiet, as she isn’t sure...
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Adah, ignoring Trudy, immediately takes Titi and Vicky to the nearest “children’s officer,” Miss Stirling. While Miss Stirling pooh-poohs Adah’s concerns, Trudy arrives...
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...but there are none—so Adah keeps sending them to Trudy’s. Then, something awful happens to Vicky.
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Chapter 5: An Expensive Lesson
...he’ll ignore her worries like Caesar ignored his wife’s dream. As she feeds the children, Vicky wakes Francis up with his crying. Francis complains, and Adah explains that young Vicky seems...
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Vicky fusses as Adah leaves. Titi, who has learned that her suffering changes nothing, doesn’t fuss....
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...her childless coworker that “sometimes she lives in her children.” The coworker relays a message: Vicky is ill, but Trudy is waiting for Adah before taking him to the hospital.
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At Trudy’s, an ambulance is outside. Inside, Adah finds a doctor and Trudy washing Vicky’s face with dirty water. Adah takes Vicky and asks what’s going on. The doctor says...
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...he is: he has stopped attending classes, instead studying alone. Later, doctors tell Adah that Vicky must be kept “for observation” until his test results return. Adah associates hospitals with childbirth...
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...wakes, she sees the nurse who told her to leave. The nurse asks her whether Vicky is an only child. Adah says no, but her other child is “only a girl.”...
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After three days, the hospital discovers that Vicky has “virus meningitis.” Adah, studying the disease at the library, reads that it’s frequently fatal...
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...care for her until Francis agrees to perform childcare or a nursery accepts Titi and Vicky. Then she leaves.
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At Trudy’s, Adah has just brought up meningitis when Trudy interrupts, suggesting Vicky was infected by drinking water in Nigeria. Adah is baffled, thinking how Vicky was born...
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Adah tells Trudy that she will murder her if Vicky is harmed and accuses Trudy of neglecting Vicky even after Adah paid Trudy and let...
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Chapter 6: “Sorry, No Coloureds”
...neighbors hate her for having a “white” job, living with her children, and being Ibo. Vicky surviving his illness was the last straw for them. Francis is surprised, however. He thought...
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...are happy to have humbled them. They start complaining about everything Adah, Francis, Titi, and Vicky do. In Nigeria, it is not uncommon to invent songs to insult people you dislike,...
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While Janet babysits Titi and Vicky, Adah and Francis walk to the rooms’ address. The neighborhood looks demolished, like it was...
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Chapter 8: Role Acceptance
...platform and let the hospital gas her—but then she resolves to live for Titi and Vicky. While Francis lectures her about “Jehovah God” and “the diligence of the virtuous women,” she...
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...ambulance. When ambulance workers carry her down the stairs, she sees Sue holding a terrified Vicky and prays to God that she’ll return for her children. She wants to give Sue...
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...reminiscing about their awful, long-ago time in England. Titi attends an English convent school and Vicky attends Eton. They have many other children too. Francis praises Adah for helping him succeed...
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Chapter 9: Learning the Rules
Regular visiting hours begin. Francis rarely arrives on time because of Titi and Vicky. Adah doesn’t care. She and Francis have little to say to each other: Francis assumes...
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...on his accountancy exam. Adah, too outraged to reply to that, asks after Titi and Vicky instead.
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Francis tells Adah that her absence has not bothered Titi or Vicky. Adah asks what would have happened to them if she’d died and demands that Francis...
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...home, and that her relatives had understood her educational aspirations better. Thinking of Titi and Vicky as her only friends, she resolves to focus her love on them and to leave...
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...other people’s kindness in the future. Adah also resolves to “love and protect” Titi and Vicky, who greet her happily at home.
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Chapter 10: Applying the Rules
Adah’s boss from the library, Mrs. Konrad, sends presents for Titi, Vicky, and Bubu, which Adah interprets as a sign of God’s understanding and support. She is...
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On Christmas Eve, Adah notices that Vicky’s ear is swollen. He’s not in pain, so she puts Vaseline on the ear and...
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...she feels unsteady. Francis and the policemen enter the family apartment, where the police examine Vicky’s ear and agree he needs a doctor. After the police leave to fetch a doctor,...
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Shortly after, another doctor, a young Chinese man, arrives, examines Vicky’s ear, and asks whether the apartment has bedbugs. Adah feels humiliated. The doctor explains a...
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Francis destroys the note he received from their regular doctor, which predicts that Vicky’s ear is swollen due to a bug bite. Adah asks why Francis involved the police,...
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Chapter 12: The Collapse
...enter the apartment, an unshaven Francis is singing a Jehovah’s witness hymn to Bubu while Vicky swings his dirty diaper around and Titi watches. Adah, marking the contrast between well-dressed, dignified...
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...to work for himself. Francis believes that Adah will never leave him because of Titi, Vicky, and Bubu.
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Chapter 13: The Ditch Pull
...has burned The Bride Price—the basis of her aspirations, which she planned to show Titi, Vicky, Bubu, and Dada when they were old enough.
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A month after moving, Adah learns she’s pregnant again. Then Francis follows Titi and Vicky home from school to Adah’s new address and bashes at the apartment window, trying to...
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