Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Girl with the Louding Voice, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Education, Empowerment, and Self-Worth
Gender Inequality and Solidarity
Wealth, Poverty, and Choice
Survival
Summary
Analysis
Adunni looks out the window of the bus and sees women carrying firewood, bread, and plantains from the farm back home for cooking. She wonders why men who won’t let women go to school are fine with them doing this work. The bus passes the Ikati border, and a landscape of red hills emerges.
Adunni questions the hypocrisy behind her society’s double standards for men and women. If men are okay letting women do physical labor, it’s clear that they’re aware of women’s strength and capabilities, so it seems as though men know women are capable of lots of things and simply choose to limit their opportunities.
Themes
An hour later, the bus arrives in Kere, which is a small village—maybe half the size of Ikati. Adunni has a very hard time waking Khadija. Adunni and Khadija get off the bus. Khadija sits down in the shade of a guava tree and motions toward a round house with a red door across the road. She instructs Adunni to knock on the door. If a woman answers, she should say she’s selling leaves; if a man answers, she should ask for Bamidele and bring him to Khadija.
Khadija’s instructions to Adunni to lie if a woman answers the door suggests that her involvement with Bamidele must be kept a secret from this woman, who might be Bamidele’s wife. It’s still not clear what Khadija’s relationship to Bamidele is, but it seems possible that they are or were engaged in a romantic affair, and that, perhaps, this is the supposedly shameful thing she did to ensure that she gives birth to a boy. Throughout the novel, houses symbolize the ability of social norms to govern societies, lifting up and reassuring the powerful of their statuses and oppressing those in limited positions of power. The fact that Bamidele is potentially the head of a household suggests that he’s used to calling the shots, and that Khadija might be at the mercy of Bamidele to get her through her pregnancy complications.
Themes
Adunni is confused and asks where the midwife’s house is, but Khadija tells her not to ask so many questions. Adunni ignores her own fears, reasoning that she should help Khadija, who has been so kind to her during her months at Morufu’s house. Still, Adunni is fearful that if Khadija dies here, people will say that she killed her senior wife out of jealousy, and then they will kill her too—death is the penalty for theft and murder in Ikati.
Khadija’s refusal see the midwife seems to be connected to the mysterious actions she underwent to ensure that her pregnancy results in a son. Even though Adunni feels wary about the situation, she supports Khadija because her experiences at Morufu’s house have taught her the importance of women supporting one another. Adunni’s fear that the villagers will think she murdered Khadija out of jealousy shows how common competitive, toxic behavior among wives (like Labake’s treatment of Khadija and Adunni) must be in the culture.
Themes
Adunni obeys Khadija and approaches the house. She knocks twice, and a young, handsome man answers the door. The man confirms that he is Bamidele and asks what Adunni wants. Adunni tells him that he needs to help Khadija, who is unwell. Adunni and Bamidele make their way to Khadija, who is now sweaty and flailing on the ground. Bamidele kneels by Khadija, who tells him she is worried that the baby is not well, and that she and the baby will die. Bamidele comforts Khadija, touching her face and calling her “aya mi,” or “my wife.” Khadija reminds Bamidele of “the curse” he told her about, and the “the ritual” they must perform before the baby is brought to term. Bamidele agrees and instructs Adunni to help him carry Khadija. Adunni demands to know what’s going on.
That Bamidele refers to Khadija as his “wife” implies a closeness between them—perhaps a romantic relationship. So far, the men that Adunni has encountered tend to disappoint and betray her, so it follows that she’s wary and concerned about who Bamidele is and how he’s going to help Khadija.
Themes
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Bamidele explains that he and Khadija were in love five years ago. They wanted to marry, but Khadija’s father sold her to Morufu when he fell ill. Bamidele moved to Kere to work as a welder but never forgot about Khadija. Four years later, Khadija came to him, and they resumed their love affair. Khadija’s baby is Bamidele’s, and he knows it’s a boy because only boys are born in his family.
Khadija’s tragic romance with Bamidele mirrors Mama’s romance with Ade: both women were denied the freedom to be with the man they loved and forced to enter into arranged marriages. That Khadija would go outside her marriage and risk punishment for having sex with another man in order to have a son speaks to how desperately she wants to stay in Morufu’s good graces.
Themes
Bamidele explains the Khadija must perform a ritual because his family has a curse. The pregnant women in his family must wash in a river seven times before the baby comes, or else she and the baby will die. Adunni isn’t comfortable performing the ritual and wants to find the midwife, but Khadija and Bamidele insist that the ritual is the only way to save Khadija and the baby. Adunni is terrified for Khadija and needs her to survive, so she decides to help. Bamidele says they have to walk to the river, which is a mile away, because he has a new wife and doesn’t want a taxi driver to see him with a pregnant woman. Bamidele directs Adunni toward a back route, and the two of them drag Khadija toward the river.
That it’s the women who are to blame and must be washed to rid themselves and their baby of a curse speaks to the culture’s negative views of women. This practice implies that women need to be cleansed—that there is something evil or dirty about them. It takes two to make a baby, but Bamidele’s family doesn’t seem to entertain the notion that men could be to blame for the supposed “curse.”
Themes
