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
Fact: Nigeria boasts “some of the richest pastors in the world.” The prophet leads Adunni’s group down a path lined with green plants. A thin woman wearing the same dress and cap as the prophet greets them at the end of the path. The prophet introduces this woman as Mother-in-Jerusalem Tinu, or Mother Tinu for short, and explains that she is “the head of [their] female birth-makers.” Mother Tinu will lead Adunni’s group to the river, as men are not allowed past this point. Ms. Tia wants to turn back, but Mother Tinu explains that she cannot, because the prophet has already circled her with the bell seven times. The prophet instructs them to go to the church after the bath so that he can give Ms. Tia a special cream to use.
The fact about the country’s rich pastors seems to suggest that Nigerian churches might be more invested in making money than in following God. Prefacing Ms. Tia’s ritual with this fact invites the reader to regard the bath with some skepticism. It also positions the church as an industry that exploits a culture’s misogynistic beliefs, profiting at the expense of women.
Themes
The group follows Mother Tinu to a cave made of brown rocks. Adunni hears women inside the cave moaning a sad song, and Ms. Tia grows increasingly concerned about the ritual. Mother Tinu explains that the river past the cave is where Ms. Tia will receive her bath. Doctor mama verifies that they have paid for the bath, which shocks Ms. Tia, who hadn’t realized that it cost money. They enter the cave to find a small, dark space with a low ceiling. They stand before the river, and the scene reminds Adunni of Khadija’s final hours. Four “female birth-makers” kneel before the river, tying white cloths around themselves. Ms. Tia is nervous and squeezes Adunni’s hand. She begs to go back, but Mother Tinu shouts at them to be quiet as she fetches the “holy cloth and holy brooms.”
The river reminds Adunni of Khadija’s death. Another commonality between Khadija’s death and Ms. Tia’s bath is the absence of men in either scene: just as Bamidele abandoned Khadija in her hour of need, so too do the men leave the women before the bathing ritual can occur. The fact that doctor mama paid for Ms. Tia to undergo the ritual reinforces the idea that the church is profiting off the culture’s beliefs surrounding women and spirituality’s roles in pregnancy. Mother Tinu and her “birth-makers” assume a complicated role. On one hand, they are potentially complicit in problematic cultural ideas about women and pregnancy. On the other hand, they might sincerely believe that they’re helping Ms. Tia.
Themes
Mother Tinu returns with the cloths and brooms. She instructs Ms. Tia to remove her clothes and wrap the holy cloths around her body and head. Ms. Tia shakes, but she follows Mother Tinu’s orders. Mother Tinu then instructs Adunni and doctor mama to step back as she guides Ms. Tia closer to the river.
When Mother Tinu guides Ms. Tia toward the river, she symbolically leads her away from Adunni’s support and toward society’s double standards regarding female fertility.
Themes
The four women stop moaning and take the brooms from Mother Tinu. One of the birth-makers pulls back Ms. Tia’s cloth and begins to beat her naked body with the broom. Ms. Tia screams and writhes on the floor. The other three women join the first in flogging Ms. Tia, their faces devoid of all emotion. Adunni wants desperately to help Ms. Tia but finds herself unable to move. As the women whip Ms. Tia with their brooms, Adunni observes that Ms. Tia’s “whole body is becoming the red of the earth.”
The violence that the birth-makers inflict on Ms. Tia during the fertility ritual might symbolize society punishing her for her inability to conceive. In a way, her gender makes her as powerless as Adunni is when Big Madam physically beats her for not completing her chores to Big Madam’s liking. In this moment, not even Tia’s relative privilege is enough to protect her from the way society oppresses women.
Themes
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