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
After the flogging, Ms. Tia lies on the floor, bleeding and silent. Mother Tinu announces that “the evil of childlessness has been chased out.” The four birth-makers gently lift Ms. Tia from the floor and pour river water down her wounded, bleeding back. Ms. Tia turns toward Adunni, and Adunni can see that her face, too, is covered in marks and almost looks like the mask painting hanging on the wall in Ms. Tia’s house. Ms. Tia’s eyes look “wild.”
The ritual results in the birth-makers beating Ms. Tia into silent submission. In describing Ms. Tia’s eyes as “wild,” Adunni implies that it’s no longer Ms. Tia behind those eyes—she’s been so badly wounded and dehumanized that she doesn’t seem like herself. Symbolically, it’s as though this society’s oppressive traditions and beliefs surrounding women and pregnancy rob Ms. Tia of her “louding voice,” of her sense of self.
Themes
Seeing her friend this way makes Adunni wants to cry. Doctor mama places a hand on Adunni’s shoulder, and Adunni looks up and sees that she is crying. Terribly shaken, doctor mama insists that she had no idea that the process would be so brutal—she thought it would just be a bath.
Ms. Tia’s flogging is another instance in which Adunni’s gender and social status render her powerless to save a friend, just as she was unable to save Khadija earlier in the novel. Doctor mama seems remorseful about encouraging Ms. Tia to take part in the violent ritual, but her ignorance about the violence involved in the bath doesn’t change the fact that she put Ms. Tia in harm’s way to give herself grandchildren. Doctor mama places her own desires, as well as society’s expectations for women to become mothers, above Ms. Tia’s safety.
Themes
As Adunni’s group walks away from the center, Adunni feels like she has to vomit. Behind the church, she looks through a window and sees the prophet beginning the ceremony with another woman. She looks at the picture of Jesus and thinks that “now, he just looks tired. And sad.”
Whereas Jesus looked worried before, now he looks “tired” and “sad.” This implies that the version of Christianity the prophet and the women at the church practice doesn’t actually align with Christ’s teachings of compassion and nonviolence.
Themes
