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: “a 2006 UNICEF report showed that approximately 15 million children under the age of 14, mostly girls” are victims of human trafficking in Nigeria. Adunni returns home feeling happy and reassured by her conversation with Ms. Tia. She runs into Kofi, who tells her that Abu has been looking for her. Adunni agrees to meet Kofi in her room later that night.
That Adunni is mentally recovered enough to meet with Abu and hear about Rebecca positions her intimate moment with Ms. Tia as a restorative experience that replenishes Adunni’s confidence and loudens her voice.
Themes
Kofi notices Adunni’s cheerful demeanor and asks her if she’s found out about the scholarship, or if she has finally tracked down Kola and received her long-overdue salary. Adunni accuses Mr. Kola and Big Madam of “slave-trading people like [her],” though she proudly asserts that she is now “a slave with no chain.”
Adunni’s realization that Mr. Kola and Big Madam are in the business of “slave-trading people like [her]” references the Nigeria fact in the beginning of the chapter. This once again shows how reading and learning give Adunni the context to understand the reality of her situation and become something more than a powerless bystander to the atrocities she has suffered.
Themes
Kofi is amused by how much Adunni appears to have learned in preparation for the scholarship and asks what else she knows about the slave trade. Adunni explains that although slavery was abolished in 1833, the practice continues in modern Nigeria. She resolves to do something “to stop slave trading of the mind, not just of the body.” Impressed, Kofi smiles at Adunni and says that maybe she will be part of history. Adunni corrects him: “not his-story,” she says. “My own will be called her-story. Adunni’s story.”
Adunni incorporates what she learns from reading The Book of Nigerian Facts into her worldview, which allows her to internalize and work through the trauma of being sold into human trafficking. When Adunni vows “to stop slave trading of the mind, not just of the body,” she forges a connection between physical enslavement and mental enslavement, which suggests that access to education can free one’s mind and give way to more opportunities. Her remarks here show how much she has grown as a result of her education and demonstrate how this education has given her the voice she needs to share her story with the world.
Themes
