Though Adunni is only 14 years old, she endures a great deal of trauma before and during the events of the novel. For instance, Mama dies when she’s very young, Papa forces her to marry a much older man who rapes her, and she’s tricked into becoming an indentured servant for a rich businesswoman who abuses her. Despite all this, Adunni perseveres, and she and other characters she meets develop a variety of coping mechanisms in order to endure the hardships they face. Whether it be through maintaining spiritual faith, mentally blocking out the things that are too painful to face directly, or holding out hope for what the future might hold, The Girl with the Louding Voice shows that people will go to great lengths to survive the world’s cruelties—and that there are many different ways to do so. The novel doesn’t minimize the effects of trauma or injustice, but it optimistically suggests that people can be resilient and creative enough to overcome even seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
Adunni represses the things that are too hard for her to confront directly and also turns to religion for comfort. Together, these techniques create a kind of protective shield in her mind that helps her persevere. The morning after Morufu first rapes Adunni, she finds that she cannot fully recall what happened: “I cannot remember many of what happen to me last night, my head is full of a dark cloth, blocking every of the evil Morufu was doing.” While it’s possible that Adunni’s strategy of repressing the traumatic details of her sexual assault will have negative consequences in the long run, blocking them from her mind in the present gives her the strength she needs to make it through another day. The imagery that Adunni uses here to illustrate her repression speaks to this protective quality, with the “cloth” acting as a shield between her mind and the external forces that threaten to harm it. When Adunni cannot repress her hardships, she prays to God for a sense of comfort and control over her situation. After she finishes her prayers one night at Big Madam’s, Adunni observes that she “feel[s] a free that [she] didn’t feel in a long time.” Adunni’s circumstances are often dictated by people who don’t have her best interests at heart: Papa and Morufu devalue her because of her gender, and Big Madam devalues her because of her class status. Praying to God gives Adunni a sense of freedom because it levels the gap between herself and the people who believe her to be unimportant: in God’s eyes, she has value. If Adunni can believe she has value in God’s eyes, she can begin to belief in her own self-worth, which brings her closer to acquiring the “louding voice” that will enable her to advocate for herself and give her the tools she needs for survival.
Another way Adunni persists through hard times is to find creative ways to be happy and visualize her dreams (unattainable as they may seem), which helps her look forward to the future rather than succumbing to despair. After Papa could no longer afford to keep Adunni in school, she resolved to continue learning, refreshing her skills by teaching the younger children in her village basic math and language lessons. She also played make-believe, “teaching the trees and leafs in [her family’s] compound.” Both of these activities allowed Adunni to keep her dreams of getting an education and becoming a teacher alive, rather than wallowing in her misfortune and giving up on her goals. Adunni is similarly creative after she’s forced to marry Morufu. When Adunni tells Kike (Morufu’s daughter, who is her age) that she wants to be a teacher when she grows up, Kike prompts her to close her eyes and imagine teaching. Adunni follows Kike’s advice, visualizing a room full of children and herself writing on a chalkboard. When she does so, she “feel[s] a rush of something free in that moment.” Of course, after Kike leaves and Adunni tries this exercise again, she finds that all she can see is a “dark cloth,” which reaffirms that creativity and hope are not strong enough on their own to effectively change the course of Adunni’s life.
Other characters also develop creative—though not always positive—solutions for dealing with their hardships. For instance, Chisom (the housemaid of Big Madam’s friend Caroline Bankole) strategically serves as her madam’s confidant. Chisom keeps Caroline’s secrets—namely, that Caroline is having an affair with Big Daddy—in exchange for food and nice clothing. She takes on the emotional burden of keeping Caroline’s affair a secret in order to elevate her status and earn her madam’s respect—which, in turn, makes her life more bearable. Another example is Kike, who alters her perspective so that she can see her marriage to Baba Ogun, a much older man, as a positive thing. She tells Adunni: “I wish I was a man, but I am not, so I do the next thing I can do. I marry a man.” Although Kike isn’t pleased about the marriage, she chooses to recognize it as the best option available to her, which helps her accept and endure her situation. In a similar vein, Khadija has children in order to find happiness. Though Khadija took a medicine during the early days of her marriage to prevent pregnancy so that she would not have to bear Morufu’s children, she ultimately realizes that children can provide her with an ounce of “real joy” in her otherwise miserable life at Morufu’s house. In this way, Khadija reframes motherhood as a source of comfort and meaning rather than a source of oppression, which makes her marriage to Morufu easier to bear.
Many of the characters in the novel must resist and rise above the constraints of a cruel, unjust world—and this means that their coping methods often require them to submit to the very systems that oppress them. Still, a will to survive can also have a more positive outcome: Adunni’s persistence is what allows her to win the Ocean Oil scholarship, escape indentured servitude, and begin to pursue her dream of becoming a teacher. Ultimately, the novel seems to suggest that when faced with hardship, it is always worth it to fight back, keep a positive mindset, and envision a brighter future.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Survival ThemeTracker
Survival Quotes in The Girl with the Louding Voice
“Adunni, you know how this is a good thing for your family. Think about how you been suffering since your mama[…]. I know it is not what you want. I know you like school, but think it well, Adunni. Think of how your family will be better because of it. Even if I beg your papa, you know he will not answer me. I swear, if I can find a man like Morufu to marry me, I will be too happy!”
“In this village, if you go to school, no one will be forcing you to marry any man. But if you didn’t go to school, they will marry you to any man once you are reaching fifteen years old. Your schooling is your voice, child. It will be speaking for you even if you didn’t open your mouth to talk. It will be speaking till the day God is calling you come.”
“There is no money for food, talk less of thirty thousan’ for community rent. What will becoming teacher do for you? Nothing. Only stubborn head it will give you.”
My wedding be like watching a movie inside the tee-vee. My eyes was watching myself as I was kneeling down in front of my father, as he was saying a prayer to be following me to my husband house, as my mouth was opening, my lips parting, my voice saying “Amen” to the prayers even though my mind was not understanding what is happening to me.
I cannot remember many of what happen to me last night, my head is full of a dark cloth, blocking every of the evil Morufu was doing[…].”
“When you begin to born your children, you will not be too sad again,” she say. “When I first marry Morufu, I didn’t want to born children. I was too afraid of having a baby so quick, afraid of falling sick from the load of it. So I take something, a medicine, to stop the pregnant from coming. But after two months, I say to myself, ‘Khadija, if you don’t born a baby, Morufu will send you back to your father’s house.’ So I stop the medicine and soon I born my first girl, Alafia. When I hold her in my hands for the first time, my heart was full of so much love. Now, my children make me laugh when I am not even thinking to laugh. Children are joy, Adunni. Real joy.”
She open her eyes, give me a sad smile. “I wish I am a man, but I am not, so I do the next thing I can do. I marry a man.”
I am leaving Ikati. This is what I been wanting all my life, to leave this place and see what the world outside is looking like, but not like this. Not with a bad name following me. Not like a person that the whole village is looking for because they think she have kill a woman. Not with one half of my heart with Kayus and the other half with Khadija. I hang my head down, feeling a thick, heavy cloth as it is covering me. The thick cloth of shame, of sorrow, of heart pain.
I am not understanding why Kofi is always saying Nigerians are spending this and that when him too, he is using the Nigerians money to be building his house in his Ghana country. I see when the visitors of Big Madam give him money, how he will squeeze it tight and slide it inside his pocket with a big smile and a big thank you. Why didn’t he refuse the money if it is thief money? He too is among the problem wrong with Nigeria.
I didn’t tell Ms. Tia that I ever marry Morufu or about all the things he did to me in the room after he drink Fire-Cracker. I didn’t tell her about what happen to Khadija. I didn’t tell her because I have to keep it inside one box in my mind, lock the box, and throw the key inside river of my soul. Maybe one day, I will swim inside the river, find the key.
How is Morufu and Big Daddy different from each other? One can speak good English, and the other doesn’t speak good English, but both of them have the same terrible sickness of the mind.
“God has given you all you need to be great, and it sits right there inside of you. […] Right inside your mind, in your heart. You believe, I know you do. You just need to hold on to that belief and never let go. When you get up every day, I want you to remind yourself that tomorrow will be better than today. That you are a person of value. That you are important. You must believe this, regardless of what happens with the scholarship. Okay?
I step inside, see about five girls sitting on the floor, their head down. They all look the same age of me: fourteen, fifteen. All are wearing dirty dress of ankara or plain material with shoes like wet toilet paper, tearing everywhere. Hair is rough, or low-cut to the scalp. They smell of stinking sweat, of a body that needs serious washing, and they all look sad, lost, afraid. Like me. […] One of the girls look up then, hook her eyes on me. There is no kindness in her eyes. Nothing. Only fear. Cold fear. She say nothing, but with her eyes, she seem to be saying: You are me. I am you. Our madams are different, but they are the same.
I leave the room, closing the door on the memory of the sad and the bitter and the happy of it all, knowing that even if everybody forgets about Rebecca, or about me, the wall in the room we shared will remind them that we were here. That we are human. Of value. Important.
