Buchi Emecheta is a living miracle, a testament to the strength of the human spirit to overcome dizzying odds and forge on regardless of extreme adversity.
At this point, I’m temporarily giving up on the Afro-Depression subgenre (as I have come to know it). I’m tired of reading books that get me emotionally riled up. I mean, reading should be fun! But sometimes, they understandably aren’t. For, when the stories strike too close to home for comfort, they have to be read in solemn silence, a reminder that all of the beauty in this good, green earth masks a rotten core, a hell that the Almighty surely would turn up His nose at in disgust.
Synopsis
I have only just discovered that the story is a Buchi Emecheta autobiography, so the book’s events take a different light. It’s simply astounding just how much one person can be forced to take…
Second Class Citizen tells of a young, ambitious, but naive woman drilled in the limiting dogma of her culture’s doctrine- the idea that women are not really beings of their own but rather baby-making machines to be used, but never seen or valued beyond the hole between their legs and the capacity of their womb to churn out the only beings in the universe that have any value: men.
Initially deprived of her right to an education, Adah’s cleverness and some bit of shrewd, calculating slyness land her a well-deserved opportunity to have a go at being something in life. All goes smoothly until she’s unfortunate enough to meet and marry the most unfortunate, self-serving, insecure man in the history of homo sapiens.
What happens afterward is a long cycle of depressing, annoying, and frustrating male toxicity that inspires blinding anger in every reader.
Thoughts
For much of this book, all I felt was anger. It’s a shame the author had to go through such trauma from early on, but the rest of her successful career in English Literature (in the real world) is comforting. She struggled and suffered but overcame and thrived.
This story highlights an old Nigerian patriarchal mentality that, despite being now clearly revealed for the evil it inherently is, is still prevalent in modern society. It is one thing to an African patriarch disillusioned with the cultural privilege of male birth. It is quite another thing to be an irresponsible, bitter, and failed man intent on limiting the upward strivings of the woman meant to be your wife. It speaks of insecurity and a hollow soul. It would have been better if such a man had never been born and the zygote terminated in its early stages before it became a noticeable bulge in its host’s midriff.
The book’s title, Second Class Citizen, not only refers to a falsely assigned role of women in the affairs of the family but also to colored folk in the affairs of the world. While the book dwells more on the author’s personal experience at the hands of an abusive and insecure man, the themes of racism are also highlighted, even if they aren’t as drawn out as those of feminism.
Buchi Emecheta has a reputation for being something of a writer with too much love for tragedies. Her other notable work, Joys of Motherhood, is sure to leave readers as red-faced and weepy as Second Class Citizen.
This book is, first and foremost, for women. It is an elegy to the countless women with untold stories who have suffered from similar brutalities. Yet, it is equally a triumphant song hailing the strength of a woman, a promise of softly blowing winds of change which will be as the roar of a hurricane to the ears of weak-willed, hateful, and toxic misogynists.
So, rest in peace Buchi Emecheta. Long may your stories inspire new generations of oppressed women to stand up, throw off their shackles, and stuff garbage into the mouths of their tyrants.
