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Chapter 11
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
Adunni and Kike treat each other more warmly after the incident with Labake. One morning, as Adunni sits on the floor in front of the kitchen grinding pepper, the girls exchange greetings, and Adunni thanks Kike for lying to Labake for her. She tells Kike she didn’t want to marry Kike’s father. Kike understands and tells Adunni that everyone in the village knows Adunni is smart and wants to have an education. She knows that it’s Morufu who was wrong to have two additional wives after Labake couldn’t conceive a boy.
Adunni and Kike form something of a friendship after Kike makes the first move by lying for Adunni to fend off Labake. Kike understands that Adunni is not to blame for the marriage to Morufu and knows that Adunni would rather be finishing her schooling than live in Morufu’s house as his third wife.
Themes
Kike tells Adunni that Morufu found her a husband named Baba Ogun, and that tomorrow she will go to his house. Baba Ogun already has a wife, but Kike doesn’t seem to mind the arrangement because she knows that Morufu will use her bride-price to fix one of his taxi cars. After a pause, Kike says she wishes she were a man and could go to go to school. She loves drawing dress designs and wants to learn to become a tailor, but Morufu won’t pay for her to train. Kike decides that if she can’t be a man, marrying one is “the next thing [she] can do.”
In arranging for Kike to marry Baba Ogun, Morufu forces Kike to enter into a situation very similar to Adunni’s. Like Adunni, Kike has her own aspirations. Unlike Adunni, though, Kike feels discouraged by her circumstances and seems to have accepted that she will never be able to realize her dream of becoming a tailor. Taking after Khadija, she lowers her expectations to fit the reality of her oppressive circumstances: realizing that she had the misfortune to be born a girl in a man’s world, she sees marrying a man as “the next thing [she] can do.” Having a connection to someone with more power is a way for the less powerful to have a chance at some amount of upward social mobility (increased wealth and class status), however slight it might be.
Themes
Adunni shares with Kike her dream of becoming a teacher, explaining that wants to teach the children in the village and improve their lives. Sadly, though, she realizes that her marriage to Morufu makes these dreams impossible. Kike instructs Adunni to close her eyes and pretend to be a teacher in a classroom. Adunni does so, and the imagined scene makes her laugh with joy. Kike tells Adunni that if she uses her imagination, she can be anything she wants to be. Kike leaves. Adunni tries to envision the scene in her head again, but all she sees is “the dark cloth.”
Kike teaches Adunni a creative way to live her dream, even when her present situation makes it unlikely that she will ever realize it in reality. But Adunni fails to envision anything but a “dark cloth” after Kike leaves, which implies that even Adunni, who is usually so strong and determined, can be worn down by oppressive circumstances.
Themes
