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Chapter 43
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: the Yoruba ethnic group believes that twins are “a powerful, supernatural blessing” that bring their families “wealth and protection.” Adunni arrives at the Dada compound and greets Ms. Tia, who is sitting under a coconut tree. Ms. Tia tells Adunni that Ms. Tia’s mother is still hanging on, and that their relationship continues to improve. She asks Adunni—as she always does—if Big Madam’s beatings and cruelty have stopped, and Adunni responds with her usual answer: no. Adunni relays a particularly horrible incident in which Big Madam forced her to remove human waste from the toilet with her bare hands.
Sitting outside (as opposed to inside a house) symbolizes Ms. Tia’s rejection of social norms. This symbolic representation of Ms. Tia’s open-mindedness will be challenged when she is forced to undergo the fertility bath, which is based in older customs and beliefs about women, pregnancy, and motherhood. On another note, forcing Adunni to perform such a disgusting act is Big Madam’s way of asserting her class-derived dominance over Adunni. Whatever moment of connection they had in the car in Chapter 42 seems to have vanished as suddenly as it appeared.
Themes
Adunni spots an unfamiliar car parked at the compound, and Ms. Tia explains that Ken’s mother is there and will accompany them to the bath. Ms. Tia is skeptical of the bath, but she has been off “the Pill” for months now and is willing to try anything to get pregnant. Adunni equates “the Pill” to the medicine Khadija gave her to prevent pregnancy.
In relating Khadija’s medicine to Ms. Tia’s “Pill,” Adunni establishes pregnancy-related problems as a common and central part of a woman’s experience in her culture. Society’s expectations versus a woman’s desire to reproduce can be at odds with each other, no matter a woman’s social or economic class.
Themes
Adunni enters the unfamiliar car where Ms. Tia’s mother-in-law has been waiting, along with the driver, Moscow. Ms. Tia’s mother-in-law, whom Adunni refers to as “doctor mama,” is thin and wears an expensive-looking red dress. Doctor mama orders Moscow to go to the Miracle Center in Ikeja; she and Ms. Tia sit in the back, while Adunni sits next to Moscow. Doctor mama and Ms. Tia don’t talk to each other on the drive.
Doctor mama’s clothing implies that the doctor, like Ms. Tia, comes from a background of economic privilege.
Themes
When they arrive at the Miracle Center, doctor mama hands Ms. Tia a scarf for her head and a newspaper for Adunni’s head. Doctor mama expresses irritation and disbelief that Ms. Tia would bring a neighbor’s housemaid to such a sacred place, but Ms. Tia defends Adunni, insisting that she will leave if Adunni cannot accompany them inside. She also refuses to degrade Adunni by making her wear a newspaper on her head and offers to wear the newspaper herself. The two women argue back and forth until Adunni makes light of the situation by fashioning the newspaper into a hat.
Like Big Madam and many of the other women who live in her wealthy neighborhood, doctor mama doesn’t believe that housemaids deserve respect or kindness, which is why Adunni’s presence at the Miracle Center irritates her. Adunni’s decision to make light of the situation demonstrates her ability to adapt to her surroundings.
Themes
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Adunni, Ms. Tia, and doctor mama enter the Miracle Center and meet the prophet, a short, bowlegged man. He wears a long red dress and a white cap with a cross on it. The prophet welcomes them to the church, which contains many wooden benches and reminds Adunni of her old village classroom. Behind the altar at the front of the church is a picture of Jesus, who “looks hungry, with vex face too,” and who reminds Adunni of Ms. Tia’s British friend, Katie. Adunni wonders if “Jesus is from the Abroad.”
This Miracle Center seems to belong to a type of Christianity called Aladura Christianity, which was founded in Nigeria in 1918 and borrows from elements of Pentecostalism. Many churches in Western Nigeria are Aladura churches. Aladura Christians believe in faith healing, of which Ms. Tia’s bath seems to be an example. That Ms. Tia needs to be healed implies that she’s to blame for not getting pregnant and absolves Ken of any responsibility. Adunni’s observation that Jesus looks like Katie implies that the picture depicts a Caucasian Jesus. When Adunni describes Jesus as “hungry, with a vex face too,” seems to suggest that Jesus looks troubled, which give the church a sense of foreboding and hints that this ritual may not be a positive experience for Ms. Tia.
Themes
Adunni spots “mosquito coils” on the floor, as well as 15 red candles. The prophet greets Adunni’s group, and doctor mama begins to speak to him in Yoruba, explaining that Ms. Tia “has one evil spirit” in her that makes it impossible for her to have a baby. Doctor mama thinks that “the evil spirit needs chasing off to go back to the Abroad.” The prophet explains that the bath will produce a “twenty-four-hour miracle,” that Ms. Tia will leave behind the “garment of sorrow and barrenness” that she entered the church in, exchanging it for “a garment of twins.” Doctor affirms this and specifies that the twins will be two boys. Ms. Tia, doctor mama, and Adunni all kneel as the prophet prays over Ms. Tia, ringing a bell as he walks around her seven times. The prophet finishes the prayer and announces that it is time for the bath.
The prophet’s assumption that Ms. Tia “has one evil spirit” in her places the responsibility to get pregnant on Ms. Tia alone, which is unfair, because her husband is also involved in conception. Doctor mama’s opinion that “the evil spirit needs chasing off to go back to the Abroad” implies that Ms. Tia “caught” the evil spirit when she was living in the UK, which could be an attack on any number of things, including Western culture or Ms. Tia’s education abroad. Like the prophet, doctor mama assumes that Ms. Tia is to blame for her supposed “barrenness.”
Themes
