Rebecca’s Waist Beads Symbol Analysis

Rebecca’s waist beads symbolize the way women in Adunni’s society are silenced, and the importance of giving a voice to the voiceless. Rebecca is Big Madam’s former servant who mysteriously went missing, though no one in the house but Adunni seems to care what happened to her or to want to discuss her. When Adunni discovers Rebecca’s waist beads, she’s motivated to get to the bottom of Rebecca’s disappearance, believing that someone must have harmed her. (Adunni eventually learns that Big Madam’s husband, Big Daddy, impregnated Rebecca and then tried to force her to have a miscarriage, prompting Big Madam to send Rebecca away.) The waist beads are now the only sign that Rebecca ever lived and worked at the house, and so they symbolize the way women in the world of the novel are exploited and abused and then discarded and erased. Finding the waist beads inspires Adunni to become Rebecca’s sole advocate, and in this way, the beads also come to represent Adunni’s quest to develop a “louding voice” (essentially, empowerment and self-confidence) and to use her voice to stick up for those whom society silences.