Water Symbol Analysis

Water symbolizes the double standards women are subjected to in the world of the novel. In traditional Yoruba religious beliefs, there’s a deity called Oshun, a goddess of the river who is associated with purity, fertility, and love. But in The Girl with the Louding Voice, rivers (and water more generally) are associated with tragedy and violence. For example, the father of Khadija’s baby, Bamidele, tells her that his family is cursed, and that their baby will die unless she bathes in a river with special soap to rid herself of the curse. But Bamidele abandons her by the river, and she dies in childbirth before she can perform the ritual. In this way, the river represents the way women are held to different standards than men: the bathing ritual frames the baby’s fate as solely Khadija’s responsibility, but in the end, Bamidele’s negligence is what causes the baby’s death.

Later on, in a scene that mirrors Khadija’s experience, Ms. Tia goes to a river to undergo a special fertility bath ritual that is supposed to cleanse her of her infertility. Ms. Tia’s procedure, too, is unsuccessful, as the ritual leaves her injured and traumatized. She later learns that it wasn’t her supposed uncleanliness that prevented her from conceiving, but her husband Ken’s infertility that he hid from her. This juxtaposition of traditional beliefs about rivers and cleanliness with women’s trauma and abuse highlights this society’s double standards for men and women. In both of these cases, women go to the river because their culture tells them that they are somehow dirty or broken and need to be purified, while men do not receive the same message and are excused of any responsibility. In this way, water represents the idea that women in the world of the novel are judged, controlled, and mistreatment, while men are allowed to live freely and without judgment.