The Girl with the Louding Voice

by

Abi Daré

Education, Empowerment, and Self-Worth Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Education, Empowerment, and Self-Worth Theme Icon
Gender Inequality and Solidarity Theme Icon
Wealth, Poverty, and Choice  Theme Icon
Survival Theme Icon
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 Theme Icon

Before the events of The Girl with the Louding Voice, when Adunni’s mother, Mama, is still alive, she teaches Adunni that “your schooling is your voice.” As a result, Adunni spends the novel searching for a “louding voice”—that is, empowerment and self-worth—through education. Adunni’s quest for knowledge is challenged, though, as she’s forced to marry an abusive man and later tricked into indentured servitude. But despite Adunni’s dismal circumstances and the cruel people who belittle her, she refuses to stay silent and uncurious, finding little ways to educate herself and passing the power of a voice along to others. Through her journey, the novel suggests that education is uniquely empowering not only because it gives people a better understanding of the world, but because it helps them develop a “louding voice”—a sense of self-worth, confidence, and independence that they can then use to help others. 

Mama’s belief in the value of education influences Adunni to acquire as much knowledge as she can, which, in turn, allows her to engage more actively and purposefully with her surroundings. Early in Adunni’s time working as a housemaid for Big Madam, she stumbles on two books while cleaning the library, “the Collins” (the Collins English Dictionary) and The Book of Nigerian Facts. Adunni consults these books frequently, using the dictionary to learn new words and The Book of Nigerian Facts to learn more about Nigerian culture and society. The information that Adunni gleans from these books allows her to form more educated opinions about the people she interacts with and about her own situation. Many of the chapters that follow Adunni’s initial encounter with The Book of Nigerian Facts begin with a fact about Nigeria, which gives the sense that the reader is learning these facts along with Adunni. The events in a given chapter relate to the preceding fact, with the implication that Adunni is applying the facts she learns to her own life in order to better understand herself and the world around her. For example, Chapter 49 begins with a fact about the prevalence of human trafficking of children in Nigeria. Later in this chapter, Adunni tells Kofi, Big Madam’s chef, that Mr. Kola, the man who brought her to Big Madam’s, is “a slave trader,” and that “him and Big Madam, they are slave-trading people like me.” Learning about the prevalence of human trafficking in Nigeria allows Adunni to place herself in that broader social narrative and make sense of her situation. Her knowledge gives her the power to identify Kola as an aggressor and herself as a victim.

As Adunni becomes better educated, she gains a sense of self-worth that helps her stay grounded amid her life’s difficulties and constant changes. Adunni’s circumstances change rapidly over the course of the novel. In period of less than a year, she loses of her mother, become a child bride, witnesses a dear friend die in her arms, and is tricked into domestic servitude. These events deprive Adunni of any sense of permanence or reliability. They show her that life can change suddenly, and that the people she thinks she can rely on to help her—Mama, Khadija, Papa, and Mr. Kola, for example—can exit her life or betray her with little notice. But as Adunni educates herself and gain new perspective about her life and the world around her, she develops a sense of empowerment and confidence (a “louding voice”) that inspires her to persevere and continue to advocate for herself. Ms. Tia, Big Madam’s friendly neighbor and Adunni’s mentor, affirms this when Adunni comes to her house one day to accompany her to the market. “God has given you all you need to be great, and it sits right there inside of you,” she tells Adunni. “You just need to hold on to that belief and never let go. When you get up every day, I want you to remind yourself that […] you are a person of value. That you are important.” Having more knowledge makes Adunni feel more confident about who she is, and her self-worth gives her a sense of security and permanence in an unpredictable world. This, in turn, imbues her with the strength and self-assurance she needs to move forward in the face of adversity.

Armed with the self-advocacy that education gives her, Adunni can advocate for other people who have been silenced. When Adunni arrives at Big Madam’s, she learns about Rebecca, Big Madam’s former housemaid who disappeared under mysterious circumstances and who nobody in the house seems to want to talk about. But Adunni’s newfound understanding of her circumstances and of her own value allows her to see that Rebecca, too, is “a person of value,” and Adunni is therefore determined to find out what happened to her. She eventually discovers that Rebecca became pregnant with Big Daddy’s baby, suffered a miscarriage, and left Lagos after Big Madam gave her money to get on a bus and never return. The scandal of Rebecca’s situation, combined with her lower class status and lack of education, is what led to her abuse and erasure. Near the end of the novel, before Adunni leaves Big Madam’s to pursue a formal education, she writes “Adunni & Rebecca” on her bedroom wall, a symbolic gesture that demonstrates the importance of using one’s education and voice to empathize with and speak up for others. In Rebecca’s case, Adunni arrives too late to help in a direct way. But given that Adunni’s dream is to be a teacher, it’s likely that her own experience of finding her “louding voice” will lead her to ensure that her future students are granted the voice that Rebecca was denied.

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Education, Empowerment, and Self-Worth Quotes in The Girl with the Louding Voice

Below you will find the important quotes in The Girl with the Louding Voice related to the theme of Education, Empowerment, and Self-Worth.
Chapter 2 Quotes

I taste the salt of my tears at the memorying of it all, and when I go back to my mat and close my eyes, I see Mama as a rose flower. But this rose is no more having yellow and red and purple colors with shining leafs. This flower be the brown of a wet leaf that suffer a stamping from the dirty feets of a man that forget the promise he make to his dead wife.

Related Characters: Adunni (speaker), Morufu, Mama (Idowu), Papa
Page Number: 10
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

“Adunni, you know how this is a good thing for your family. Think about how you been suffering since your mama[…]. I know it is not what you want. I know you like school, but think it well, Adunni. Think of how your family will be better because of it. Even if I beg your papa, you know he will not answer me. I swear, if I can find a man like Morufu to marry me, I will be too happy!”

Related Characters: Enitan (speaker), Adunni, Morufu, Mama (Idowu), Papa
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

“In this village, if you go to school, no one will be forcing you to marry any man. But if you didn’t go to school, they will marry you to any man once you are reaching fifteen years old. Your schooling is your voice, child. It will be speaking for you even if you didn’t open your mouth to talk. It will be speaking till the day God is calling you come.”

Related Characters: Mama (Idowu) (speaker), Adunni, Morufu, Papa, Ade
Page Number: 24-25
Explanation and Analysis:

That day, I tell myself that even if I am not getting anything in this life, I will go to school. I will finish my primary and secondary and university schooling and become teacher because I don’t just want to be having any kind voice…I want a louding voice.

Related Characters: Adunni (speaker), Mama (Idowu)
Page Number: 25
Explanation and Analysis:

“There is no money for food, talk less of thirty thousan’ for community rent. What will becoming teacher do for you? Nothing. Only stubborn head it will give you.”

Related Characters: Papa (speaker), Adunni, Morufu, Mama (Idowu)
Page Number: 26-27
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Sometimes, I want to be just like Kayus, to have no fear of marrying a man, to not have any worry in this life. All Kayus ever worry about is what food to eat and where he can kick his football. He don’t ever worry about no marriage or bride-price money. He don’t even worry about schooling because I been the one teaching him school since all this time.

Related Characters: Adunni (speaker), Morufu, Papa, Kayus, Labake
Page Number: 34
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

I cannot remember many of what happen to me last night, my head is full of a dark cloth, blocking every of the evil Morufu was doing[…].”

Related Characters: Adunni (speaker), Morufu, Mama (Idowu)
Page Number: 54
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

“When you begin to born your children, you will not be too sad again,” she say. “When I first marry Morufu, I didn’t want to born children. I was too afraid of having a baby so quick, afraid of falling sick from the load of it. So I take something, a medicine, to stop the pregnant from coming. But after two months, I say to myself, ‘Khadija, if you don’t born a baby, Morufu will send you back to your father’s house.’ So I stop the medicine and soon I born my first girl, Alafia. When I hold her in my hands for the first time, my heart was full of so much love. Now, my children make me laugh when I am not even thinking to laugh. Children are joy, Adunni. Real joy.”

Related Characters: Khadija (speaker), Adunni, Morufu, Labake, Alafia
Related Symbols: Houses
Page Number: 59
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

I am leaving Ikati. This is what I been wanting all my life, to leave this place and see what the world outside is looking like, but not like this. Not with a bad name following me. Not like a person that the whole village is looking for because they think she have kill a woman. Not with one half of my heart with Kayus and the other half with Khadija. I hang my head down, feeling a thick, heavy cloth as it is covering me. The thick cloth of shame, of sorrow, of heart pain.

Related Characters: Adunni (speaker), Khadija, Kayus, Kola, Iya
Page Number: 130
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

When she come out, she draw deep breath and her chest, wide like blackboard, is climbing up and down, up and down. It is as if this woman is using her nostrils to be collecting all the heating from the outside and making us to be catching cold. I am standing beside Mr. Kola, and his body is shaking like my own. Even the trees in the compound, the yellow, pink, blue flowers in the long flowerpot, all of them too are shaking.

Related Characters: Adunni (speaker), Big Madam (Florence Adeoti), Khadija, Mama (Idowu), Kola, Iya
Related Symbols: Houses
Page Number: 144
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

Honest, honest, I never hear of a adult woman not wanting childrens in my life. In my village, all the adult womens are having childrens, and if the baby is not coming, maybe because of a sickness, then their husband will marry another woman on top of them and the adult woman will be caring for another woman’s baby so that she don’t feel any shame.

Related Characters: Adunni (speaker), Ms. Tia/Tia Dada, Big Madam (Florence Adeoti), Ms. Tia’s Mother
Page Number: 203
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 34 Quotes

I didn’t tell Ms. Tia that I ever marry Morufu or about all the things he did to me in the room after he drink Fire-Cracker. I didn’t tell her about what happen to Khadija. I didn’t tell her because I have to keep it inside one box in my mind, lock the box, and throw the key inside river of my soul. Maybe one day, I will swim inside the river, find the key.

Related Characters: Adunni (speaker), Ms. Tia/Tia Dada, Big Madam (Florence Adeoti), Big Daddy (Chief Adeoti), Khadija, Morufu
Related Symbols: Water
Page Number: 222
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35 Quotes

“She comes to ask if I am pregnant,” she say. “Can you imagine that? She has come every month in the last six months to say: ‘Where are my grandchildren? When will I carry my grandchildren and dance with them?’ Like I’ve hidden them in an attic somewhere. If she wants to dance, she should go to a bloody nightclub.”

Related Characters: Ms. Tia/Tia Dada (speaker), Adunni, Kenneth Dada/The Doctor, Doctor Mama
Page Number: 233
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 39 Quotes

How is Morufu and Big Daddy different from each other? One can speak good English, and the other doesn’t speak good English, but both of them have the same terrible sickness of the mind.

Related Characters: Adunni (speaker), Ms. Tia/Tia Dada, Big Madam (Florence Adeoti), Big Daddy (Chief Adeoti), Morufu, Rebecca
Page Number: 251
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 41 Quotes

“God has given you all you need to be great, and it sits right there inside of you. […] Right inside your mind, in your heart. You believe, I know you do. You just need to hold on to that belief and never let go. When you get up every day, I want you to remind yourself that tomorrow will be better than today. That you are a person of value. That you are important. You must believe this, regardless of what happens with the scholarship. Okay?

Related Characters: Ms. Tia/Tia Dada (speaker), Adunni, Mama (Idowu)
Page Number: 264
Explanation and Analysis:

I tear to pieces the paper, and throw it to the floor. Then I swim deep inside the river of my soul, find the key from where it is sitting, full of rust, at the bottom of the river, and open the lock. I kneel down beside my bed, close my eyes, turn myself into a cup, and pour the memory out of me.

Related Characters: Adunni (speaker), Ms. Tia/Tia Dada, Khadija
Related Symbols: Water
Page Number: 275
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 42 Quotes

Fifteen years ago, I was selling cheap materials from my boot, going from place to place, looking for customers. I wasn’t born into wealth. I have worked hard for my success. I fought for it. It wasn’t easy, especially because my husband, Chief, he didn’t have a job. If you want to be like me in business, Adunni, you will need to work very hard. Rise about whatever life throws at you. And never, ever give up on your dreams. Do you understand?”

Related Characters: Big Madam (Florence Adeoti) (speaker), Adunni, Ms. Tia/Tia Dada, Big Daddy (Chief Adeoti), Khadija, Mama (Idowu)
Page Number: 285
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 43 Quotes

“Why don’t you wait till we get to church so you can take the microphone and announce to the congregation that you gave your husband, the head of the family, the man in charge of your home, two hundred thousand naira for retreat, and that he spent the money? Useless woman.”

Related Characters: Big Daddy (Chief Adeoti) (speaker), Adunni, Big Madam (Florence Adeoti)
Page Number: 288
Explanation and Analysis:

I step inside, see about five girls sitting on the floor, their head down. They all look the same age of me: fourteen, fifteen. All are wearing dirty dress of ankara or plain material with shoes like wet toilet paper, tearing everywhere. Hair is rough, or low-cut to the scalp. They smell of stinking sweat, of a body that needs serious washing, and they all look sad, lost, afraid. Like me. […] One of the girls look up then, hook her eyes on me. There is no kindness in her eyes. Nothing. Only fear. Cold fear. She say nothing, but with her eyes, she seem to be saying: You are me. I am you. Our madams are different, but they are the same.

Related Characters: Adunni (speaker)
Related Symbols: Houses
Page Number: 291
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 55 Quotes

I leave the room, closing the door on the memory of the sad and the bitter and the happy of it all, knowing that even if everybody forgets about Rebecca, or about me, the wall in the room we shared will remind them that we were here. That we are human. Of value. Important.

Related Characters: Adunni (speaker), Ms. Tia/Tia Dada, Big Madam (Florence Adeoti), Rebecca, Mama (Idowu)
Related Symbols: Houses
Page Number: 361
Explanation and Analysis: