Second Class Citizen
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Second Class Citizen is a 1974 novel by Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta first published in London by Allison and Busby, where her editor was Margaret Busby. It was subsequently published in the US by George Braziller in 1975. A poignant[neutrality is disputed] story of a resourceful Nigerian woman who overcomes strict tribal domination of women and countless setbacks to achieve an independent life for herself and her children, the novel is often described as semi-autobiographical. The protagonist Adah's journey from Nigeria to London – where despite atrocious living conditions and a violent marriage, she "finds refuge in her dream of becoming a writer"follows closely Emecheta's own trajectory as an author.
Quotes
[edit]- You must know, my dear young lady, that in Lagos you may be a million publicity officers for the Americans; you may be earning a million pounds a day; you may have hundreds of servants: you may be living like an elite, but the day you land in England, you are a second-class citizen.”
- (p. 39)
- Adah could not stop thinking about her discovery that the whites were just as fallible as everyone else. There were bad whites and good whites, just as there were bad blacks and good blacks! Why, then did they claim to be superior?
- (Narrator, p. 53)
- Did she not feel totally fulfilled when she had completed the manuscript, just as if it were another baby she had had?
- (Narrator, p. 166)
- Her children were going to be different. They were all going to be black, they were going to enjoy being black, be proud of being black, a black of a different breed.
- (Narrator, p. 141)
- London, having killed Adah's congregational God, created instead a personal God who loomed large and really alive.
- (Narrator, p. 151)
- They were going to get the room they were asking for. Pa Noble was too old for Sue.
- (Narrator, p. 93)
- Hunger drove Francis to work as a clerical officer in the post office. Adah's hopes rose. This might save the marriage after all.
- (Narrator, p. 162)
- This old friend of Adah's paid for the taxi that took her home from Camden Town because he thought she was still with her husband.
- (Narrator, p. 175)
- Then the thought suddenly struck her. Yes, she would go to school.
- (Narrator, p. 9)
- So, sorry as she was for making a fool out of an old doctor, this was just one of the cases where honesty would not have been the best policy.
- (Narrator, p. 42)
- She felt eight when she was being directed by her dream, for a younger child would not be capable of so many mischiefs. Thinking back on it all now that she was grown up, she was sorry for her parents. But it was their own fault; they should not have had her in the first place, and that would have saved a lot of people a lot of headaches.”
- (Chapter 1, Page 7)
- Not like those of their children who later got caught up in the entangled web of industrialisation. Adah’s Ma had no experience of having to keep up mortgage payments: she never knew what it was to have a family car, or worry about its innards; she had no worries about pollution, the population explosion or race. Was it surprising, therefore, that she was happy, being unaware of the so-called joys of civilisation and all its pitfalls?”
- (Chapter 1, Page 15)
- One might think on this evidence that Africans treated their children badly. But to Adah’s people and to Adah herself, this was not so at all; it was the custom. Children, especially girls, were taught to be very useful very early in life, and this had its advantages. For instance, Adah learned very early to be responsible for herself. Nobody was interested in her for her own sake, only in the money she would fetch, and the housework she could do and Adah, happy at being given this opportunity of survival, did not waste time thinking about its rights or wrongs. She had to survive.”
- (Chapter 2, Page 19)
