Okoboshi Obidi

Okoboshi is the son with an excellent limp exactly who battles with Chike (Aku-nna’s future husband) more Aku-nna. After, Okoboshi’s family unit members kidnaps Aku-nna, a recommended community customized, in an attempt to create her Okoboshi’s partner. Shortly after kidnapping the woman, Okoboshi tries to “devirgin” Aku-nna. Whenever Aku-nna basic sees your shortly after this lady has come kidnapped, she sees you to definitely their laugh “had a kind of crookedness about it; as opposed to gracing the centre [sic] out of his deal with, brand new look is actually pulled lopsidedly toward one of his true ears. It absolutely was the smile away from an enthusiastic embittered young buck. The guy disliked the lady, anywhere near this much she may see.”

He could be stronger than she’s, but she outsmarts your. She eyelashes aside that have spoken assaults to their satisfaction. That it world between Okoboshi and you may Aku-nna is actually a crucial part of the story. It is the first-time one to Aku-nna requires a very strong status during the protecting by herself, having fun with everything in her capacity to claim living she wants, instead of the life you to definitely the girl society provides attempted to force for her. Okoboshi, inside regard, signifies everything that Aku-nna finds out repugnant regarding the lady typically men-controlled culture.

Aku-nna Odia

Aku-nna, brand new protagonist inside book, try 13 yrs . old and you can living in brand new Nigerian town Lagos if facts opens. She’s a smart young woman that knows, without being told yourself, you to definitely she is “as well insignificant” throughout the vision from the woman mothers. She’s, after all, just a girl. She’s as well as thin at minutes most susceptible to condition. The girl parents consider her as a keen “ogbanje”-an income deceased. Their mother usually chides the girl from the asking Aku-nna and come up with right up her notice in the event that she is going to alive or pass away. They have a tendency to seems that the thing their mothers get excited in order to, in respect so you’re able to Aku-nna, is the bride to be speed, the price the girl future husband will pay for the girl.

Aku-nna, right from the start of the story, has some questions regarding this lady match.com cost members of the family, their community, and her role in the society. She ponders such issues, but she never ever voices them because within her culture it is sensed tough than simply crappy ways to inquire of her or him, particularly from a girl. But it’s these types of issues one drive Aku-nna while in the that it story. She is into the a quest for answers.

Because if lives when you look at the Lagos, which was still quite influenced by conventional Ibo society, isn’t troublesome adequate, through to the lady dad’s death Aku-nna is actually compelled to deal with also more strict perceptions of these way of life when she’s taken back again to the fresh new family’s ancestral community, Ibuza. Around Aku-nna is usually criticized due to the woman modesty. She does not such as for instance soaking-up new nude in public places. The woman is and criticized because the the woman is allowed to continue her education. But it’s the woman relationship which have Chike, an excellent descendent off a slave, that’s the lady final undoing.

It is which have Chike one Aku-nna feels by far the most comfortable during the asking those individuals questions with troubled her. She describes that have Chike’s part, that’s each other part of the Ibo culture but oddly taken off they meanwhile. Chike is actually the girl teacher in more means than at missionary university you to definitely Aku-nna attends, and you may she drops crazy about your. However, to declare that the girl experience of Chike was the lady last undoing may be also simple. There are many complex factors inside.

By the point Aku-nna transforms ten, she’s xxx accustomed to things about Ibuza community. She finds out about the European indicates in school and you can happens home and confronts the fresh “unchanging way of living from [her] individual individuals.” Yet she actually is never ever able to make by herself feel safe for the sometimes community. Each other Aku-nna along with her cousin are like “powerless fishes caught inside the a websites: they might maybe not … get back with the sea, having they were involved … yet , they were however live once the fisherman try hectic debating within himself if it is actually really worth destroying him or her.” Fundamentally, it is Aku-nna’s failure in order to free herself regarding tangled net of their community one to, at the least for the a good symbolic level, causes this lady passing.