Book Review: Second Class Citizen authored by Buchi Emecheta

Hi Blurt Community I just finished with this beautiful literature and I made a review. I hope you enjoy it.

As the fight and struggle for equality rages on, this novel 'Second Class Citizen' brings to the light the discrimination and lower status women have been subjected to in the contemporary African Society, it also exposed the evil of racism and how it disadvantaged people of color. Hence the setting in Nigeria and London during the precolonial era. Buchi Emecheta skillfully transcends her readers to live the moment with the various character.

This novel exposes the travails of women and people of color, it tells a story of how certain culture in Africa subdues women and subject them to the absolute control of men. It also mirrored into racism in Western Culture and how it has impacted people of color who were subject to dehumanizing condition.

The story opens up in Lagos State, Nigeria during precolonial era, Buchi Emecheta from the first chapter attacked the Male Child Preference Culture.

' she was a girl who had arrived when everyone was expecting and predicting a boy. So she was such a disappointment to her parents, to her immediate family, to her tribe, nobody thought of recording her birth. She was so insignificant'.
This perfectly couches the title Second Class Citizen as women from the onset of their birth are deemed inferior especially when they come before the male. Buchi Emecheta used the Protagonist to display the travails of women in a male dominated society.

'Even though Adah was about eight, there were still discussions about whether it would be wise to send her to school. Even if she was sent to school it was very doubtful whether it would be wise to let her stay long' .

This extract is a clear representation of what so many female children go through, deprived of quality education simply because of their gender. To couch it all Adah's younger brother started school before her meanwhile Adah at the age of eight was deprived of quality education.

It doesn't matter how smart or brilliant a girl child was, by societal standard she was meant for the kitchen, to satisfy her husband and to not have a mind of her own. The girl child is not supposed to dream big. Despite the odds against her, she was an embodiment of a strong, independent woman who never fell for self pity and she realized this at an early age. Determined to attend school, she sneaked out of the house shabbily dressed vowing to attend school. She even stole her Dad's broken slate so she can have something to write on.

Despite the struggles she came out top doing better than her male counterpart, she got a high paying job nobody expected this. After all she was and not supposed to achieve this height.
Despite all these achievement she was not accorded the same equal status as a man. Adah got married to Francis a weakling and failure. Though Adah was the breadwinner of her marital home her husband treated her with contempt. After all it is a men's world.
Mirroring on the issue of male superiority Buchi Emecheta depicted that such culture was prevalent irrespective of ones society. Moving to London Adah faced not only the issue of sexism but also racism. She couldn't travel to London or rent a house in London with proof she was married. I bet this came as a shock that it was not just an African thing.

She couldn't have access to birth control pills unless she had her husbands approval, a lazy, selfish, womanzing vagabond who was nothing but a leech sucking the life out of his wife. In London black people couldn't get a good job, good housing infact they were constantly being reminded of their blackness. It was common to see adverts of House Vacancy with colored people not allowed bodly written. At one point Adah had to use a fake accent to sound white so as to get a vacant room.

Contrasting Adah with her Husband Francis Buchi Emecheta portrays gender has nothing to do with strength but will power. Despite the odds against her, Adah always come up on top which was a huge contrast to Francis who was in a constant state of complaining about everything while doing nothing. It came to a point Adah realized that she doesn't need a man to define her or what she can achieve. She decided to walk away from it, the constant abuse she received from her husband, the position the society subjected her not only just as a woman but also as a person color. She was going to rise above it all.

Second Class Citizen is a must read for lovers of beautiful literature. You can grab a copy at bookstores near you or with a click you can download this beautiful piece on Light Reader App.