Essay Questions

Ali surprises Esi, as the "second wife", with a wedding band. What does this wedding band mean to Esi, and what does it mean to Ali?

The wedding band is a surprise to Esi because wedding bands are not commonly used in polygamous marriages, and when they are, they are generally only given to the first wife. When she asks Ali why he has chosen to give her a wedding band, he tells her that it is to make sure that every other man knows that she is his wife. His view of the wedding band is entirely proprietary and he sees it as a deterrent to other suitors.

Esi sees the wedding band as a symbol of commitment, and this is the part of the equation that Ali does not seem to take into account. For Esi, the wedding band is more a symbol of Ali's desire to do something non-traditional and in his case, give the second wife a wedding band, which is unconventional to say the least. Ali is an extremely traditional man on one hand but one who is desperate to be modern, and to Esi the ring is a symbol of this confusion of intentions within him and also tells her that she has to accept him as he is will all of his jumbled traditional and modern ways, or not accept his proposal in the first place.

There is no such thing as rape within a marriage in Ghana. What does this tell you about the society that Esi is living in?

The fact that there is supposedly no such thing as rape within a marriage tells us that the society is still extremely patriarchal, and that a husband is seen as the owner, rather than the partner, of his wife. There does not seem to be a circumstance under which a woman is able to say no to her husband, but once she is married, he is able to do whatever he wants to her, with no repercussions.

Although there are clearly many positive moves when it comes to the issue of women's rights, and their independence, such as access to education, and the potential to make a good living dependent not on gender but on educational level, there is still so much of a traditional influence in the home that it is impossible for a woman to be as independent within the marriage and the home as she is outside of it.

What is the most traditionally African aspect of Aldoo's writing in the novel?

Throughout the narrative. Aldoo inserts brief lines written to resemble African proverbs, of which there are many. The proverbs are designed to remind the reader of the African context of the novel, and helps us to understand both the differences, and the similarities, between African and Western storytelling traditions.

Within the African culture, the proverb is an important device used to share wisdom through the generations, and it is also a device that enables the teachings of the ancestors to be passed down through future generations. Aldoo uses them prolifically in this novel to combine African and Western literature, inserting the African proverb into the novel form, which is an entirely Western way of telling a story.