Adah’s Ribs
Imagery is sometimes introduced into the narrative not so much for what it directly concerns, but for what it represents in a more symbolic or metaphorical way. Such an example occurs when Adah goes to a doctor’s office. The time spent waiting is filled with descriptive imagery of the things that she sees there, but it isn’t really about what she is seeing so much as it is about how she feels about a number of different things: “She fixed her eyes on the poster on the wall which said No Smoking and explained how smoking causes lung cancer. There was a drawing of the ribs showing the fluffy lung inside it. Adah wondered whether that was the drawing of a man or woman. How could one tell? Francis had said that men have more ribs than women. And not only did they have more ribs, but that one of a man’s ribs makes all the ribs of a woman. Adah peered again at the drawing of the ribs and concluded that they must be those of a woman. The ribs were too fine, too regular to be a man’s" (99).
A Very London Christmas
Christmas in London, it turns out, is quite different from Christmas in Lagos. And that difference is on display in an example of a clear and efficient use of imagery: “The 24th was cold. For the first time in Adah’s life she had to spend Christmas Eve indoors. It was cold and damp, and there was the white snow. There was not a single masquerade, no fireworks, no bellringing; it was all quiet, just as if Jesus had died, not like the celebration of His birth" (133). This image reminds the reader of the different life Adah has embraced in London, and how the exterior world sometimes mirrors the gloominess of her interior world.
Marriage
Adah feels very different than the young women at the library who talk about fashion and boyfriends. By now her marriage with Francis is already in turmoil, and she thinks, "She would have told them that marriage was not a bed of roses but a tunnel of thorns, fire and hot nails" (44). This powerful, violent image shows how much Adah suffers with Francis.
Nightgown
Adah thinks obsessively about a nightgown for the maternity ward, dreaming of how elegant it will be. The image of this nightgown occupies her brain; she wants something "soft, transparent, and blue" (117), not something with a lot of frills. This image speaks to Adah's desire for something lovely but not garish, something that is "first-class" just like her job.
