Second Class Citizen by Buchi Emecheta
Background and setting of the novelist/novel, and plot summary of the novel
Subject: Literature-in-English
Theme:
Topic: Second Class Citizen by Buchi Emecheta
Sub Topic:
Date: dd/mm/yyyy
Class: S.S 1
Average Age: 14 years and above
Duration: 40 Minutes
No of Learners: 40
Learning Objectives:
By the end of the lesson learners should be able to:1. State the background of the novelist.
Background of the novelist. Buchi Emecheta was born in Lagos, Nigeria. Her father, a railway worker, died when she was very young. At the age of 10, she won a scholarship to the Methodist Girl's High School. But by the time she was 17, she had left school, married and had a child. She accompanied her husband to London, when he was a student. Aged 22, she finally left him and took an honours degree in Sociology while supporting her five children and writing in the early morning. Her first book, "In the Ditch" details her experience as a poor single parent in London followed by "SECOND CLASS CITIZEN".She was the author of more than 20 books, including Second Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Most of her early novels were published by Allison and Busby, where her editor was Margaret Busby.
Emecheta's themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education gained recognition from critics and honours. She once described her stories as "stories of the world, where women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical." Her works explore the tension between tradition and modernity. She has been characterized as "the first successful black woman novelist living in Britain after 1948".
2. Explain The Background setting of the Novel
Second Class Citizen (1976) by Buchi Emecheta is set in Lagos, Nigeria during World War II, and is about a woman called Adah and her marriage to Francis. Although life initially seems rosy for Adah, things turn sour when it becomes clear that Francis is physically and emotionally abusive.
3. Explain the plot summary of the novel
PLOT SUMMARYAdah Ofili the protagonist, is a child of an Ibo from Ibuza, Nigeria, living in Lagos. She was born during the second world war. As a girl, the parents thought she did not need western education while her younger brother Boy is sent to school. Adah forced herselfinto Methodist School where Mr. Cole, their neighbor was a teacher. Her decision got Ma arrested by the police who taught it is absurd for a parent to deliberately refuse to encourage her child to go to school. Adah dreams as a young girl of moving to the United Kingdom. After her father dies, Ma remarries and Adah is sent to live with her Uncle's family. She is subjected to different challenges, from being treated like a slave by her uncle's children to doing a lot of rigorous house chores before going to school and when she was out of school, she is being pressured to get married.
Against all odds, She stays in school in Nigeria and attains employment working for the British embassy as a library clerk The compensation from this job is enough to make her a desirable bride to Francis and in-laws. Francis being conservative believes in the Igbo culture of denigrating women, he believes he is his wife's boss and doesn't believe that man's primary duty is to cater to his immediate family.
Francis travels to the United Kingdom for several years to the study of law. Adah became the breadwinner, mother, wife, and her children's minder but never gets love from her husband. Adah convinces her husband's family that she and the children also belong in the UK.
When she arrives in the UK, the place she had thought they would have a good environment to live, read and bring up their children In love and peace turned to a misplaced hope. Francis believes they are second-class citizens in the United Kingdom as they are not citizens of the country. Adah finds employment working for another library and pays for their expenses, while also providing primary care for their children.
As all these were ongoing, Francis degenerated into becoming increasingly abusive to his wife Adah and the children. Francis resents Mr. Okpara, a fellow Igbo in England, who reminds him that a man who didn't care about his children's upbringing will soon realize that he will lose his manhood. He is also dismissive of Adah as she pursues becoming a writer. The climax of Francis's wickedness is when he burns Adah's manuscripts for her book that she describes as her brainchild. This turns out to be the last straw that broke the camel's back Adah walked away from her marriage with nothing but her children and the fifth pregnancy.
4. Character Analysis of the novel
Major Character
1. ADAH OFILI: Adah is born in Lagos in the 1940s and seeks a better life. She insists on becoming educated. In fact, she sneaks away from home, marries, and moves to the United Kingdom in order to do so. Even though her husband keeps insisting that they are second-class citizens in London, Adah focuses on fighting for her rights and the rights of her children. She eventually leaves her husband to become independent.2. FRANCIS OBI: The other main character is Francis Obi. He is a poor student in Lagos who Adah marries because she thinks the match will ensure her education. Francis Obi is originally an instrument in helping Adah achieve her dreams by moving the family to London, but it becomes apparent that Francis is not a good match for Adah when he insists on labeling the family as lower class and destroys Adah's manuscript.
Minor Character
1. MR. OFILI: is also a minor character until he "never returns" from the hospital. It is then that Adah's uncle becomes her guardian.2. MRS. OFILI: is an important minor character in that she is accused of neglect when Adah sneaks off to go to school.
3. VICTOR: Adah Ofili's sickly son, Victor (who becomes the impetus for Adah to find better care for her children). Victor becomes sick because of the conditions in his day-care situation, so Adah fights to have him receive better care while she works. On Christmas, Victor becomes sick again and, when she cannot convince the Indian doctor to come, she convinces a Chinese doctor to tend to her child. Both doctors are also minor characters.
4. BABALOLA: He came to London to study just like the Obis. Initially he was unmarried and on a northern Nigerian scholarship although he was not doing any studies. He has lots of money on him being on scholarship. He has a glossy flat and is always “entertaining”. His only philosophy of life is to live for today while Allah “would take care of the future”. After a while, the source of Babalola money is cut out and it stops flowing. His friends gradually disappear when they discovers he is getting poorer. He moves from the highbrow area he has living in Ashdown Street in Kentish town to a much more modest area. Babalola takes Janet, a sixteen years old p[regnant English girl home and begins to entertain his few remaining friends with her until they both fall in love. after her first pregnancy with the west Indian boy, she gets pregnant for Babalola and they live as husband and wife. his decision to make Janet all his, turns his friends against him. it was he who connected Adah to Trudy, the child minder.
5. Mr BARKING: Mr. Barking is Adah boss at the chalk farm library. He is said to be thin and ill- tempered. His daughter got married to a worthless fellow, whose marriage he is determined to end even if it would cost him his life. because of the poor marriage, Mr. Barking daughter turns mentally ill. Mr. Barking had a wife about whom he hardly discusses. Yet it is his wife who makes the sandwiches he brings to the workplace and which he apparently enjoys. He does not like to join in the light hearted talk in the library and always keeps to himself. It is assumed that he likes to be alone because of talks about his daughter.
6. NURSE: She is the nurse with the soft voice who told Adah to go home from the hospital where Vicky had been admitted for virus meningitis disease. Adah refuses to leave the Royal Free Hospital premises as she has been advised by the nurse. She dozes off on the wooden bench. When she wakes up, it is this beautiful nurse she meets again. Because of her insistence on not going, the nurse ask Adah if Vicky was her only child.
7. BILL: He is a big handsome Canadian. He is said to look down on anything English which is why he flies in anything he needs from home. He uses the word Britisher for the English as if he were an American and would not study for the British library association examination. A year earliar, he married Eileen, the children librarian whom the narrator described as “tall and beautiful, a more perfect match you could imagine”. Bills knows a little about everything. He likes black writes while she Adah only knows Chinua Achebe and flora Nwapa for whom bill reproach her for being an intelligent black girl with little knowledge of her own people. Adah aggress with him and liked him as a result. He is an intelligent man and talks about authors and their new books, especially during breaks. Bill always read new books before others. James Baldwin books taught Adah that black is beautiful. James confirms this belief to be true.
Bill is Adah first real friend outside her family. She trust his judgements just as she had trusted her late dad. as bill flat becomes smaller because he and his wife are expecting their third child, he thinks of returning to England to ward off his mother desire to marry a certain girl.
Bill is the first person to discover the writer in Adah. He rates her manuscript, the bride prize, rather highly. He calls the manuscript Adah’s brainchild.
8. BOY: Boy is Adah’s younger brother. There is no evidence that there are other siblings. He is favored to go to school more than Adah. When Adah is not allowed to go to school, she is asked to take boy to lad- lak instituite. When Adah is about to leave in the oriel for England, boy in a brown African robe that was too big for him “starts to cry. wiping his eyes with a velvet hat”.(p36) in her travail in England Adah regrets her parents are not around nor boy who was “miles away and could not help”.p133. Boy “never liked Francis”. We are informed that boy “knew even before Adah found out that Francis look like those men who feed off women because of their good looks”. (p161) when francis heats up his relationship with adah, boy sends the sister all his savings asking her to leave frsncis and his children and come back to Nigeria where her work at the consulate would be waiting for her.
5. Explain the theme of the novel
1. Marriage Without Love:Many chapters later into the story, Adah admits to herself thus: "She knew she was not loved, and was being used to give Francis an education which the family could not afford”
2. Racism and prejudice:
The novel presents many examples of the discrimination that affects Adah because she is Black.
3. Gender roles and misogyny:
Adah is denied education and independence by society in both Nigeria an UK and her husband due to her gender.
4. Motherhood:
Though motherhood presents a burden for Adah as the sole earner of her household with francis, she also feels deep love for and commitment to her children.
5. Immigration:
Second Class Citizen paints a realistic portrait of the struggles of immigration.
6. Explain the style of the novel
The novel is narrated primarily in third-person omniscient point-of-view, with the focus almost exclusively on the protagonist, Adah Ofili-Obi. The narrator tells Adah's story as she grows up from precocious child to young adult and emigrates from Nigeria to England, presenting her thoughts and feelings as she contends with numerous conflicts. In the early chapters, the narrator effectively captures the voice of a child as Adah struggles to convince her parents to allow her to attend school. “If not for Ma, Pa would have seen to it that I started school with Boy”, she thinks, making it clear that she prefers her mother to her father because he is generally more permissive. The narrator adopts a congenial tone, employing casual language like, “You know” (7), and editorializing about Adah's life with statements like “The day's work! Jesus! Her day started at four-thirty in the morning”.Rationale:
One important medium adopted by most writers to make literature a true imitation of life is in the use of characters/casts/dramatic personae. In identifying characters in a literary piece; the reader must take into cognizance what a character says, what other characters in and around him say about him, his physiological makeup, what drives and motivates him and finally the ironies and contrast associated with his action and inaction which invariably affect the growth and changes seen in him as the literary piece progresses to its climax. The socio-political context of work of arts must also be identified so as to have a good understanding of the work, as well as the historical background of the work of the author should be taken into consideration for a better appreciation.Prerequisite/ Previous knowledge:
Storyings, songs, history etc.Learning Resources:
Flash cards, an audio video youtube examples, Available useful objects.Reference Materials:
J.O.J. Nwachukwu et al: Exam Focus: Literature-in-English 2021-2025Tony Duru: Standard Literature-in-English
Internet.
Second Class Citizen by Buchi Emecheta
Lesson Development:
STAGE |
TEACHER'S ACTIVITY |
LEARNER'S ACTIVITY |
LEARNING POINTS |
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| STEP 1: PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE full class session (3 mins) |
The teacher Introduces the lesson by asking questions based on previous knowledge; Define the following literature terms 1. What is folktale? 2. What is fable? 3. What is epic? 4. What is ballad? 5. What is romance? 6. What is medieval? 7. What is trayelogues? 8. What is a memoir? 9. What is patronage system? 10. What is science-fiction? |
The students respond to the questions based on previous knowledge. 1. Folktale is a traditional story of a particular community 2. Fable is a story that usually teaches some moral. 3. Epic is a long poem telling the story of gods and great persons. 4. Ballad is a short story told in the form of a poem 5. Romance is a story of love, adventure, strange happenings etc. 6. Medieval is an era betwtcn 1100 A.D. and 1500 A.D. (approximately). 7. Trayelogues is a wrilten accounts of travel 8. Memoir is a book in which one writes about people one knows and events that one remembers 9. Patronage system is a system in which writers get help and financial support from influential and wealthy persons 10. Science-fiction is a stories that deals with imaginary Cuture dcvclopmcnts in science and their effect on life |
Reversing previous lesson |
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| STEP 2: INTRODUCTION full class session (3 mins) Identification of prior ideas. |
The teacher review/introduce what they are going to study. In Second Class Citizen, Adah is highly aware of the roles gender and education have played in her life. In Nigeria, parents often tend to send boys to school and push girls towards marriage. The main reason for this is because, as Naminata Diabate noted in her PhD on West African literature and culture, “patriarchal cultures typically stigmatize female sexuality as inferior… unclean” intended only for “fertility and procreation” (2, 4). Emecheta utilizes Adah’s sex life to highlight this cultural attitude towards female value. Adah doesn’t indicate she enjoys any aspect of sex; sex is depicted as oppressive, weighing her down because she is constantly getting pregnant. This is evident, for example, when Francis speaks to her about the Bible and the virtuous duties of a woman, and “he [gets] excited” (98). Francis’s sexuality is a weapon against her, as she has no right to refuse the sexual advances of her husband. Diabate also notes that not only do women experience social pressure to give birth, but they also bear the responsibility of producing male children (45). This is mainly due to the higher social value placed on boys over girls, which is evident when Adah gives birth to her first child, a girl, and is given the “is that all look?” despite having a “long and painful ordeal” (112). Growing up, I noticed that once a woman had a child she was no longer referred to by her given name but became “Mummy X”. Emecheta uses themes of family and womanhood to critique how for Nigerian women identity is tied to their womb, their husband, and their children: there is no room for individuality. We see Adah having one child after another, unable to pursue her dreams of writing until the very last chapter of the book. |
The students listen attentively to the teacher. | Introducing the topic for discussion. |
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| STEP 3: DEVELOPMENT Group Work (2 mins) |
The teacher guides the learners to form four groups and asks them to choose their leaders and secretaries. | Learners choose their group leaders and secretaries. | Inculcating leadership skills, competitive spirit, cooperation, teamwork and a sense of responsibility among learners. |
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| STEP 4: EXPLORATION 3 mins Mode: Individual |
The teacher presents to the class the instructional resources and leads the students
to air their views on them. Thereafter, the teacher guides the students to explain the background setting of the novel. |
The students explain the background setting of the novel BACKGROUND SETTING OF THE NOVEL 'Second Class Citizen' is a 1974 novel by Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta, first published in London by Allison and Busby. It was subsequently published in the US by George Braziller in 1975. The novel is a poignant 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, with the journey from Nigeria to London following closely Emecheta's trajectory as an author. |
Background setting of the Novel. |
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| STEP 5: DISCUSSION 5 mins. Mode: Group |
The teacher guides the learners to explain the background setting of the novelist. | The students explain the background setting of the novelist. Buchi Emecheta was born on 21 July 1944, in Lagos, Nigeria, to Igbo parents, Alice (Okwuekwuhe) Emecheta and Jeremy Nwabudinke. Her parents were from Umuezeokolo Odeanta village in Ibusa, Delta State. Her father was a railway worker and moulder. Due to the gender bias of the time, the young Emecheta was initially kept at home while her younger brother was sent to school; but after persuading her parents to consider the benefits of her education, she spent her early childhood at an all-girls' missionary school. When she was nine years old her father died ("of complications brought on by a wound contracted in the swamps of Burma, where he had been conscripted to fight for Lord Louis Mountbatten and the remnants of the British Empire"). A year later, Emecheta received a full scholarship to Methodist Girls' School in Yaba, Lagos, where she remained until the age of 16. During this time, her mother died, leaving Emecheta an orphan. In 1960, she married Sylvester Onwordi, a schoolboy to whom she had been engaged since she was 11 years old. Later that year, she gave birth to a daughter, and in 1961 their younger son was born. Onwordi immediately moved to London to attend a university, and Emecheta joined him there with their first two children in 1962. She gave birth to five children in six years, three daughters and two sons. Her marriage was unhappy and sometimes violent, as chronicled in her autobiographical writings such as 1974's Second-Class Citizen. To keep her sanity, Emecheta wrote in her spare time. However, her husband was deeply suspicious of her writing, and he ultimately burned her first manuscript, as revealed in The Bride Price, eventually published in 1976. That was her first book, but she had to rewrite it after the first version had been destroyed. She later said: "There were five years between the two versions.”At the age of 22, pregnant with her fifth child, Emecheta left her husband. While working to support her children alone, she earned a B.Sc. (Hons) degree in Sociology in 1972 from the University of London. In her 1984 autobiography, Head above Water, she wrote: "As for my survival for the past twenty years in England, from when I was a little over twenty, dragging four cold and dripping babies with me and pregnant with a fifth one—that is a miracle." She went on to gain her PhD from the university in 1991. |
The background setting of the novelist. |
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| STEP 6: APPLICATION 4 mins Mode: Group |
The Teacher guides the students to explain the plot summary of the novel. | The students explain the plot summary of the novel. Adah Ofili the protagonist, is a child of an Ibo from Ibuza, Nigeria, living in Lagos. She war born during the second world war. AS a girl, the parents thought she did not need western education while her younger brother Boy is rent to school. Adah forced herself into Methodist School where Mr. Cole, their neighbor was a teacher. Her decision got Ma arrested by the police who taught it is absurd for a parent to deliberately refuse to encourage her child to go to school. Adah dreams as a young girl of moving to the United Kingdom. After her father dies, Ma remarries and Adah is sent to live with her Uncle's family. She is subjected to different challenger, from beingtreated like a slave by her uncle's children to doing a lot of rigorour house chores before going to school and when she was out of school, she is being pressured to get married. Against all odds, She stay in school in Nigeria and attains employment working for the British embassy as a Iibrary cIerk. The compenration from this job is enough to make her a desirable bride to Francis and in-law. Francis being conservative belives in the Igbo culture of denigrating women, he believer he is his wife's bass and doesn't believe that man's primany duty is to cater to his immediate family. Francis travels to the United Kingdom for several years to the study of law. Adah became the breadwinner, mother, wife, and her children's minder but never gets love from her husband. Adah convinces her hurband's family that she and the children also belong in the UK. When she arrives in the UK, the place she had thought they would have a good environment to live. read and bring up their children in love and peace turned to a misplaced hope. Francis believes they are second class citizens in the United Kingdom as they are not citizens of the country. Adah finds employment working for another library and pays for their expenses, while also providing primary care for their children. AS all there were ongoing, Francis degenerated into becoming increasingly abusive to his wife Adah and the children. Francis resents Mr.Okpara, a fellow Igbo in England, who reminds him that a man who didn't care about his children's upbringing will soon realize that he will lose his manhood. He is also dismissive of Adah as she pursues becoming a writer. The climax of Francis's wickedness is when he burns Adah's manuscripts for her book that she describer as her brainchild. This turns out to be the straw that broke the camel's back Adah walked away from her marriage with nothing but her children and the fifth pregnancy. |
Being able to explain the plot summary of the novel. |
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| STEP 7: EVALUATION Mode: Entire Class 5 mins |
The teacher asks the students the following questions: 1. What is the the background setting of the novel and novelist? 2. List the major and Minor Characters in the novel. 3. List the theme of the novel. |
The students expected answers 'Second Clarr Citizen' is a 1974 novel by Nigerian writer Buchi Emechata first published in London by Allison and Burby. It was subsequently published in the US by George Braziller in 1975. The novel is a poignant story of a resourceful Nigerian woman who overcomer 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, with the journey from Nigeria to London following closely Emecheta's trajectory as an author. 2. Major characters are: a. ADAH OFILI b. FRANCIS OBI Minor characters are: i. MR. OFILI ii. MRS. OFILI iii. VICTOR iv. BABALOLA v. Mr BARKING vi. NURSE vii. BILL viii. BOY 3. The theme of the novel include: i. Marriage Without Love ii. Racism and prejudice iii. Gender roles and misogyny iv. Motherhood v. Immigration vi. Child slavery vii. Female independence viii. Freedom through education |
Asking the learners questions to assess the achievement of the set objectives. |
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| ASSIGNMENT | The teacher gives learners take home Write chapter by chapter analysis of the novel. |
The learners copy the assignment | Better understanding of the novel "Second Class Citizen" by Buchi Emecheta. |
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| CONCLUSION 2 mins |
The teachers wrap up from the learners' contribution on the Theme of Marriage Without Love. The marriage between Adah and Francis is not founded on genuine love. Both of them seem to have stuck to each other on the basis of convenience. Adah sticks to Francis as she has no relative kind enough to take her in. In short, Adah had no home to call her own, and she needed "not just any home... but a good quiet atmosphere where she could study in peace” (p.25). Thus Francis' appearance on the scene is seen by Adah as a blessing. We are told that “Adah congratulated herself on her marriage” (p. 25). To her, Francis is a quiet young man, one who will soon be an accountant. The marriage itself starts on a wrong footing. Both of them, Francis and Adah are underage. The marriage is witnessed by only one person - Francis' mother who signs with her thumb. The couple forgets to bring a ring to the wedding. When the registry official insists on a ring, "Adah assured him that a piece of string would do registry, "they were married the following day" (p. 26). Until they got home" (pp. 25-26). It is Adah's saddest day because rather than be wedded that day in the Francis seems to have been more interested in the fact that Adah will bring money into the house, although he fears for the marriage if she works for the Americans where her salary "will be three times aliyowen (p. 26). Such is the tripty for a day's pay that she is said to have needed a protection on her first pay day. Francis fulfils that purpose by working “only half day in his office" and then taking "a bus to meet Adah in order to be a bodyguard for his wife and their money" (p. 26). The first sign of the apartness to come is in Francis leaving for England without being bothered by his wife remaining behind. Secondly, Adah feels cheated, being left in Nigeria: “so she was to stay in Nigeria, finance her husband, give his parents expensive gifts occasionally, help in paying the school fees for some of the girls, look after her young children and what then, rot?” Thirdly, for not having wept on the day of the husband's departure, Francis, still on his way to England, writes her from Barcelona: "You did not cry for me... You were very happy to see me go, were you not?" Fourthly, she is accused of not appearing in my send-off photograph” (p. 34). All these accusations and observations show that love is scanty in the relationship. Many chapters later into the story, Adah admits to herself thus: "She knew she was not loved, and was being used to give Francis an education which the family could not afford” (p. 137). The question such as "Had she loved Francis to start with?" and the answer, "the love was short- lived because Francis did nothing to keep it alive” (p. 137) evince the fact that the marriage lacked the essential nutrient identified as love from the very beginning. |
The students listen to the teacher and copy down notes. | Consolidating and harmonizing scientific concepts. |