WAEC Literature in English 2021 Theory — Question 2

Model answer

Points to develop: relation to theme; character identification; Adah's early life; Adah's life abroad; taking the bull by its horn. The novel explores the theme of gender discrimination and its negative effects on women. Adah, an ordinary Igbo girl, struggles against various forms of discrimination in her male-dominated society. Her father's early death nearly shatters her dream of pursuing education, but she finds support from her paternal uncle. She secretly enrolls herself in school, later marries Francis early and becomes a teen mother, working to support her husband and children while aspiring to travel abroad. In the UK, she faces a cold welcome, a hostile environment, and an abusive, lazy husband, alongside racial discrimination — yet she perseveres, practises birth control, builds her writing dream, and grows in confidence, ultimately deciding on divorce and becoming triumphant by the novel's end.