Theme in Growing My Hair Again by Chica Unigwe
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Our new story is "Growing My Hair Again" past Chika Unigwe. It'southward in our album One World: A Global Anthology of Brusk Stories. You can also detect it online at the post-obit link: https://nollyculture.blogspot.com/201...She has a keen webpage at chikaunigwe.com which gives more biographical information than we have in the album.
Equally I read this, I thought of "Kelemo's Woman", i of our get-go stories in the anthology which was also written by a Nigerian author. In that story, I wanted the woman to survive through her own skills instead of attaching herself to a progression of powerful men. In this story, I thought virtually how tenuous the narrator'southward safety net was after her husband's death. It all depends on her son. What happens if the son dies? The boutique, her source of income, goes to someone else and she's out on the street again, I would guess. I want her to be able to survive on her own merits just similar what I wanted for Kelemo's woman. But, how possible is that? They both simply need to stay off of the precipice.
It's also interesting how some of the older women become as oppressive as the powerful men in these stories. They have grown upwardly under one set of beliefs and limitations and they want this organisation to remain. Otherwise, it hurts their status inside the social arrangement. And, because of that organization, their status is all they have. It feels similar a boulder on everyone's back.
Yesterday, I went to a Women'southward Equality Day luncheon and one speaker commented that nosotros need to remember that this is an international trouble. Information technology certainly is!
I liked this story, Barb. When the young wife laughed at her mother-in-law at the stop, I inwardly cheered her on. At the aforementioned fourth dimension, I worried about her future in this family. It was entirely conceivable to me that the family would connive to take her son away from her throw her out, but apparently she had tradition on her side.It was impossible for her to confront her married man directly because he was so much stronger, but she managed to fight dorsum in her own mode past having her tubes tied. At that place was a lot of strength in this young girl.
The emotionally and sometimes physically abusive mother in law seems to have been very common in traditional Chinese and Indian societies as well. After enduring such abuse as young wives, they seemed to detect satisfaction in inflicting it on others one time their condition as the female parent of the male heir had been assured.
Yeah Barb and Ann, I agree. The rising laughter at the end is a triumph. Yes, the widow'due south state of affairs is still precarious and hinges on the survival of her son. But the adult female is smart and educated, smart enough to have her tubes tied secretly. Under lodge's boot-heel, she shows a remarkable amount of control-- enough control, practice yous remember, to take engineered Okpala's death as declared by her Mother in law? Hmmm... I forgot about her university degree, Kenneth. It was in sociology. The subject matter was not exactly a marketable skill, just she was definitely educated and seemed capable of running her husband's boutique.Whoa - I did not think about her being behind the robbery and murder of her husband, but I retrieve she would have been capable of information technology. Having her tubes tied without anyone knowing showed her stiff conclusion and willingness to have risks.
The mother in law kept berating her that her behavior would make people think that she didn't love her hubby. Yep, at least she got that correct. That was the idea.
I liked the role pilus played in this story. The female parent-in-police force's hair was wispy and sparse. The wife gloried in her cute pilus, and during the three months between the expiry and the funeral, she delighted in having hairdressers change her hairstyles every mean solar day. She knew her hair would exist shaved off, merely besides that information technology would grow dorsum. There was a futurity for her.
Nice post Ann. I like the way you linked the growth of her hair with her future. That gives me more confidence in her success down the route. Oh, I like that observation most her pilus too, Ann. And, I similar the idea that she might have engineered Okpala'due south death, Ken. Information technology makes me stop worrying most how vulnerable she is in that civilization. She may rise above it after all! 
I don't actually have anything to add to the give-and-take, but wanted to say that I enjoyed this story -- especially the narrator's vocalization. And I totally expected to find out she had engineered her husband's death. Wow, why didn't that occur to me when I beginning read it? I've been wanting these women to have control of their lives and now it looks like she did and very decisively. 
I am catching up with our short stories whist y'all are all having a weekend gather in San Clemente! Of grade information technology reminded me of living in Nigeria and the inordinate amount of time women spend on their hair there - believe me 7 hours is not an exaggeration! especially if extensions are in have to be taken out, and new unlike ones fixed.
And therein lies what I really similar well-nigh the story - it takes something that all Nigerian women, and many others, will chronicle to namely their hair - and makes information technology work for regrowth in all in senses of the give-and-take - for the 'new' generation, for a different, more independent future, not tied to the traditions of the past - shaving widows hair off, long fatigued out wailing funerals, then she will not be like her female parent in law. However to do this she has had to "play" the arrangement - she has suffered an calumniating married man, had a son - so lucky- but been independent plenty through eduction to take had coin and a business. Yep its is optimistic in i respect. and keen that she has the concluding laugh at her female parent in laws expense.
Simply I tin't help thinking how her son volition grow up, he saw The Paw in action, he may well grew up to be yet another Mitt.
Also in that location is a tendency for some women in Nigeria to "milk" men for coin etc is a worrying one, stemming from ingrained inequality, sexual favour exploitation at school , college, univ, work, accomodation spheres of life.
No I didn't read it as she had insitigated and planned the armed robbery , just that her mother-in-law idea she had and that merely considering she did non similar her, not that she really realised but how capable she was, that she had had her "tubes tied" but I practise concord she might well have been ruthless enough to do it!
Glad to see you lot dorsum here, Sheila! I was looking forward to your accept on this.I think your paragraph virtually the son copying his begetter's behavior and the things women take learned to do to survive is an of import one. The son will not but retrieve the Hand only will also imitate the other males that he sees. And, though I sympathise with the plight of the women, I am itching for them to get out and make a long term distance in their culture (like shooting fish in a barrel for me to say, I know).
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