Your essay should be 900-1000 words (3-4 pages double-spaced).
It should be carefully edited before you turn it in. Format papers with
Times New Roman, 12 point, 1-inch margins, double-spaced.
General Guidelines:
This essay asks you to consider how Buchi Emecheta addresses the doubly marginalized position of black British women in Second Class Citizen. Please use the following prompts to begin brainstorming about the text. Your task is to formulate your own argument, one that is manageable in 3-4 pages, and to provide textual evidence that supports it. You do not need to consult any other sources. But if you do, you should include an MLA “Works Cited” page. Please let me know if have any questions about citations, because I do not want you to inadvertently copy or paraphrase an online text without citing it.
1.) How does Emecheta address the psychological effects of racism in Second Class Citizen? At what points in the book does Adah come the closest to accepting her marginalized status in England as a “second-class citizen?” What distinguishes her from other black characters who succumb to these psychological pressures (e.g., Francis, Mr. Noble, her Yoruba neighbors, etc.)?
2.) Consider the epiphany that Adah has during her stay in the hospital following her caesarian section. How does this experience alter her perspective on living as a black woman in England? To what extent (if at all) does she identify with the white women in the hospital ward? To what extent (if at all) does she feel alienated from them?
3.) Anticipating the concept of intersectionality, Emecheta underscores her protagonist’s doubly marginalized position in an interview that aired on British television in 1975. As she puts it herself, “In our [Nigerian] society, women are second-class citizens, and coming here [to the United Kingdom], she [Adah] becomes a double second-class citizen, because she’s black as well.” How does Emecheta develop this argument in Second Class Citizen? Which passages speak most powerfully to this point?
4.) Evaluate the following statement about Adah’s husband: “Francis was not a bad man, just a man who could no longer cope with the over-demanding society he found himself in” (101). To what extent (if at all) does Emecheta’s depiction of Francis support this claim? Why does she maintain that he is fundamentally a good person? How have his experiences in Nigeria and/or England affected his view of women? How much sympathy (if any) does he deserve as a black man who faces struggles of his own in “the over-demanding society he found himself in” following immigration?
