By Ikechukwu Otuu Egbuta
Chika Unigwe’s novel, The Middle Daughter, portrays a very unique aspect of the discursive formations. The narrative is a powerful tale that explores themes of resilience, family bonds, betrayal, and the pursuit of justice. It delves into the darkest and most unpredictable corners of human nature, obi mmadu, man’s heart, while emphasizing the strength and courage of its protagonist character, Nani, the middle daughter, as she strives to overcome the deaths of her elder sister, and father, Udodi and Doda, rape, pregnancy, childbirth, forced marriage, poverty, adversity, and reclaims her life. More so, Unigwe mentions government that removes oil subsidy which makes the price of everything rise overnight. This adds to the thematic overtures of her narrative oeuvre and brings her to the stable of great writers, like George Orwell, whose novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949, gave an insight into what the human society could be thirty-five years after.
Unigwe’s The Middle Daughter is a gripping novel that follows the lives of three daughters and their parents as they navigate through tragedy, betrayal, and the pursuit of justice, and it is through Knitting the scatter-effect of the narrative plot that the reader grasps the novel as a whole and grasp it along with other narrative nuances in order to make open the strategy of sense making which makes the novel a great work of art. Preceded by a quotation from Book V, Ovid’s The Metamorphoses translated by Henry T. Riley, the novel traces the story of the middle daughter, Nani, one of the three daughters, Udodi, Nani, and Ugo, growing up in a close-knit family. Instead of the conventional chapter by chapter delineation, using Udodi, the Chorus, to precede major actions as they affect Nani; Unigwe’s craftsmanship and unique story telling technique find expression in her use of quotations from Anyanachi Ogu and Igbo proverb to precede Part Two (The Present, 2014) and Part Three (The Beginning) respectively. By so doing, Unigwe, has most alluringly weaved together the present, past, and the beginning into an array of first person point of view through modest interventions and intermingling of characters’ voices along the narrative line.
Unigwe’s narrative maneuver is interestingly what heightens the suspense. There are expectations of quality from the reader before delving in to the novel. The story is told in the first person point of view, but, the arrays of light flashing through the present and the beginning not only give credence to this novelistic story telling tradition but also tickle one into alert at the deliberate twist of meaning between what constitutes the present in part one and the beginning in part three of the novel. “Part One” of the novel had read, “I fear the man who is my husband. The mattress heaves every time I turn, unable to sleep. The darkness outside is absolute, as if someone has upended a bottle of ink. A darkness that swallows up light” (5). Whilst there is a resonance of that first sentence in “Part Three,” unlike despair and “darkness that swallows up light” the return is accompanied with a message of hope, great determination, and freedom, “I fear the man who is my husband. Finally the doubts have subsided, the tossing and turning in bed has ceased, and in their place is a certain calm of having finally come to a decision. I am at peace” (291). Unigwe brings to bear her fine intellect and novel narrative style when Nani recalls how close she is to her father, who the children call Doda, “our mother is somewhere in the house but it is Doda that we seek out. It was always Doda. It was with him that I felt the safest. Even now, when he’s no longer here, I will not go to Mother” (5). As the plot of the story draws to its denouement, Nani’s mother, in “The Portrait of a Family” told her “your father left you money in his will” which makes Nani reaffirms the love and unbreakable filiation with her father, “even from beyond the grave Doda is watching out for me, making sure that I am safe” (315).
Describing the middle daughter, Nani, the narrative voice says that she is always willing to please, “the Patron Saint of the amenable. Yet, hard at the edges, hardness so well concealed in the soft folds of her body she forgot sometimes that it belonged to her” (13). The narrative voice observes, “Three girls. Udodi was the beginning, I was the middle daughter, Ugo the conclusion…imagine this: three girls. A father. A mother. The house smells of loving. And living” (7-11).This family leads a relatively peaceful and average life until tragedy strikes when Udodi, the eldest daughter, goes abroad to study and tragically dies in a car accident. The sudden loss leaves the family devastated, forever altering their lives. Meanwhile, their father battles a long and arduous fight with cancer. His illness casts a shadow over the family, bringing them face-to-face with their mortality and forcing them to confront their deepest fears and regrets. After their father’s death, Nani could not believe that Ugo and Mother have continued to live their lives at ease which caused “the knots” in her neck “untied themselves” (40). The vacuum that Udodi’s death created in Nani is even made wider by her nonchalant mother and “a good as it goes” younger sister, Ugo. After Udodi died, before the silence, “there has been an awkwardness” between Nani and them, as narrated by Nani, “after a while something folded inside me and made me seek my own company more and more. Mother was too busy-busy with her job at the hospital, with her friends, with her meetings, with getting on with life, to notice. Mother and Ugo were alike in that way” (24).
The self-isolation of Nani endears her into the metaphorical meaning of her name which can be literally translated as, only my “chi” guides me, Nanichimdum. Whether her “chi” guides her aright is a question to be answered in the unfolding event as she experiences a harrowing ordeal when she becomes a victim to a manipulative and deceitful fake evangelist, Ephraim. Subsequently, the itinerant preacher, Ephraim, had said he brought her good news and enquired if she knows “Jesus, the son of God?” (44). Ephraim’s deception brings to mind Banquo’s skepticism of the witches as he told Macbeth in Act 1, Scene 3 of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, “and often times, to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray us in deepest consequence” (lines 135-138). Nani does not know that her meeting with Ephraim is not an ordinary happenstance, as the sanctimonious preacher who is described as being “sufficiently versed in the mocking ways of the rich” (50) devices ways to deceive her using the name of God. As the audience encounters Ephraim meditating, the following excerpt reads:
From the premier day when the compass of the Lord directed my trajectory to her and her beauty consumed me like a huge conflagration, I settled the matter within me that my wandering eyes would cease to cast themselves upon others. Nani’s beauty is coruscating like the morning sun, succulent like a ripe tomato. She is more beautiful than the roses in her garden. Her lips are like those of a siren. When she opens her mouth I want to fall inside it and construct an abode for myself. Mon Dieu! I cannot respire (49).
From the above excerpt, the audience could deduce the amorous thought in Evangelist Ephraim’s heart, ihe di na obi mmadu erika, the improbable heart of human. More so, he concludes that “I shall remain assiduous until I have conquered her and we have made our connubial vows” (51). Ephraim, “the conqueror” sexually assaults Nani and manipulates her into a forced marriage.
Strikingly, Udodi’s chorus resurfaces at the last page of the first part of the past in “Part One” to foretell the readers about a brewing trouble in that Ephraim’s resolve to conquer and have “connubial vows” with Nani. You recall that Udodi, the first daughter dies in an auto crash whilst on study abroad. She has seen things from the land of the dead and wished she could break through the surface for one more year, or one more month, one more day, one more hour, or even one more minute, so she could splay her palms on Mother’s heart and, like a dibia, show her the future, and take Nani by the hand and shout into her ears all the things that she has seen. In one of her resolves, she says: “I’d tell her do not. Do not. Do not. Force her to listen to me. I’d hold Nani and say sister of my heart, my flesh, my blood, do not. I’d soften her sharp edges and sharpen her soft ones. Give her the tools she needs to survive without being scared” (53). Unfortunately, she cannot do any of such things, as she is dead, she only watches as scenes unfold—as the flowers that once flourished wither and a drought visits Nani’s world and drags her into the darkness time. A belief states that where one falls is where his chi pushes them down. This part of the novel is preceded by a quotation from Ayanachi Ogu and reiterates the back and forth movement of the plot of the novel. It suggests that the past was once both the present and the future. It is read that the Mother is going to open her own clinic after resigning from her job, which Ugo pictures herself replying to a question at school on what does her mother do, she would reply “Oh, she owns a clinic. That will show Ifedi, who could not stop talking about her mother’s nursery school, which, by the way, Ugo has heard is near Amechi Awkunanaw, the closest one could get to being in a village while still claiming to be in Enugu” (60). Ugo equally fantasizes Nani and her: “the two of us in God’s America” (67).
In a shocking twist, it is revealed that Mother, who runs a seemingly legitimate clinic, is involved in an illegal baby industry. When government agencies become suspicious and launches an investigation, she flees to Atlanta with Ugo, to escape the consequences of her actions. She is desperate about this, partly because of the budged baby factory business, and partly because of Ugo’s complain of a government which did not pay lecturers which make them go on strike – “a government which removed oil subsidy so that the price of everything rose overnight” (189). Mother closes up her clinic and runs to abroad. It is Ephraim who reveals about Nani’s mother running a baby factory. This revelation increases anger and hurt inside Nani, she could not look or think of Mother without thinking of how to lance through her ego. The gross of the illicit earnings of her mother chokes her, that she imagines ways to hurt her. She resolves to break one of Mother’s biggest rules by following Ephraim to a church night program. It was late when the night program ended, hence Nani could not go back home, Ephraim sweet-tongued her to follow him to his house. At the house, Nani is raped after the vigil at the Apostolic Church of Jesus and His Twelve Disciples Keeping Us Safe in the Ark.
Udodi, later reveals that Nani likes to take her time but never forgets a wrong. After the rape and the unexpected pregnancy, this part of the novel projects Ephraim in a marital relationship with Nani: “Nani and I have become one. Praise the Lord” (109).Udodi, also reveals that there is more to Ephraim’s shout of Hallelujah! After committing this heinous crime against Nani, Ephraim’s heart reveals:
All praises to the Lord who guides my trajectory. I, Ephraim, have become the husband of the most beautiful rose in the universe. The son-in-in-law of a woman whose money will not be exhausted in one life. Nani’s mother has acquired a son, and what she has shall be mine too. Mamman! God has buttered our bread. He has rescued us from this valley of tears. Hallelujah (138).
From the above excerpt, Ephraim is happy to have achieved his deceptive trick on Nani and again, his heart is centered on Nani’s mother’s wealth. After the rape incident and subsequent pregnancy and hoarse connubial vows, Nani confronts the world around her with the investment of her innermost personality. She tells Ugo, “this is my choice” (133), when the latter could not imagine a life where Nani is not at Number 47. Not in America. But in Enugu with a man like Ephraim, and living in a house that smells of poverty. Yet, there is something resolute about Nani. Something she would have got from the name the narrative voice gives her, Nanichimdum: literally translated as “only my “chi” guides me.” Nani’s self-imposed isolation makes her wonder why she swallows her sadness and flounders in the cocoon of lies and impenetrable darkness which Ephraim had spun over her and her children. Being a character that never forgives or forgets any wrong, Nani says “my heart breaking for them, while I waited for the right moment to strike” (184). A quick reminder comes in from the voice of the narrator, thus “the man plants yam and knows yam will sprout. The man who plants the future, does he know what it will grow?” (177). Nani, struggles with the trauma, finds the strength to break free from the shackles of her abuser and decides to pursue justice when Ephraim announced to her that he is taking the children to Udi for evangelism. This is the only time in the rape, pregnancy, forced marriage, and childbirth in Ephraim’s house that Nani will ever be away from the children or from anyone. It offers her the time to think of her escape and revenge. As the story unfolds, Nani, fueled by her determination to seek justice, gathers evidence against the fake pastor who raped, impregnated, and forcefully married her. With the support of Aunty Enuka, her mother’s sister and the newfound resilience within herself, she works tirelessly to ensure Ephraim faces the consequences of his heinous crimes against her. She says “I’m ready to face Ephraim today. Ephraim was an illness. A seven-year sickness that had just lifted. Nothing that has happened is my fault. I have silenced the other voice, the contrary one that heaps the blame on me” and “I’m free. The fear is gone” (299). At the point of this decision, a big burden is eroded from Nani. She regains freedom from Ephraim, from the darkest corner of man, ihe di na obi mmadu erika, the heart of human is depth. Ụtọ akụkọ nke a bụ na akọ ya nke ọma, the taste of this tale is that it is well told. The taste in the telling of Unigwe’s The Middle Daughter will make it an interesting read for a global audience that encounters rape and forceful marriage every day, and the victims of rape and forceful marriages will find how Nani is able to navigate her way and reclaim herself from these ordeals thematic.
Egbuta can be reached at: Email:[email protected]