How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"Neither did I dream of marrying a man who would stay away months at a time. You know something, they say men who work on the ships have mistresses wherever they land."
"Oh!" Nnu Ego exclaimed, covering her mouth. "Your husband would never do a thing like that. Never. The women overseas, they have a different colour from ours, pale like pigs—how can our men stand them? And what do these women see in our men?"
"Well, I don't care really. They say their men are not very strong." (7.25-27)
The idea of Nwakusor having mistresses doesn't bother Nnu Ego. The idea that he might sleep with a white woman, who is unattractive, does bother her. Ato doesn't care, but she does repeat the myth that white men lack the sexual vigor that black men have.
Quote #8
So weeks later when Nnu Ego sang and rocked her new child Oshia on her knees, she was more confident. The voices of all the people who knew them had said she deserved this child. The voices of the gods had said so too, as her father had confirmed to her in his messages. She might not have any money to supplement her husband's income, but were they not in a white man's world where it was the duty of the father to provide for his family? In Ibuza, women made a contribution, but in urban Lagos, men had to be the sold providers; this new setting robbed the woman of her useful role. Nnu Ego told herself that the life she had indulged in with the baby Ngozi had been very risky: she had been trying to be traditional in a modern urban setting. It was because she wanted to be a woman of Ibuza in a town like Lagos that she lost her child. This time she was going to play it according to the new rules. (7.67)
In traditional Ibo society, the man provides for his family, and a woman takes care of her family in her home. Nnu Ego is convinced that because she was behaving like a traditional Ibo woman entirely out of context, it killed her baby. She doesn't yet know how she's setting herself up for heartbreak. Even if she can't be a traditional woman in Lagos, she will not be able to rely on Nnaife either.
Quote #9
The woman was never able to pronounce his name properly. At first is used to annoy him, but later he shrugged his shoulders; after all, she was not one of his people and it gave him a kind of secret delight to have proof that he white people, with all their airs, did not know everything. If anyone had pointed out to him that neither did he pronounce the Meers' name properly, that his version sounded like "Miiaass" to his employers, he would have said, "But I am only a black man, and I don't' expect to know everything." He was one of the Africans who were so used to being told they were stupid in those days that they started to believe in their own imperfections. (8.7)
Nnaife has internalized his oppression. He now believes, as the Meers do, that he is inferior.