How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
All the time he was saying this, a sick sensation was turning round and round inside Nnu Ego's head. That she had to keep such a joyous thing as this quiet because of a shriveled old woman with ill-looking skin like the flesh of a pig! If Nnaife had said it was because of Dr Meers, Nnu Ego might have swallowed it; but not for that thing of a female whom she would not dream of offering to an enemy god. O, her dear mother, was this a man she was living with? How could a situation rob a man of his manhood without him knowing it?
She whirled round like a hurricane to face him and let go her tongue. "You behave like a slave! Do you go to her and say, 'Please, madam crawcraw-skin, can I sleep with my wife today?' Do you make sure the stinking underpants she wears are well washed and pressed before you come and touch me? Me, Nnu Ego, the daughter of Agbadi of Ibuza. Oh, shame on you! I will never marry you in church. If she sacks you because of that, I shall go home to my father. I want to live with a man, not a woman-made man?" (4.58-59)
Nnu Ego has not adjusted to the situation in Lagos, where black men are often the servants of the wealthy, powerful whites. Nnaife wants to keep his job, so he wants to follow the rules that his employers set down, but Nnu Ego believes that makes him like a slave.
Quote #5
When Nnu Ego later confided in Cordelia, the wife of Ubani, she had laughed at her moanings about her husband and had said to her, "You want a husband who has time to ask you if you wish to eat rice, or drink corn pap with honey? Forget it. Men here are too busy being white men's servants to be men. We women mind the home. Not our husbands. Their manhood has been taken away from them. The shame of it is that they don't know it. All they see is the money, shining white man's money."
"But," Nnu Ego had protested, "My father released his slaves because the white man says it is illegal. Yet these our husbands are like slaves, don't you think?"
"They are all slaves, including us. If their masters treat them badly, they take it out on us. The only difference is that they are given some pay for their work, instead of having been bough. But the pay is just enough for us to rent an old room like this." (4.66-68)
Nnu Ego finds it hypocritical that whites in Nigeria would outlaw slavery for the black master, but then enslave blacks themselves. Cordelia, meanwhile, points out that men may be slaves to the whites, but women are slaves to the men.
Quote #6
Dr Meers paid them off and before he went back to defend his country he told his bewildered servants that they could stay on in the "boys' quarters" until a new master came. Nnaife was given a generous reference: it said he was a devoted servant, that he knew how to bleach sheets white, knew the correct amount of blue to add to a shirt and that he never overstarched his master's khaki shorts. Nnaife was assured that the piece of paper would get him a new job.
"But Nnaife, that paper alone won't employ you, will it?" Nnu Ego asked. "You must have a master first. All I see all over the place are soldiers of different races—some white with round-shaped faces, others with eyes sunk into their heads. Are they to be the new masters? Why are they all here in Lagos?"
"There is a war going on. I have told you before. The new master could be an army man. I only hope he turns up soon, as our money is running out." (8.23-25)
Though servants aren't slaves, they are utterly dependent on their masters. As soon as a servant loses one master, he immediately starts looking for the next one, as we see Nnaife doing here.