Efuru

“Efuru told him that she would drown herself in the lake if he did not marry her. Adizua told her he loved her very much and that even the dust she trod on meant something to him.”

This description shows how passionate Efuru and Adizua are about one another in the beginning of their relationship. Efuru’s statement about drowning herself in the lake foreshadows her relationship with Uhamiri later in the novel.

“I am sure you will like this gin. Nwabuzo had it buried in the ground last year when there was rumour that policemen were sent to search her house. When the policemen left, finding nothing, Nwabuzo was still afraid and left it in the ground. A week later, she fell ill and was rushed to the hospital where she remained for six months. She came back only a week ago. So the gin is a very good one.”

This passage is an example of how Nwapa weaves information about Nigeria’s political and social situation into dialogue. Efuru tells the story of the gin straightforwardly, as if none of the events—like Nwabuzo being raided by the police or falling ill and remaining in the hospital for six months—were out of the ordinary. Bringing the dialogue back around to the gin creates humor; the point of the anecdote is that the gin is well-aged, but the events that led to its aging reveal much about the Igbo people’s struggles at that time.

“They did not see the reason why Adizua should not marry another woman since according to them two men do not live together. To them Efuru was a man, since she could not reproduce.”

After a year of marriage, Efuru’s lack of fertility becomes a concern. This passage is the first that discusses the perception that she is less than a woman because of her inability to conceive—a theme that the rest of the novel develops. “They,” in this case, are the neighbors. The short passage foreshadows the townspeople’s willingness to gossip and spread false rumors about Efuru.