African Prose
BAY ADEMOWALE: Lonely Days
Discuss the theme of loneliness in the novel.
Loneliness is a major theme in the novel. It is the outcome of a tradition of Kufi which isolates widows for a period. Three windows, Dedewe, Radeke and Fayoyin, suffer this fate, but only for as long as they end their widowhood by the cap-picking ceremony. However, one character who is most afflicted by loneliness is Yaremi, whose marriage to her husband, Ajumobi, comes to an abrupt end through his untimely death. Therefore she is consigned to a life of loneliness.
As a motif, 'loneliness' and its association such as 'left her alone'. 'lonely' and 'solitude' permeate the novel. Yaremi is rendered lonely after the death of her husband, Ajumobi. Her two daughters, Segi and Wura, after being given away into marriage, no longer keep her company. Her only son, Alani, now lives in Ibadan, and to him, Kufi has become a lonely settlement at the very end of the earth. Yaremi's only companion is Woye, her little grandchild. On very cold nights, when other lucky women of Kufi enjoy the company and warmth of their husbands, Yaremi sprawls dejectedly on her bamboo bed, missing Ajumobi and can only launch into a spate of rapturous reminiscences. It becomes her habit to visit her husband's grave at least two times a day. There she sits alone and monolouges her earthly problems, hoping for Ajumobi's response.
For fear of losing her only companion, Woye, she does everything she knows of — medication, cajoling, coaxing prayer — to get him healed of his high fever, No wonder at the boy's sudden decision to leave with his mother for Olode to enroll in school, Yaremi perceives a steadying positive factor in her loneliness going away'. in the end, Alami's strange pronouncement that he is going back to lbadan after his short visit to Kufi, throws her into a swoon. Later when the village elders announce the punitive measure of sending her into exile for refusing all the caps, she is galvanized into resolving that it is her dead body that they will carry out of Kufi. She draws her strength and will power from Almighty God and Ajumobi's spirit and braces herself for the painful continuation of her lonely days.
Points to note
(a) Major cause of loneliness in the novel is widowhood.
(b) Yaremi, Dedewe, Radeke, Fayoyin are victims.
(c) The effects of loneliness on characters.
(d) Yaremi's rejection of the tradition of cap picking
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