102 pages • 3 hours read
Nnedi OkoraforBinti
Fiction | Novella | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
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BetaNovella 3, Chapters 13-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Novella 3: "Binti, the Night Masquerade"
Novella 3, Chapter 13 Summary: “Medical”
Binti goes to the hospital for an examination. Her doctor is a human woman named Tuka. Binti waits in the waiting room for three hours after her examination and tests. When Binti speaks with Dr. Tuka again, she discovers quite a few things about herself. New Fish and Binti can be apart roughly five miles on land and seven miles otherwise. There might be terrible pain if they separate past this point very quickly. Dr. Tuka tells Binti that her DNA is composed of “Himba, Enyi Zinariya, and Meduse […] and some, but not much, New Fish” (347). Binti is healthy and utterly unique.
Dr. Tuka asks Binti if she plans bearing children and suggests that Okwu should give birth to it. Binti’s future children will have okuoko and will likely have some New Fish microbes. Binti has a panic attack, utterly overwhelmed by everything. She cries about the Root’s desolation, about her broken astrolabe, and about how different she is now compared to when she began. Binti crushes a flower bud that sat on the counter in her fist. To comfort her, Dr. Tuka says:
‘So see it this way: You’re paired with New Fish and Okwu, each of whom has a family. Your family is bigger than any Himba girl’s ever was. And twice, you were supposed to die. And here you stand healthy and strong’ (348).
Binti calms down and apologizes for crushing Dr. Tuka’s flower. Dr. Tuka makes a therapist appointment for Binti. Binti tells New Fish about the information, and the ship flies off happily to the closest field near Binti’s dorm. In her bedroom, Binti chats with Mwinyi and Haifa. Haifa clearly has a crush on Mwinyi; Mwinyi has been extremely popular since they landed in Oomza. Haifa realizes that Mwinyi and Binti love each other and she leaves, happy for them both. Mwinyi comforts Binti, and they begin kissing, losing themselves in each other.
Novella 3, Chapter 14 Summary: “Shape Shifter”
The next morning, Binti finishes showering and begins applying her freshly made otjize to her okuoko. She brings the stones from Saturn’s ring that she had New Fish hide. Binti tastes them, and they taste like the edan and the salt from Undying Trees. Binti covers her skin with otjize. Eventually, she notices that the edan is floating; the golden ball pulls the metal pieces to it and reconstructs itself as a pyramid. Binti is excited to discover its secrets when the new semester starts. The trilogy ends with Binti going to see the famous Falls of Oomza with Mwinyi, Okwu, Haifa, and the Bear.
Novella 3, Chapters 13-14 Analysis
In the final chapters of Binti: The Night Masquerade, Binti becomes her own home. After her departure—from her Himba community in Osemba, Earth—her eventual return, and her parting once more, Binti becomes a home within herself. Binti surrounds herself with friends who love and accept her for who she is. Okorafor leaves the reader with more questions than answers. The end of the novel is far from Binti’s end, but the series successfully tracks Binti’s journey to find her own identity and her place in the universe around her. Displaced from home, life, and her culture, Binti is somehow more secure in herself and her identity than she has ever been.
Binti’s future is just as uncertain as that of any teenager. Despite being set far in the future, Okorafor manages to depict the tumultuous nature of growing up and finding an identity separate from one’s family and community. Binti’s choices and decisions have permanently changed her, physically, mentally, and spiritually. The doctor who attends to Binti explains the permanence of her physical changes:
‘Your DNA is Himba, Enyi Zinariya, and Meduse […] and some, but not much, New Fish […] But your microbes are mostly from New Fish, yes. Your microbes exist with your cells, so this blend is what makes you, you. So you are different from what you were born as, certainly. But as I said before, you’re healthy’ (347).
Binti’s unique genetic makeup reflects her singular experience and knowledge. Everything that Binti has been through has left her fundamentally changed. Although the changes are non-reversible, and ultimately leave Binti stronger and smarter than before, the nostalgia of things long past and of doors closing take a toll on the teenager.
When Binti discovers the possibility of her children having okuoko and New Fish’s microbes, the thought of how “abnormal” she has become overcomes her: “My past and present have become more and now my future?” (348). Binti’s potential futures are just as overwhelming to her as they are to the reader, but Okorafor leaves pressing questions unresolved. The Meduse-Khoush War is not the focus of the story, nor is the edan or the Zinariya; Binti: The Complete Trilogy is a bildungsroman and ends with Binti beginning to find comfort in her unique identity.
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