Pet

Emezi begins Pet by narratively remembering the injustices and cruelties that plague the modern world for the reader. They write how the people of Lucille “remember the marches and vigils, the shaky footage that was splashed everywhere of their deaths […] the temples that were bombed, the mosques, the acid attacks, the synagogues. Remembering was important” (10). This list underscores the text’s commitment to the importance of remembering and the dangers of forgetting, and sets up the primary failure of Lucille’s inhabitants, which is willfully forgetting evil even as they remember the revolution against it. Through Pet, Emezi not only pleads for readers to see and learn about the hidden injustices of the world, but that they also remember them and integrate them into the historical record.

Emezi posits that community memory helps to prevent the repetition of past mistakes. The adults of Lucille have forgotten their duty to remember the past and attempt to shape the future through selective memory, as Aloe tells Jam when Pet appears, “Forget the monsters” (23). Aloe’s desire to forget stems from his fears for Jam, as Aloe is haunted “by echoes of memories of what people used to do to girls like her” (23). However, Aloe’s earnest desire to protect his daughter does not actually protect her. Instead, his fear hinders his ability to confront the truth and aid his daughter in revealing the monster in Lucille.

Emezi uses Aloe’s character to discuss the dangers of forgetting, also suggesting that memory requires active, continuous effort. They write:

Also, the problem is, when you think you’ve been without monsters for so long, sometimes you forget what they look like, what they sound like, no matter how much remembering your education urges you to do. It’s not the same when the monsters are gone. You’re only remembering shadows of them, stories that seem to be limited to the pages or screens you read them from. Flat and dull things. So, yes, people forget. But forgetting is dangerous. Forgetting is how the monsters come back (23).

In forgetting how to identify monsters, Lucille and its angels have allowed for the creation of new ones. Emezi shows great compassion and understanding for Aloe and the adults. They describe how these monsters become “flat and dull” with time, and how it is difficult to press back against the “remembering your education urges you to do” (23). This acknowledgement of the difficulty of remembering and the comfort that can be found in forgetting does not forgive the angels, but it does attempt to understand the conditions that prevent sustained societal progress. Jam knows that her parents are disillusioned when they attempt to make her send Pet back through the painting. She thinks, “Could you really make something stop existing just by shoving it away somewhere else?” (46). Jam has begun to realize that refusing to see the truth does not result in its disappearance. Jam remembers what her parents have willfully forgotten.

At the end of the novel, Jam takes on the responsibility of remembering. She believes in ability of the people of Lucille to learn and change. She stops Pet from killing Hibiscus, saying, “But the town will learn nothing this way, the families will learn nothing. They’ll keep pretending all the monsters are gone; they won’t remember to look for them” (152). Jam wants to force the angels in Lucille to remember what monsters are so that they can prevent more people from getting hurt. Jam gives up the perceived safety of ignorance in order to take on the responsibility of remembering, a sacrifice which Emezi portrays as serving the greater good. Emezi underscores the importance of remembering with Pet’s final words to Jam, “Tell me the words so I know you will remember them, you will hold on to them and it will be as though you are holding on to me, and you will not forget, yes?” (165). By promising to remember Pet’s words, to not forget and not to fear, Jam becomes a walking testament to the importance of memory and history, of learning from past mistakes and growing from them.