This Motherless Land

“It wasn’t just in ‘s’s that Mum was excessive. Everything she did (and everything she didn’t do) screamed: Look at me!”

The only characterization of Lizzie comes from Funke’s point of view, which emphasizes the importance of perspective in the novel. Initially, Funke’s immaturity is reflected in the fact that she views mom as “excessive” and attention-seeking. However, throughout the course of the text, Funke learns how important her mother was in the lives of those in Nigeria. What Funke initially interprets as eccentricity is actually her desire to combat The Interplay Between Prejudice and Privilege, using her influence and wealth to help everyone around her.

“A steady stream of visitors came and went. Funke learned that if she stayed silent, she was as good as invisible. She overheard things which made no sense. ‘You are young enough to start again. Don’t worry. You will have more sons. It will be well,’ said a neighbor to her father.”

After her mother’s death, Funke becomes disenchanted with her life in Nigeria, realizing how little value she holds—as a female child—in the eyes of her father, as he refuses to comfort her and instead laments the loss of his son. This experience emphasizes the idea that neither Nigeria nor England are perfect, conveying the theme of Self-Identity Amid Cultural Dislocation. Funke experiences the negatives of both Nigeria and England, as well as the positives, complicating her feelings of unbelonging with both physical locations.

“It’s wasn’t The Ring’s fault. With the right mother it would be paradise. […] The problem was Margot. She was impossible to please: everything Liv did, and everything she didn’t do, was wrong.”

After characterizing Margot as vindictive and bitter through Lizzie and Funke’s perspective, May then reaffirms these traits through Liv’s opinion of her own mother. Additionally, Liv’s opinion that The Ring—her home—would be better if her mother were less critical conveys the motif of home (See: Symbols & Motifs). While she has few issues with the physical place she lives, the people there make her life unhappy.

“Outside was cold. Inside was freezing. Funke was used to white walls with glossy wooden shutters; here, everything was dark and moldy. The walls looked like mottled egg yolks and seemed to be covered in paper. Why would you put paper on the walls? […] The carpet on the stairs wasn’t wide enough. Did they get the measurements wrong? Or have they run out of money?”

Funke’s initial perception of The Ring is ironic in two ways. First, the Stones are wealthy, yet due to the cultural differences between Nigeria and England, she assumes they’re impoverished based on the way they decorate. Second, Liv and Margot judge Funke—as she is Black and from Nigeria—and assume she is poor and uncivilized, then, unexpectedly, Funke judges them back. This irony conveys the theme of The Interplay Between Prejudice and Privilege, as each family judges the other for the way that they choose to live, while in reality both live with privilege from their wealth and status.

“The shivering girl who turned up was all lamb. Meek and mild. Zero chance of the skinny thing baring her teeth; she could barely make eye contact. Yes, her clothes were different, her skin was brown and her hair looked amazing in a ponytail of plaited snakes. But she was just a girl. Except sad. Very sad.”

Liv’s initial perception of Funke conveys the theme of The Interplay Between Prejudice and Privilege in the way that her initial prejudices are subverted by Funke’s actual appearance. Unlike the rest of her family, Liv’s youth and her kindness allow her to see past her initial perception of Funke, instead seeing her for the “very sad” girl that she is and, ultimately, befriending her.

“[Funke] longed for her people, brown skin, loud voices, wide smiles. She couldn’t imagine her mother here. Mum didn’t belong with these cold gray people. No wonder she’d escaped to Nigeria.”

Funke’s feelings of unbelonging upon initially arriving at The Ring convey the theme of Self-Identity Amid Cultural Dislocation. She tries desperately to connect with her mother here, imagining The Ring as a home, but due to the people there she feels disconnected and alone. Her thoughts convey who she is initially as a character, beginning her journey to discover who she is in relation to both England and Nigeria and her family’s history in each.

“Kate opened the car and for the first time since Mum had died, she felt loved. It was a drawing Liv had done in secret; she must have worked in the night as they were together all day. Liv had turned Kate into a mami wata with stars flying out of a huge, perfectly round Afro.”

Liv’s birthday card to Kate—and each card she would draw over the next seven years of their childhood—symbolizes their personal connection and the love they have for each other. At the moment when Kate feels a “homesickness [that is] physical, almost crippling” (76), her connection with Kate allows her to feel like she belongs for the first time since coming to The Ring. Additionally, Kate’s depiction as a mami wata or mermaid is a metaphor for who she is: Someone who belongs in two different places—Nigeria and England—just as a mermaid belongs to both the sea and the land.

“[Liv] hated this job but it saved her from penury; her allowance (Grandpa called it a stipend) barely covered her rent.”

In the second section of the text, Liv is in a transitional period in her life as reflected by her job. She gets a job because she feels like she has to, while exaggerating her situation through the use of the word “penury.” She wants to believe that she is surviving on her own and breaking free from her family, yet still relies on Grandpa’s money due to her refusal to get a better- paying job. Liv’s ignorance reflects the theme of The Interplay Between Prejudice and Privilege: Even as she feels as though she is separating herself from her family, she still has privilege that she is unaware of, reaffirming the idea that everyone has privilege in some form.

“Here, [Kate] was mocked for sounding African. It was absurd. Africans didn’t have one sound. Even Nigerians didn’t sound the same. She finally got it. These farting ignoramuses, who struggled with their five times table, actually though they were better than her.”

Kate’s memories of grade school in London convey the irony of The Interplay Between Prejudice and Privilege. She is smarter than the other children in the class and knows more about the world than they do, yet she is treated as though she is unintelligent and is judged by her teacher and her classmates. This experience shows the hollowness of prejudice, as their pre-conceived notions about her are incorrect and serve only to show their own ignorance.

“Two women were choosing tubers, speaking loudly in what Kate recognized as Yoruba although she couldn’t understand a word. For the first time in a long time, she yearned for home. Her other home. Spicy food, hot sun, women in bright ankara outfits, noise.”

After eight years at The Ring, Kate adapts and does her best to assimilate into her new society, feeling largely happy as a result. However, these moments of homesickness emphasize her search for Self-Identity Amid Cultural Dislocation. While she believes that she is fully happy in London—and could be if she needed to be—she also has a history, family, and culture that she left behind in Nigeria. Ultimately, she learns the good and bad of both locations, learning to blend the two and accept her identity as someone who is comprised of both spaces.

“‘We’re not twelve anymore.’ Liv clocked the dejection on Kate’s face and felt bad. But only fleetingly. Kate had everything. She had nothing.”

Liv’s dismissal of Kate on Kate’s birthday, when she asks Liv to get ready with her for the ball, calls back to the first chapter when Lizzie warned Funke about the dangers of jealousy. Due to Liv’s immaturity, she is unable to see why Kate has “everything”—it is because of the hard work that she has put in over the last eight years, in contrast to Liv’s dependence on her family’s privilege. This moment reaffirms Liv’s immaturity, as she will need to grow and learn throughout the novel to become a better person than Margot and overcome that jealousy.

“A cockroach scuttled out from under the bed. Kate screeched and leaped onto a chair. Funmi laughed, took off her slipper and whacked it. Kate felt her flesh crawl. In LUTH, a man in a white plastic coverall had sprayed the compound for bugs once a month.”

After longing to return to Nigeria for eight years, Kate’s disillusionment with Lagos when she finally goes back explores the relation between the themes of The Interplay Between Prejudice and Privilege and Self-Identity Amid Cultural Dislocation. Kate’s memories of Lagos and her initial distaste for London are rooted in the privilege she had while in Lagos: A nice home at LUTH, a loving mother, and good social standing. With these things gone upon her return, she is disgusted by the city and immediately longs to return to The Ring, unable to identify with Nigerian culture or understand how it fits into her identity.

“During the day, [Kate] stayed in her room, dozing fitfully. She communicated in shrugs, headshakes and nods. She thought of her first days at The Ring and wondered if her body’s way of coping with unendurable situations was to turn off the sound.”

Kate identifies an important characteristic about herself when she struggles to integrate back into Nigerian society: Her body copes with trauma by shutting down and withdrawing. Her experience in Lagos parallels her first few days at The Ring, conveying the theme of The Importance of Support in Surviving Trauma. Just as she learned in London, silence and withdrawal will not allow her to cope and thrive; instead, she needs to learn how to build friendships and reconnect with her family.

“Funke’s eyes welled. She’d searched that motherless land in vain, looked for mum all over The Ring, tried to find her by the lightning tree, sought her out at the folly. But she’d been in Lagos all along.”

This quote—a reference to the novel’s title—conveys Funke’s search for Self-Identity Among Cultural Dislocation. After weeks of longing to return to London and feeling as though she doesn’t belong in Nigeria, Funke discovers how much her mother impacted the lives of those in Lagos. The idea of a “motherless land” is literal—as Lizzie is no longer physically in either location—but also metaphorical. As someone who exists in a liminal space, part-Nigerian and part-British while fully belonging to neither, Funke is desperate to find traces of her mother in both places to give her a sense of belonging.

“Morenike shook her head. ‘Funke, abeg, don’t vex me. Who are you to be judging her? She’s an orphan. Medical degree is not free.’

Funke thought of Liv and her topless shots, wondered if everyone except her thought it was fine to sell your body for cash. ‘I don’t think I could do that.’”

When Funke learns that her roommate sleeps with a man for money, she compares the situation to Liv’s, who had nude photos taken to try to become a model. She judges both women, then is harshly scolded by Morenike. Funke’s lack of empathy conveys the theme of The Interplay Between Prejudice and Privilege. Even someone like Funke—who has been judged her entire life, in both of her homes—still possesses both characteristics. She is privileged in ways she fails to identity, while also judging others for lacking the money, support, and connections that she has. Ultimately, this conversation conveys the idea that both prejudice and privilege exist in everyone, in many forms—identifying it and acknowledging it is an important first step in removing prejudice and using privilege for good.

“The scar on [Liv’s] leg throbbed. Her consultant said it was nothing to worry about […] Now whenever her scar pulsed she imagined Kate rising from the dead. The twitching yanked her back to memories she’d spent years trying to escape. Her usual tricks—drowning the guilt in alcohol, frying it with cocaine, numbing it with weed, crushing it with sex—seemed to have stopped working.”

Liv’s car—which she received during the car crash when she left the ball—is an example of symbolism. While it is a physical scar on her body, it also represents the guilt and emotional trauma that she continues to carry, blaming herself for Kate’s death. Her attempts to “drown” these pains convey the theme of The Importance of Support in Surviving Trauma. She tries to numb her emotional pain but, just like her scar, it will never go away completely. Instead, she has to learn to survive with it through support from others.

“Margot was the one who insisted Katherine got her lump sum straightaway. She sorted it all out with Derek Windham […] You have to give her credit for that.”

When Liv questions Grandma about her mother’s role in Kate’s return to Lagos, Grandma defends her in an instance of dramatic irony. While Grandma believes that Margot should get “credit” for getting Kate her inheritance early, the reader knows many things that Grandma does not: Margot orchestrated Kate’s return to Nigeria, she faked her death, and she only gave Kate a fifth of her actual inheritance. This dramatic irony shows Grandma’s lack of awareness but also develops Margot as an even more vindictive, bitter, and even dangerous person: She has managed to ruin Kate’s life while making even her own mother and daughter believe that she did a good thing.

“The stroke had changed [Grandma]. She was decidedly more nostalgic. ‘Poor Katherine,’ she would sigh, a pained expression on her face. Liv didn’t mind; it was nice to be able to talk about Kate.”

After six years, the start of Part 4 opens with Liv having built a new relationship with Grandma and regularly visiting her at The Ring. Additionally, she actually enjoys talking about Kate and remembering her childhood. These facts stand in stark contrast to the person Liv was in the previous section of the text. Her change conveys the theme of The Importance of Support in Surviving Trauma, as she has realized that she cannot outrun or avoid the pass. Instead, she must learn to accept it through the support of people in her life like Grandma.

“The mysterious sassy woman Valerie had met was Yinks, Kunle’s cousin and Lola’s godmother […] A cousin. Thank God they weren’t in a Jane Austen novel, Liv thought; he’d have married her.”

This literary allusion references Jane Austen, a celebrated British novelist from the Regency Era, who often wrote love stories that featured romantic relationships between cousins. This allusion is a humorous moment in the text, as This Motherless Land is a postcolonial retelling of Austen’s novel Mansfield Park. In that novel, Fanny—who is rewritten as Funke in this text—does, in fact, marry her cousin.

“‘You’ve been here for years and you haven’t even got a fucking bed. You sleep on a mattress on the floor.’ [Bola] waved his arms around. ‘Funke, this isn’t a home. It’s a cell. Not even one picture! You can’t commit to anything. Not your flat. Not your friends. And clearly not me. It’s like there’s a barrier all around you.’ Funke looked away. Of course she’d built a wall; it was self-preservation.”

Bola confronts Funke and vocalizes the key issue that her character faces: She struggles with the trauma of having been forcibly relocated—twice—and struggles to find a place to belong as a result. This moment sparks a change in Funke, as she identifies her feelings of unbelonging for the first time and can finally begin to discover her Self-Identity Among Cultural Dislocation. Ultimately, she needs to learn to love Bola, trust her friends, and build a home for herself to move on from her trauma.

“Liv thought of her mother. How she would love to have a team of servants and how horrified she’d be to discover a Nigerian family lived a more pampered life than she could dream of.”

When Liv goes to Nigeria herself, she finally begins to understand the experiences that Funke went through as she was uprooted from her home. Due to Margot’s ignorance and arrogance, she presumed she was better than Funke, and Liv largely bought into the idea. However, now that she sees Nigeria for the first time, she begins to understand the ideas of The Interplay Between Prejudice and Privilege. Her mother’s racism made her ignorant of the fact that Funke’s life in Nigeria was privileged, too. Liv’s realization of this allows her to identify her own prejudice and grow.

“Funke prepared herself mentally as she turned onto [her father’s] street. Old habits die hard, and she was still a chameleon. She thought of herself as a matryoshka doll, multitudes of different Funkes, Kates, and Katherines all stacked inside of her. She used to wonder if there was a real version locked away in her core but she’d stopped searching long ago.”

This quote is an example of a simile, as Funke compares herself to a matryoshka doll, which is a type of nesting doll where one larger doll holds smaller and smaller versions of itself within. This simile conveys the idea of Self-Identity Amid Cultural Dislocation: Funke is a composition of several places, cultures, families, and more. Her acknowledgement that she “stopped searching” for the “real version” of herself conveys the idea that there is, in fact, no “real version.” Rather, Funke is all of those versions of herself, with both identities and cultures together constructing her self-identity.

“Humans are inherently greedy. They hate sharing. So they invented racism to justify keeping all the cake. Don’t give them a slice, they don’t deserve it, they’re too dark. Or too gay. Or too short. Any difference will do: sex, color, tribe, religion, whatever.”

Oyinkan’s attempt to explain Margot’s motives and her character convey an important point in the theme of The Interplay Between Prejudice and Privilege. When Funke suggests that “greed” was responsible, Oyinkan makes it clear that all forms of prejudice and hate are linked together. All forms are rooted in a desire to have more privilege, with greed as a motivating factor and justification for further discrimination.