4 August 2008

Entry 17

Page 77

This is the part where we learn about Ekwefi's childbirth problems. She is Okonkwo's second wife and mother of Enizma the girl that Okonkwo likes the most and wishes that she was a boy. Well when she becomes ill the story of all her failed children comes about. Apparently Ekwefi had what was called an agbanje. I think that the medical technology was just not as good and it was like a 50% chance if a child lived or not. I guess that she had a demon child in her though that whenever it was born again it would die to make sorrow for it's mother. Then to fix the problem, the medicine man took the dead child and mutilated it, dragged it around, and threw it into the forest. I guess that it worked to scare off the demon child because Enizma lived. Because of all this it is sad to see that Enizma was sick because I personally liked her character.