SYNOPSIS
Changes is a Novel written in 1991 by Ama Ata Aidoo that recounts the life of a career-centred African woman as she divorces her first husband and marries into a polygamist union.
Esi divorces Oko so she could have more time to focus on her careerbut after she remarries to Ali Kondey. She must now create a balance between being a career woman, a wife, and a friend to Opokuya who encounters problems in her marriage of a different nature.
BREAK DOWN
Esi first meets Ali at Linga Hideaways while confirming arrangements for a business trip. Esi and Oko’s argument leads to marital rape which causes Esi to leave her husband. Opokuya and Kubi argue about the use of their car. Ali’s childhood changes with Mma. Danjuma’s decision to have him properly educated. Opokuya runs into Esi at Hotel Twentieth Century and Esi explains that she has left Oko because his attentions were too suffocating. As they talk, they encounter Ali who is infatuated with Esi, despite being married to Fusena who he met in teacher training school.
Ali begins courting Esi who refuses to return to Oko and begins sleeping with Ali. After an extended absence, Ali returns to Esi and proposes, insisting that she wear his ring. After telling Opokuya about her engagement, Esi visits her mother who disapproves of Esi lowering her status by becoming a second wife. Fusena is angry that Ali plans to take a second wife who has an university degree.
Ali’s first visit to Esi’s village is unsuccessful since he brings no one from his family to sponsor him. Ali’s people agree to sponsor him if Fusena consents to his second marriage, and after she reluctantly consents, Ali returns to Esi’s village with his people. After Ali and Esi are married, he does not go to her house that night, which saddens Esi. Ali is torn between spending time with his two wives. When Ali and Oko fight at Esi’s house on New Year’s Eve, Esi flees to Opokuya’s house with Ogyaanowa and that is where they spend the holidays. Halfway through the new year, Ali takes Esi to Bamako to meet his people and they have a wonderful holiday.
Ali rarely visits Esi, and she is especially lonely during the holidays that year. He visits on New Year’s Day to bring Esi a new car as a gift. When Esi drops Ali off at Hotel Twentieth Century, she realizes her marriage is a dead end. She visits Opokuya and agrees to sell her old car to her friend. After briefly increasing, the frequency of Ali’s visits return to normal and one day, Esi tells Ali that this is not a marriage and she is not having it.
Several months later, Esi calls Opokuya to tell her about her break-up with Ali. After Opokuya visits Esi to comfort her and collect her car, Esi cries alone in the dark. Kubi, looking for Opokuya, arrives at Esi’s house and embraces her. Thinking of her friendship with Opokuya, Esi repels him. Esi does not annul her marriage to Ali and they become good friends who have sex occasionally. Although Ali loves Esi in his own fashion, it is not adequate for Esi and she wonders what fashion of love she will ever consider adequate.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE THEME OF HELPLESSNESS IN KWESI BREW’S “A PLEA FOR MERCY“
THEMES IN THE NOVEL
Traditional Oppression versus Modern Freedom
There is a constant conflict between the oppression of women caused by societal tradition and the modern freedoms that women are beginning to demand. The principal character Esi is well-educated and confident and has a great deal of ambition. She prioritizes her career over her family life, as many men have done for years. She finds it difficult to conform to the archaic traditional roles that her culture has defined as “suitable” for a woman. She refuses to accept her husband attempt to rape her and call it marital rights. Although there there is no such thing as rape within a marriage in Ghana and shows how they are seen as property of their husbands and not equal people within the marriage.
It’s shocking that Esi allows herself to enter into a polygamous marriage, but she does so partly because she is used to this kind of relationship within her culture and partly because she sees it as more convenient for the way in which she wants to live her life. As she is not going to be Ali’s stay-home wife all the time, there is more freedom for her within that union to pursue her own goals.
All of the men in the novel are classic examples of traditional men in one form or another. Ali is a player, a user of women, and has no intention of ever changing. His first wife gave up everything because he demanded it, subsuming her own self just to be his wife. Since he is a terrible husband she realizes that her sacrifice was not worth it. He is a cheat and a serial philanderer. Women somehow excuse this because he is intelligent and a smooth talker. Esi’s first husband, Oko, is not a cheat or a philanderer, and is actually a rather good husband, but he resents her success, and wants her to conform to the more traditional picture that he has of what his wife should be – home, looking after him, and having more children.
Again, Education for success.
The novel gives a clear cut of education makes by presenting us with characters who are well-educated, and others who are not. We also see that education is one of the few ways in which a woman can attain greater freedom. Education can elevate a person in society but it also gives them an intangible status, like a mark of respect. Esi and Ali are both highly educated. Esi has a master’s degree; Ali has been educated all over the world and has a cosmopolitan outlook. Esi’s education has earned her a well-paying job, enabled her to travel widely and secured her independence. It is also something that separates her from her own family; neither her mother or her grandmother can understand why she is so passionate about her education and her career, and not focused on her marriage.
Fusena also wanted to finish college and earn her degree but when she married Ali he forbade this and forced her to give up her studies and any dreams she had of school. This contributes to her feelings of bitterness on learning that Ali’s second wife Esi has a degree, rubbing salt into the wound rather too much. She has much less freedom than Esi because with a lack of education comes a lack of options, and so the novel makes it clear that education is the gateway to opportunity and freedom for women in countries where they traditionally have very little of either.
Other themes include : Family interference in marriage, love and female chastity, Friendship etc
CLICK HERE TO READ THE THEME OF HELPLESSNESS IN KWESI BREW’S “A PLEA FOR MERCY“