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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 10, No. 7
Publication Date: July 25, 2023
DOI:10.14738/assrj.107.15038.
Anato, S., Aïnamon, A., & Gbaguidi, C. (2023). The Emergence of Female Identity in Sefi Atta’s Everything Good Will Come. Advances
in Social Sciences Research Journal, 10(7). 94-102.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
The Emergence of Female Identity in Sefi Atta’s Everything Good
Will Come
Sylvain Anato
Université d’Abomey-Calavi,
Ecole Doctorale Pluridisciplinaire, Cotonou, Bénin
Augustin Aïnamon
Université d’Abomey-Calavi,
Ecole Doctorale Pluridisciplinaire, Cotonou, Bénin
Célestin Gbaguidi
Université d’Abomey-Calavi,
Ecole Doctorale Pluridisciplinaire, Cotonou, Bénin
ABSTRACT
Everything Good Will Come (2006) is the debut novel by the Yoruba author Sefi Atta.
She investigates the different transformation that occur in the life of Enitan, the
female protagonist of the novel, while she makes her tedious journey from the
beginning of adolescence to adulthood. For a long time, women have almost played
secondary roles in the Nigerian novel in the struggle to address socio-political and
economic challenges. However, since the beginning of the 2000s, Nigerian fiction
has presented women in leadership roles in their societies. In fact, a new generation
of authors has emerged. Atta has become a famous and internationally acclaimed
writer of this series in her quest to demonstrate how the identity of a woman can
originate from various hostile factors that affect her environment. She suggests that
this can only happen if and only women are self-affirming, become fully aware of
unlocking their tremendous inner potential which is essential to reverse the trend
of a fiction plot dominated by men. Indeed, Everything Good Will Come is a counter- speech to the almost pitiful image of the woman in works mainly masculine.
Keywords: Female identity, hostile environment, education, social awareness, activism.
INTRODUCTION
New generation Nigerian female novelists offer their readers the opportunity to discover a new
approach of women’s roles in addressing social and political issues in their country. By so doing,
these female novelists oppose what male generation writers used to deliver. For instance, in
nearly all his literary productions, Chinua Achebe, particularly in Things Fall Apart (1958),
presents women as virtually playing minor roles in the decision-making arena. Even in his last
book, There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra (2012), he hardly mentioned the
outstanding role played by women during and after the Nigerian Civil War (6 July 1967-15
January 1970); because after the war, there was a need to survive the peace. However, in
Second-Class Citizen (1974), Buchi Emecheta openly criticizes how women suffer from abuses
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Anato, S., Aïnamon, A., & Gbaguidi, C. (2023). The Emergence of Female Identity in Sefi Atta’s Everything Good Will Come. Advances in Social
Sciences Research Journal, 10(7). 94-102.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.107.15038
committed by men; this confirms that men are generally prone to nurture the deliberate desire
to dominate women.
And so, the third-generation Nigerian female writers, especially after the country’s
independence in 1960, are struggling hard to recentre the place and role of women in the
decision-making sphere. That’s how in Purple Hibiscus (2003), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
presents Kambili, Amaka, Mama (Beatrice) and Aunty Ifeoma as playing key roles to free
themselves from the fetters represented by Eugene Achike. Ifeoma, Eugene’s sister, a lecturer
at the University of Nsukka, Nigeria, is a sole parent who struggles to bring up her three
teenagers after her husband’s death. In her second novel: Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), Adichie
presents brave and amazon women such as the twin sisters: Kainene and Olanna. Here, the
novelist eulogizes their warlike efforts to participate in the “Win the War effort”; the objective
being to support Biafra in succeeding to gain secession from Nigeria. During the war, tens of
thousands of women spared no effort to feed Biafran soldiers at various war fronts; Mrs
Muokelu, for example, played an active role during that gloomy period of Nigeria. Indeed,
Adichie magnifies the role of women, making them transcend the stereotypical traditional roles
to become very active ‘soldiers’ in the thirty long months’ war and even beyond.
Like Adichie, Sefi Atta offers women a notable and privileged position in their quest for
restoring the female identity and dignity. In Everything Good Will Come, (2003) the reader
discovers Enitan and Sheri struggling hard from adolescence to adulthood because of various
factors that affect their environment and particularly due to the socio-political and economic
hardships prevailing in Nigeria.
The leading roles of women in their societies are also presented by Atta, in Swallow (2010),
with the rich and also tragic experiences of female characters namely Rose and Tolani.
In this article, I intend to highlight the characters of Enitan and Sheri to show how family
environment and many other societal factors and forces may positively or negatively influence
the identity of woman from adolescence down to adulthood. I will also endeavour to pinpoint
the symbolism behind these two female characters.
ENITAN: A CHARACTER IN CONSTANT STRUGGLE
A quick research through Google suggests that: “The name Enitan is both a boy's name and a
girl's name meaning “person of story, famous person". Enitan's origins are in the Yoruba
language of Southwestern Nigeria. It has a lovely meaning, referring to a person of notoriety”.
It transpires that the choice of Enitan by the author is deliberate. Based on her family
environment, health history, degree course, marital life, involvement into politics, we learn that
Enitan has successfully taken up many of the various challenges which were to undermine the
course of her life. By so doing, she boldly defies many socio-cultural prejudices that worked
towards discriminating women in a male-dominated society.
Enitan in a Hostile Family Environment
Enitan, the narrator of the plot and also the heroine of the novel, was only eleven years old at
the onset of the plot, as she was born in 1960, the year of Nigeria’s independence. Unfortunately,
Enitan’s father was rarely present at home because of his tight schedule in his law firm. Most of
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the time, Enitan was with her mother. The reader can notice that she faced perpetual fear
because of her mother who would not let her discover and adapt to her environment,
specifically the neighbouring children, namely Sheri from the Bakare family. “I glanced around
the yard, because my mother didn’t want me playing with the Bakare children“ (7). ‘Glanced’
evokes both the narrator’s desire to do what her mother banned and the fear of challenging her
mother’s authority. There is therefore a contrast which shows the absence of freedom in a
Nigeria torn by hydra-headed problems, mainly the war of secession and the vicious circles of
coup plots from the mid-sixties up to the late 1990s. At this juncture, the reader may be tempted
to think of Jaja and Kambili in Purple Hibiscus (2003) where the protagonists are forbidden to
socialize with their environment. In fact, a category of people are targeted not to mingle with
Eugene’s children.
It therefore follows that the society has established specific standards which do not necessarily
meet children’s aspirations. Attempts by children to forge their personal identities are banned.
No doubt, Enitan sets the scene when she eventually defies her mother’s authority to become
Sheri’s bosom friend. By so doing, Enitan becomes Sheri’s Aburo (younger sister (20). Enitan’s
reaction can be compared to the behaviour of Jaja and Kambili in the Achike family. The children
eventually visit their grandfather, Papa Nnukwu, despite their father’s ban to do so.
The same way Papa-Nnukwu is viewed by his son Eugene like a devilish person to avoid, so is
Sheri like a plague to Enitan. These situations indicate that there is a rebellious take-off that
encourages children transcend a sort of patriarchal paradigm. Of course, this definitely triggers
a change. Enitan has learnt a lot from Sheri with her first experience of self-discovery. This
happened when Sheri eventually encouraged Enitan to discover her own private parts:
Sheri’s eyes were wide ‘You haven’t seen it?
I’ve seen mine. Many times’ she stood up and retrieved a cracked mirror from a drawer.
‘Look and see’
‘I can’t’
‘Look’, she said, handing me the mirror.
‘Lock the door’
‘Okay’, she said, heading there.
I dragged my panties down, place the mirror between my legs. It looked like a big, fat slug. I
squealed as Sheri began to laugh’ [...]
I pulled my panties up, wondering whether I was angry with her, or what I’d seen between my
legs (32-33).
Similarly, in Purple Hibiscus, Jaja and Kambili, also made their tedious journey to self-discovery
after challenging parental authority – indeed, Eugene’s authority. This happened thanks to their
visit to Aunty Ifeoma and also to their ‘pagan’ Papa-Nnukwu. We note that Eugene calls his own
father ‘pagan’. But as matter of fact, his father is not a pagan, but a traditionalist from whom the
children have learnt a lot. As Ifeoma suggests: “Your Papa-Nnukwu is not a pagan, Kambili, he
is a traditionalist” (89). Furthermore, Jaja and Kambili openly voiced out their strong
determination to visit Nsukka despite the opposition of their father: “We are going to Nsukka
today. We will spend Easter in Nsukka” [...] I did not hear what Papa said, then I heard Jaja say,
“We are going to Nsukka today, not tomorrow. If Kevin will not take us, we will still go. We will
walk if we have to” (265). This may suggest that depending on some circumstances or events,
children sometimes learn to forge their own identities when they come face to face with some
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Anato, S., Aïnamon, A., & Gbaguidi, C. (2023). The Emergence of Female Identity in Sefi Atta’s Everything Good Will Come. Advances in Social
Sciences Research Journal, 10(7). 94-102.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.107.15038
realities that meet their expectations as opposed to the models that some people try to force on
them. The time has come for Enitan to take control of her destiny. Indeed, Enitan reverted the
traditional image of invisible women’s roles in the Nigerian fiction of unrest and tragedy.
Enitan: Education and Social Awareness
A corner feature in the making of new type of women in the Nigerian novel is that of their
bookish education. Until the 1970s, the taboo that the place of a woman is in the marriage
household was still more visible than today. In the context of Africa in general, fewer women
than today completed their degree course.
Armed with her father’s instruction, Enitan at the Royal College, became wiser and more
experienced. She met girls from different backgrounds.
I learned also about women in my country, from Zaria, Katsina, Kaduna who decorated their
skin with henna dye and lived in purdah; women from Calabar who were fed and anointed in
fattening houses before their weddings; women who were circumcised. I heard about towns in
western Nigeria where every family had twins because the women ate a lot of yams, and other
towns in northern Nigeria, where every other family had a crippled child because women
married their first cousins. None of the women seemed real. They were like mammy water,
sirens of the Niger Delta who rose from the creeks to lure unsuspecting men to death by
drowning (48).
At Royal College, the girls learned more about their families and environment. This also enabled
Enitan to address the present challenges and anticipate on the ones ahead. This stage of her
growth is the evidence that education is key. Education offered her an opportunity to be aware
of what was going on in her country. “Outside our school walls, oil leaked from the drilling fields
of the Niger Delta into people’s Swiss bank accounts. There was bribery and corruption, but
none of it concerned me ...” (50).
There is an interesting quality in Enitan’s father. He was in favor of women’s empowerment
through education and Enitan was not an exception. In his article: Everything Good Will Come
(2005) de Sefi Atta: a Bildungsroman féminin (trans)national, Cédric Courtois highlights this
quality in Enitan’s father: “Le père d’Enitan, quant à lui, fait preuve d’une apparente ouverture
d’esprit lorsqu’il s’agit du sort réservé aux femmes et notamment à sa fille.” The expression:
‘sort réservé aux femmes’ is an indication that Cédric recognizes the existence of the male
mentality to look down on women. Enitan’s father anticipated the disappointment of a woman
when she is undereducated like Sheri or not educated at all like many other women. His
broadmindedness has greatly contributed to shaping the character of his daughter who, among
many other women, acquired a very good education: “I’m for the liberation of women” (21). We
also note that Enitan’s father warned her against pervasive behaviour that might entangle with
her studies. “You do not go to Saint Agnès Girls’ School to study ‘boy ology’ (42). Of course, early
boy friending can lead to drastic consequences like teenage and unwanted pregnancies. For
example, one of Sheri’s major handicaps that interfered with her schooling is her rape
experience during a beach party. The aftermaths are her barrenness.
Better to be ugly, to be crippled, to be a thief even, than to be barren. We have both been raised
to believe that our greatest days would be: the birth of our first child, our wedding and our
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graduation days in that order. A woman may be forgiven for having a child out of wedlock if she
had no hope of getting married, and she would be dissuaded from getting married if she did not
have a degree (105).
Enitan succeeded in having a brilliant education in England. The strong belief in the power of
education has prepared her to become the leader of her school debate club under her father’s
leadership. Of course, this paves her the way to study in England where she graduated as a
lawyer. “For me, coming home to Nigeria was like moving back to the fifties in England (105).
Of course, her mixing with other cultures at school and in the university abroad helped Enitan
to broaden and sharpen her mind and have the intellectual strength which infallibly
empowered her enough to defy her husband Niyi. One can say that her personality started
rising.
Enitan: Marital Status and Political Activism
After a critical analysis of Everything Good Will Come, Cédric Courtois describes it as
Buildungsroman feminin”. This consideration helps to delve into the meaning of the
terminology with reference to two approaches.
For Franco Moretti in The Way of the World “[The Bildungsroman is] a specific image of
modernity: the image conveyed precisely by the youthful attitudes of mobility and inner
restlessness (5); while Bakhtine specifies that “[the hero emerges along with the world and he
reflects the historical emergence of the world itself. [...] [He is on the border between two
epochs, at the transition point between one to another. This transition is accomplished in him
and through him. He is forced to become a new, unprecedented type of human being” (23).
Based on these two ways to clarify what is meant by “Bildungsroman feminine, it is clear that
the terminologies ‘modernity’, ‘youthful’, ‘mobility’, ‘transition’, and so on are illustrative of
Enitan’s adventure from teenage to adulthood, previously a mere girl and now in divorce with
an established social order which she sees as incompatible with her expectations of a fulfilled
woman. She opposes the so-called male privilege to subjugate women. Enitan is not ready to
consider prejudices featured by an incapacity to get married because of her condition of ‘sickler’
that she however fought to overcome. Also, she cannot understand why on earth she would be
blindly submissive to her husband, Niyi. For Enitan, marriage as her experience with Niyi
shows, is an occasion to see how she rejects the image of submission. Most of her time of
married life from the onset to motherhood was rather dominated by misunderstanding and
quarrels; for Enitan, being married is virtually a waste of time; which means that she has no joy,
contrarily to the traditional assumption that what matters most for a marriageable woman is a
husband and children. Her rebellious attitude in Niyi’s household is an indication of her
yearning for a change that she advocates for the Nigerian modern woman. This conversation
between Enitan and Niyi is self-explanatory:
‘I care about my family’, he said. ‘Only my family’.
‘So did I’, I said. Once. But that has changed now. I wasn’t worried about my mother. Who are
we fooling? The state our country is in affects everyone. [...] (325).
This discussion looms the break with past patriarchal paradigm. In the following conversation,
Enitan has challenged her husband and is ready to head directly to her goal to be involved in
politics, no matter Niyi’s refusal.
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Anato, S., Aïnamon, A., & Gbaguidi, C. (2023). The Emergence of Female Identity in Sefi Atta’s Everything Good Will Come. Advances in Social
Sciences Research Journal, 10(7). 94-102.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.107.15038
“I was not looking for a compromise. He had to change his mind. I was desperate enough to
force him. From childhood, people had told me I could not do this or that, because no one would
marry me and I would not become a mother. Now, I was a mother. (326)
‘I’m not the same’, I said.
‘What?’
‘I’m not the same as I used to be. I want you to know’ (326).
The past simple ‘used to’ specifically shows a total break with the past habit, with the traditional
concept of the image of a dominated Nigerian woman. From now on, there will be no business
as usual; hence her behaviour is in tune with the attitudes of the youth in the transition between
two epochs. Enitan succeeds in triggering change; which is materialized by her involvement in
politics. Politically speaking, the mobility and restlessness aspects of the Bildungsroman
present Enitan in her clockwise movements from the day she broke with her mother’s
prohibition down to the release of her father from prison on political grounds. She challenged
her husband’s authority, defied the police because she was intellectually armed enough to
manage police harassments at checkpoints.
[...]Your lishense”, he said.
I reached into my glove compartment. He flicked through breathing heavily and handed it back.
“Insh-wurance”.
I passed my insurance certificate and he held it upside down.
“Sister, why you stop like dat?” he asked, giving it back.
“Where?”
“Yonder”
[....]
The policeman screwed up his face attempting to look angry.
“Sistah, you no fear? I can arrest you right now”.
“What for?”
He snatched my arm and I snatched it back.
“I’m a pregnant woman. Be careful how you handle me”.
His gaze dropped.
“Yes”, I said. “I am” (236).
As microcredit initiative may empower women, so does education. Ngugi wa Thiong’o
comprehensively underscores the importance of education which is the key to the future. In
this ‘match’ between the police officer and the learned Enitan, Atta clearly present a barely
educated police officer. This is noted through his illiteracy-coloured pronunciation: ‘Insh- worance’ for ‘insurance’, ‘lishense’ for licence, ‘sistah’ for ‘sister’ and his non-respect of syntactic
rule while inverting the verb and its subject in a direct question: “Why you stop like dat?” (236).
Atta could have chosen a female police officer instead of a male. The choice may suggest that
Atta is determined to break with the patriarchal male image with a risible, barely educated
policeman who hides his intellectual lacuna under the traditional authority embodied by the
police uniform. An ordinary, under-educated woman or man would have panicked. No wonder
the policeman asked Enitan why she did not panic. He was defeated by the sophisticated
arguments proffered by Enitan. Her struggle continues until she ended up in a prison cell with
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the journalist Grace Ameh because of political activism. Their aim was to free political prisoners
among whom Bamidele, Enitan’s father:
They threw us into a cell, Grace Ameh and I. They said we had disobeyed public orders. The
police stormed the reading and ordered people out at gun point. They arrested Grace Ameh; she
was the one they came for. They arrested the four men who came to her rescue. I was arrested
because I was the first person they saw (258).
However, there is something rather astounding in Enitan’s fate. Her father ended up being
released from jail, as she, too, did. The father eventually renounces to his political activism
because of the hellish moments both spent in cells: “There was mumbling and more slapping.
Someone complained about the smell from the woman who had gone. Tears welled up in my
eyes. I sank lower. If I had been made to lick a toilet bowl, I could not feel sickle (261). Enitan
rather swore to continue. Her father swore never again to live such a punitive timing in cells.
“What my eyes have seen, I will never be the same again”.
“Me too”, I said (325).
Men symbolized by Enitan’s father used to raise voices to decry abuses. Women like Enitan in
the past, used to be silent. Now that politics is silencing men, it is rather stirring women up. The
change therefore symbolizes the dawn of emerging women. Even the title: Everything Good Will
Come is self-explanatory. Enitan fought for her father’s release. The title is in future tense. This
suggests that many achievements are ahead of Enitan because she is free as she was born in the
year of her country’s independence.
SHERI: SYMBOL OF A BROKEN DREAM
The name “Sheri” has been chosen on purpose: Google suggests that “Sheri means a real
charmer, a visionary, somebody who tends to make a lot of money and lose it fast, a freedom- loving, a compassionate person who feels things deeply “you are your own person, ambitious
and freethinking, a person who likes life in the fast lane...”
Although Sheri and Enitan are friends, they represent two characters of contrasting fate. Enitan
fulfilled her dream of transcending traditional norms that deny women the opportunity to
unleash their potential. On the contrary, Sheri failed to do so. Atta certainly intends to show
how both environment and perhaps the strength of mind can help to shape female identity in
the modern Nigerian fiction.
Sheri and her Family Background
Unlike Enitan, Sheri, unfortunately, is an orphan from childhood. “Sheri did not know her own
mother. She died when Sheri was a baby and Alhaja raised her from then on, even after her
father remarried” (36). Alhaja was a tradeswoman and could not have the necessary time and
energy to mould Sheri like her biological mother could have done. Sheri was nearly wayward in
her ways. She could very often do what she wanted without much fear as opposed to Enitan.
That was how she ended up being raped by hemp-smokers at a beach party. “Sheri was lying on
the seat. Her knees were spread apart. The boy in the cap was pinning her arms down. The
portly boy was on top of her. His hands were clamped over her mouth” (66).
Later, the reader discovers that the rape could be the cause of her barrenness. And rightly, the
day Sheri’s barrenness was provoked was that very day Enitan, who had long been worrying
whether she was a hermaphrodite, had her first menstruation: “I worried that I might be a
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Anato, S., Aïnamon, A., & Gbaguidi, C. (2023). The Emergence of Female Identity in Sefi Atta’s Everything Good Will Come. Advances in Social
Sciences Research Journal, 10(7). 94-102.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.107.15038
hermaphrodite, like an earthworm, because my periods hadn’t started” (55). The contrast
between the two girls was sharp because of the provocative and eventful Sheri’s beauty as a
half cast: “Sheri was no longer a yellow banana. She could easily win any of the beauty contests
in my school, but her demeanour needed to be toned down” (60), was the source of her sorrow.
Rather, despite Enitan’s initial comparative disadvantage, she found happiness at the same
occasion “... and my mother killed a fowl to secure my fertility” (56). The opportunity is given
to readers to see how the role of parents in educating their children is key in the process of
building up their future identity. Enitan was successful because she benefited by her parents’
private coaching, while Sheri had less success.
Sheri: Symbol of the Colonial Legacy:
Sheri’s mother died early in her babyhood. The mother is a British. This early death may
symbolize the end of colonization and Baby Sheri the colonial legacy in Nigeria. The colonial
legacy is not necessarily intended to serve Africans. The colonial paradigm is here symbolized
by Baby-Sheri. She was raped and that condition interfered with the brilliant future she was
supposed to achieve because of her potential: beauty, openness and so on. Unfortunately, she
had to be under the custody of her grandmother. Perhaps, this means a good seed has been
sown on a barren soil. Sheri was raped by immature and bad guys. Atta seems to suggest that
the colonial legacy has been poorly managed by those who are supposed to take over the affairs
of the country. The rape on Sheri is due to a male force that crushed her down. This may imply
that if women are confined to secondary roles, men are the very responsible for this, since
Sheri’s barrenness may be attributed to male domination over the female class.
CONCLUSION
This paper focused on the growth of Enitan from adolescence to adulthood. The various growth
processes make it possible to sharpen the awareness of Enitan and other women in Everything
Good Will Come. Just a naïve girl in the beginning, Enitan grew up to be a political activist;
indeed, the voice of voiceless women. She becomes empowered through education and her
relationship with other women such as her mother, Sheri, Grace Ameh and many others. In her
marital condition, she would not allow her husband, Niyi, to scorn her. Eventually, it took her
long enough to get pregnant, but she is not bothered and finally gave birth to a baby girl; it is
the symbol that the struggle for liberation will be taken over by other generations of women. It
also provides hope and expectation that: “Everything Good Will Come”. Of course, the ‘will’
expresses the future. Enitan gets rid of her husband’s influence and reclaims her dignity. The
paper suggests that women can realize their dreams if they manage to overcome the major
societal barriers that undermine their expectations; only the sky should be their limit.
References
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Educational Books Ltd. 22 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3HH
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Way Yaba, Lagos, 2003.
3 Adichie, N.C., Half of a Yellow Sun. Nigeria: Kachifo Limited under its Farafina imprint 253 Herbert
Macauly Way Yaba, Lagos, 2006.
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(transnational, Cédric Courtois@yahoo.co.uk.
8. Emecheta, B., Second-Class Citizen. Nigeria: First published by Allison and Bushy Ltd in 1974. First
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