We are going to discuss the last novel, Ama Ata Aidoo’s Changes. The longer analysis paper will be on Aidoo’s Changes (150 points).
Aidoo is a Ghanaian writer. Please watch a video clip on Aidoo (about 3 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_gJwy9yjrkLinks to an external site.
About the setting of the novel:
Aidoo’s novel Changes, published in 1991, is set in the late 1980s in Ghana (The only clue I can find about the time period is when the protagonist Esi Sekyi mentions a personal computer she buys with the help of her cousin. See page 138).
Ghana became independent of the British colonial rule in 1957, and the novel is set in postcolonial Ghanaian society. Aidoo indirectly and briefly mentions the British colonial influence on the country. For example, she depicts in the novel that Opokuya and Kubi live in “the most prestigious of the colonial residential areas” (16); Ali’s father distrusts the white man’s bank even after independence (26); Esi’s mother and grandmother have an ambivalent view on Esi’s education, calling it “the dangerous confusion she was now in and the country now was in” (114).
Discussion Question #1 for Aidoo’s Changes (2001, pp. 1-42)
- What does Esi do, and where does she work? What does Oko do for a living? After they married, Esi moved with Oko to Kumasi and worked at the office of the Birth and Death register (40). How did Esi feel about living in Kumasi and working at the office at that time? Was Oko sympathetic towards Esi and her situation in Kumasi? Six years later, Esi now has a job in Accra (the Capital of Ghana), but she is frustrated with the men in the office. Why is she angry with herself when she has to go to a travel agency, Linga HideAways? Why does she regret that she couldn’t “prevent herself from falling into that trap” (1)? Does Oko understand Esi’s frustration at work, or does Esi ignore Oko and their marriage?
- Oko tells Esi, “My friends are laughing at me. They think I’m not behaving like a man” (8). What does he mean by “not behaving like a man”? What is the major conflict between Oko and Esi? Why did Esi marry Oko? Why was she particularly angry with Oko on that Monday morning? What does Esi think of Oko? What are the main reasons Esi wants to end her marriage with Oko? Is her decision unreasonable and/or unrealistic?
- What does Opokuya do for a living and what does her husband Kubi do? What argument/friction does Opokuya have with Kubi every morning, and why does Kubi not allow Opokuya to use the car? Is there any other reason that Kubi does not allow his wife to use the car? Is Kubi unreasonable, or is he controlling his wife by not allowing the car she needs to use for the family? How would you characterize Kubi? How would you characterize Opokuya in terms of her way of dealing with the issues with her husband?
