Who Fears Death

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2010

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Part 1, Chapters 4-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 4 Summary: “Eleventh Year Rite”

In Jwahir, when girls are eleven years old, they go through the Eleventh Rite, “a two thousand year old tradition held on the first day of rainy season” (32). The Eleventh Rite is when the girls undergo female circumcision; the practice had been banned in Onye’s mother’s village, and in Jwahir it is considered to be optional, though many still believe it is a prerequisite for marriage.

Onye initially assumes that she will not take the Eleventh Rite; however, following her experience in the iroko tree, Onye feels that she is a stain on her family and wishes to take the Rite in order to regain honor for her mother and Papa. Further, she believes taking the Rite will help to make her normal.

When the night comes to perform the Rite, knowing her parents would not approve, Onye sneaks out of her house to the ceremony. Six elder women and four eleven year old girls are present, including Onye. The women introduce themselves first, then ask the girls to introduce themselves: Luyu, Diti, and Binta.

The elder women ask the girls who is “untouched”; only Onye raises her hand, shocked that anyone her age could be sexually active. Although Luyu and Diti tell the elders who they were with, Binta initially refuses to tell them and is visibly distraught; after the women reassure Binta that she is safe there, she admits that her father has been molesting her. It turns out that the women had known about this for some time but were powerless to do anything about it until Binta took her Eleventh Rite.

Following this, the ceremony begins; the girls are warned that they will bleed, but they are not to scream or kick. The other three girls go first, and Onye wonders why the healer is using a “primitive scalpel” rather than a laser knife (39); she considers briefly not going through with the procedure.

When it is Onye’s turn, the pain is an “explosion” and she begins screaming; she is “still screaming when [she realizes] that everything had fallen away. That [she is] in a place of periwinkle and yellow and mostly green” (41). She then notices something “Red and oval shaped with a white oval in the center, like the giant eye of a jinni” which horrifies her (41). She then wakes up; the healer gives her a cup of water and tells her not to move.

However, she is confused when the other girls tell her that she didn’t scream. Luyu tells her that she just went to sleep; Diti says she was transparent, but the other girls quickly hush her. The Ada tells Nana the Wise that Onye should speak to Aro, but Nana only grunts and frowns; no one elaborates, so Onye forgets about it.

After resting for a bit, the girls are given belly chains and a diamond to keep beneath their tongues; neither is ever meant to leave their bodies.

When they leave, Onye gets the girls to tell her what happened to her. When she was cut, she appeared first to go to sleep, but she also became transparent, “like glass” (43). They ask if she was cursed, but Onye dismisses them.

The next morning, when she is bloody and nauseous, her mother realizes what she has done and grows irate with her, slapping her so hard that the diamond is thrown from her mouth. She tries to tell her parents that she did it for them, but they tell her they don’t care what other people think and remain upset and mystified by her actions. She remains home the rest of the day, resting and reading a book on the Nuru language.

Chapter 5 Summary: “The One Who Is Calling”

When she returns to school, Onye discovers that the other girls kept their promise to keep the events to themselves. They also discover that Binta’s parents were brought before the village elders; her father was whipped, and her parents were ordered to receive counseling for three years. Onye believes the punishment was not harsh enough.

She also discovers that while they were away, a new student, Mwita, has arrived, and he is Ewu like Onye. Mwita had apparently arrived at school four days earlier, but merely scoffed at the teachers and refused to return. Onye spends the rest of the day looking for him but doesn’t find him.

Although the Rite is supposed to bond the girls who take it, most do not remain close; however, because of the important secrets disclosed at theirs, Onye feels an instant connection with the other three. They begin to talk and study together regularly.

Shortly after—eleven days after they took the Rite—Onye finally meets Mwita, who tells her “They’ll still think you’re evil” as she walks by (50). They introduce themselves to one another, though Mwita already knows quite a lot about Onye. He tells her that he is in a better school than the normal school, then hands her an envelope meant for her father before turning and walking away.

Chapter 6 Summary: “Eshu”

Onye begins to see Mwita frequently, as he always seems to be running errands and carrying messages in a hurry. They talk quickly, but Onye convinces Mwita to teach her little bits of sorcery and juju that he is learning at his “school.”

Some months later, Onye is thrilled to see Mwita as she needs to tell him about her experience. She had encountered a vulture in the yard. After throwing a rock at it, a feather was left behind, which she picked up, subsequently turning briefly into a vulture. Mwita is not surprised, and explains to her that she is an Eshu—a shapeshifter—and that he’s known this since she turned into a sparrow and flew to the tree—as it turns out, Mwita was the mysterious boy at the bottom of the iroko tree that day months prior. “Firsts are important,” he says: “Sparrows are survivors. Vultures are noble birds” (56).

Onye then tells Mwita about the red eye she’s been seeing and begs him to teach her. They begin to meet twice weekly after school so that Mwita can teach her what he knows.

Chapter 7 Summary: “Lessons Learned”

After one of their lessons, Onye tells Mwita about all her experiences and concerns. Onye is surprised that Mwita is not more surprised by her experiences.

She sneaks out of her house later that night, and they walk out to the desert together. Mwita tells her that he is not like her; although he is Ewu, his mother was not raped, but rather fell in love with a Nuru man. After his birth, the villagers were confused because there had been no attacks in the area; however, someone betrayed her parents, and the villagers killed them both, while his father’s sister took Mwita in and raised him in the early years.

When he was six, Mwita’s uncle begged a local, powerful sorcerer named Daib to train Mwita so that he would be able to protect himself; Daib did not want to but did so as a favor because of his grandmother.

When he was eleven, the fighting began again. The Okeke stormed Mwita’s village looking for Daib, who was known for his cruelty; Mwita’s aunt and uncle were murdered in the fighting. Daib had taught Mwita how to make himself “ignorable” (invisible), so Mwita was able to save himself and escape to the desert. He packed what he could and went east, eventually making his way to Jwahir.

Chapters 4-7 Analysis

Two separate rites of passage occur in these chapters. Of the two, the Eleventh Rite is the more obvious one. Female circumcision has a long history largely rooted in oppression, and as such is a major human rights issue in many parts of the world—in fact, an alternative term for the practice is female genital mutilation (FGM). There are several versions of FGM; the version practiced here appears to be only the removal of the clitoris, as opposed to sewing the labia majora shut, leaving only a small hole for urination, as is practiced in some parts of the world today.

The practice in the novel is complicated, however. For one, though it is traditional, it is nevertheless optional: girls choose whether or not to take part, and it is suggested that many adults—including Onye’s parents—vehemently disapprove of the practice. (Even Aro, who supplies the juju for the scalpel, will later chastise Onye for choosing to take part.) Onye must sneak out to undergo the Rite and does so as a way of gaining acceptance into society given her status as an outcast—this works, given the close friendship she develops with the other girls. Likewise, Binta has her own reasons for undergoing the Rite: for her, the choice is between continuing to be molested by her father or gaining some kind of protection against his abuse. Okorafor critiques FGM in many other ways as the novel progresses, particularly once the girls are adults, but does not paint the picture in black and white terms.

The other rite of passage is Onye’s discovery of her ability to change, and for the purposes of the novel, this is the more important one. We will find out later that Aro was the vulture and perhaps was leading her to her discovery, or maybe simply testing her to see. Regardless, Onye has started down her path toward becoming a sorcerer. Strange things have happened to her, but she’s beginning to recognize and understand them more, particularly with Mwita around to help her understand them. The two rites of passage aren’t really juxtaposed against one another—after all, the Eleventh Rite utilizes juju in order to fully achieve its goals—but they do represent two kinds of paths, and Onye will eventually use one in order to undo the other.