44 pages • 1 hour read
Flora NwapaEfuru
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1966A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Uhamiri
Uhamiri is the beautiful lake goddess that appears in Efuru’s dreams. Uhamiri lives beneath the lake and has beauty and wealth. She is a fertility goddess, although as Efuru notes, neither she nor the women who worship her have children. Nwashike reveals that Efuru’s mother also had dreams about Uhamiri, but it does not seem that she became a worshipper. Efuru is not pleased that Uhamiri has chosen her, and when she falls ill, a dibia claims that it is due to her neglect of Uhamiri’s shrine.
Uhamiri symbolizes the paradox of womanhood. Water is a symbol of fertility and intuition, and the lake goddess personifies these attributes. Women seek her as a source of consolation and empowerment. Uhamiri’s divine feminine power counterbalances the highly patriarchal nature of Igbo society. However, while Uhamiri is a goddess of female fertility, she herself does not have children. In Efuru’s society, women who have beauty and success but are childless are not fully women. Efuru’s association with Uhamiri frustrates her because she feels that it has provided (and provoked) more questions than answers. At the end of the novel, however, there is some suggestion that Efuru may come to find this association a source of comfort; her final dream implies that if the childless Uhamiri can be considered a woman—one who is worshipped, no less—Efuru can be as well.
The Cannon
The cannon that belongs to Nwashike Ogene and fires on the occasion of his death is a multilayered symbol that spans Nigeria’s past and present.
The cannon symbolizes the legacy of transatlantic slavery in Nigeria. Nwashike was the last man in town to have direct dealings with the European slave dealers, who gave him the cannon as payment for slaves.
The connection between the Ogenes and the slave dealers brings Nwashike’s family distinction. The narrator notes that “Nwosu and the fisherman could not recollect what havoc the cannons and the guns and the hot drinks did for their people” (Chapter 15, Location 3738). With time, the cannon has lost its original association with the poverty and devastation it caused in the hands of white men; it now represents a member of the community who benefitted from that suffering.
The cannon also represents conflict, which remains in the novel’s historical background: “Years ago, [the cannons] might have signified war between the peaceful town and a war-like neighbour, the people firing their cannons to frighten away the enemies, the crude enemies, who did not have contact with the white people” (Chapter 15, Location 3775). Nwapa characterizes the town that owns the cannons as “peaceful” and the “crude” neighbor as “war-like” to underscore the town’s self-image, which echoes that of the European colonizers who saw themselves as enlightened and African communities as backward while carrying out campaigns of violence and terror against local populations.
Money, Poverty, and Debt
Money, poverty, and debt are constant motifs in the novel. Efuru often finds herself in the position of lending money to her less fortunate neighbors. These people are sometimes reluctant to repay their debts because the money is always needed for something else. This is clear in the passage where Ajanupu talks to Efuru about debt collection: “Debtors don’t pay their debts these days. I am knee-deep in debt myself. But my debtors won’t pay me. How is one going to survive the famine this year?” (). When someone asks after a person’s health, a common response is “We are well, it is only hunger,” (Chapter 8, Location 2501), implying that not having enough food is a common but minor complaint.
The community’s poverty is in large part the legacy of colonialism and its aftershocks. The oppressive police practices that try to stamp out local trade in homemade gin keep locals dependent on expensive imported goods; the authorities engineer poverty to ensure that people never have quite enough. The references to lending money, collecting debts, theft, natural disasters, lack of food, and police raids paint a stark picture of the reality of life in Efuru’s town, creating a sense of urgency in all personal matters.
