Birdsong

The unnamed narrator is the protagonist of the story. She is in a relationship with an older, married man. She believes that her friend Chikwado—who is a stand-in for conventional opinion among women in their community—views her as irresponsible and immature, not only for her affair but for her short, natural hair, her willingness to smoke cigarettes in public, and her refusal to join in the office prayer sessions (Paragraph 3).

The narrator initially believes that she is too independent to care that her lover is already married. She doesn’t worry about finding a husband of her own, as the other women in the office do. As the relationship progresses, however, she begins to notice that other people do not treat her with the same respect she believes they would accord to her lover’s wife. She notices, too, that he doesn’t really see her—viewing her not as an independent person with her own desires but as evidence of his charm and generosity. Because of her anti-heroic traits (e.g., knowingly dating a married man) and shifting character arc, the narrator is a dynamic character. Her character arc begins with her being naive or overly-optimistic that her relationship with her lover would change into something more externally-validating such as his divorcing his wife or him treating her with similar regard.