Black Sunday

Bibike’s narrative starts and ends with her twin sister Ariyike. She introduces the two as twins and mentions how she finds comfort in sharing life with her sister. Ariyike is less fond of this but for each, the path to independence remains critically important. For Bibike, it is after meeting Aminat’s father that she begins to think about independence. At first it is impossible, and she thinks:

If beauty was a gift, it was not a gift to me, I could not eat my own beauty, I could not improve my life by beauty alone […] I had waited too long to choose my owner, dillydallying in my ignorance, and so someone chose me. What was I to do about that? (91).

This point is a step on the way to independence in that she uses her beauty as a way of providing for her family, even though she is still dependent on Aminat’s father to do so. However, by the end of the novel, she ultimately forges a life in which she can provide for herself. In refusing to marry Tunde, she resists the pressure that women should depend on men, deciding instead to provide for herself and her daughter.