Freshwater

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses sexual assault, self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, domestic abuse, and mental illness.

“The main problem was that we were a distinct we instead of being fully and just her.”

This quote introduces the complication of the separation between the ogbanje and Ada. Emezi contrasts the motif of “we” with “her” to initially express the differences and struggles between the ogbanje and Ada’s sense of identity.

“We bled a lot and Saul gave us the injection himself, but the Ada has no scar so perhaps this is a memory.”

This foreshadows the sectioning of Ada’s past selves that makes her doubt her own memory, as well as her solution to mark her own body to remember. The ogbanje relay a memory but then doubt its truth because there is no physical scar. This expectation that a memory should equate to a scar introduces the theme of The Lifelong Impact of Trauma.

“Meanwhile, Ala continued to watch her child. After all, the Ada was her hatchling, her bloodthirsty little sun, covered in translucent scales.”

This quote introduces several recurring metaphors: Ada as the sun, the python, and the egg. Ada is seen as different things to different beings and even multiple things to one being, reflecting Multiplicity: Refusal of the Binary.