The Plight of the Oppressed
The title of the book itself indicates its overarching theme. As with much of the author’s body of work, this novel is concerned with exposing the difficulties of being part of an oppressed societal group—in this case, an African immigrant to the UK. The groups comprising the oppressed are hardly limited to just one single identifier, as the forces of oppression are realized in the form of racism, misogyny, class, and xenophobia. Emecheta's tone is one of empathy and understanding toward those whose lives are constant struggles against entrenched powers.
Marriage as Tyranny
The portrait of marriage presented in the novel is anything but the fairy-tale, happily-ever-after illusion of romance. Marital bliss is secondary to marital disturbance as the course of true love is permanently obstructed by patriarchal domination and the desire to subjugate the wife which only ever serves to engender feelings of regret and resentment in the wife toward the husband. The inevitable paradox is that both unsuccessful and successful rebellion of the oppressed party engineers a tearing apart of the social fabric that marriage as a contractual endeavor is intended to reinforce.
Anti-Immigrant Prejudice
Focusing on British policies in particular, the novel is an unblinking presentation of how deep and widespread anti-immigrant feelings run among the natives. The story reveals the country—but especially London—to be a festering boil of racial hostility that may be revealed explicitly and without shame or may be expressed in more repressed ways that fail in the effort to hide the true feelings of those who may feel compelled to present a more accepting and empathetic façade. The message is that Britons are inherently undesiring of any foreigners interrupting their way of life, but are far more likely to be vehemently so when the foreigners arrive from cultures dominated by darker pigments in their skin.
Motherhood
Adah is a fierce mother, protective of her children and always advocating for their safety and selfhood and trying to instill pride in their Blackness. She wants a career, yes, but she is unequivocally devoted to her children. She has an instinctual understanding of what they need and want, though she often struggles to be the sort of mother she wants to be in this foreign land of London. Adah also sees motherhood through a feminist lens—as a choice women should be able to make, evinced in how she seeks contraceptives and abortion pills in order to control her reproductive abilities.
Feminism
The feminist lens with which we may want to regard the novel is anachronistic, but that does not mean Adah does not evince qualities, characteristics, and behaviors that point to a feminist ethos. She wants to balance motherhood and a career; she wants to make choices about her own body; she wants to develop her own identity. She is an imperfect feminist model in terms of her marriage to Francis, who is unequivocally an abuser, as well as her lack of interest in supporting other women, but overall we can analyze many aspects of her character in terms of proto-feminism.
The Welfare State
Britain's welfare state comes under Emecheta's keen gaze in this novel. Sometimes it seems to function well enough, and Adah benefits from its offering. However, it is also depicted as problematic, especially for women and immigrants (of which Adah is both). As a woman, Adah is subject to rules that privilege male control over women, and as an immigrant, Adah has to deal with the immensity of the system without much help at all.
Race and Class
Britain is typically viewed as a place that struggles more with class than race, but for immigrants, those two categories are inextricable. Adah and Francis's Blackness precludes their getting affordable housing, as well as dictates how they are generally treated. It initially pushes them into a lower class, though Adah's tenacity and intelligence help propel the family forward a bit. Adah struggles with the conflation of race and class, for she cannot fathom how she has to inhabit the same spaces as people who would have been servants of hers back in Nigeria.
