Chapter 6 Summary of Second Class Citizen

Are you studying Second Class Citizen as part of your African Literature or African Prose course? Do you want a human-written summary of Second Class Citizen Chapter 6? Then you’re in the right place.

This Chapter 6 Summary of Second Class Citizen will show you the naked display of both racial and tribal discrimination in the streets of London, England.

The title of Chapter Six of the novel is a disturbing, “Sorry, No Coloureds”. This refers to a racist inscription on notices that advertise room vacancies in London. In effect, you cannot be accepted as a tenant in a white-owned property if you’re a coloured or black immigrant.

But it is interesting to note that the discrimination that the narrator refers to in Second Class Citizen goes beyond white-black relations. In fact, there is an even more sinister form of discrimination among the black immigrants themselves.

SEE ALSO: Significance of Lawyer Nweze’s Return From the United Kingdom

Let’s now begin the actual summary of Chapter Six of Second Class Citizen.

Chapter 6 Summary

The sixth chapter of Second Class Citizen opens with a sad-looking Francis coming in to hand Adah an eviction notice from their landlords in Ashdown Street.

“A certain solicitor representing their landlord would like them to quit and give up all claims to the tenancy of their one-room in Ashdown Street. And within a month!”

Adah instantly realizes that a key factor behind the quit order is that her fellow Nigerian neighbours are working against her family.

“In fact, to most of her Nigerian neighbours, she was having her cake and eating it. She was in a white man’s job despite the fact that everybody had warned her against it, and it looked as if she meant to keep it. She would not send her children away to be fostered like everybody; instead, they were living with them, just as if she and Francis were first class citizens in their own country. To cap it all, they were Igbos, the hated people who always believe blindly in their ideologies. Well, if they were going to be different from everybody else, they would have to go away from them.”

So these are the crimes Adah, Francis and their two little children must suffer for. Tribal discrimination, in this case between Yorubas and Igbos, was just as virulent as white-black racial prejudices that existed in the United Kingdom at the time.

There are other reasons why Adah’s Nigerian neighbours are eager to see her back, and those of Francis and their innocent children.

• Francis is just fine, having Adah to cater for him while he studies full-time.

• They have children, and the pregnant Adah could have another boy soon (the landlady is still childless).

• The neighbours expected Vicky to die of viral meningitis, but he came home alive.

• Adah and Francis have the privilege of seeing their children every day.

QUESTION: What caused the eviction of the Obis from their room in Ashdown Street? Show the significance of this incident.

“Sorry, No Coloureds”

It is not easy to find another place because most of the vacant room notices have the discriminatory inscription “Sorry, No Coloureds”. Thus, for Adah and her family, being both Igbo and black has become a roadblock to finding a place to live in England.

“Her house-hunting was made more difficult because she was black, black with two very young children and pregnant with another one. She was beginning to learn that her colour was something she was supposed to be ashamed of.”

Henceforth, Adah can feel the psychological effect that discrimination is beginning to have on her. Unconsciously, she has begun to fall into the roles that the racist white society has given her. When she visits the shop, she starts from the less glamorous part. Then she will gradually move her way up to the items normally considered to be the preserve of whites alone.

But this is because this is Adah. For others like Francis, who are very comfortable being second-class citizens, they start from the poor corners of the shops and remain there. They may not even dare enter so-called white-only shopping areas.

The Eviction Pressure Mounts

So Adah’s landlady and her Nigerian neighbours continue to keep up the pressure. They sing insinuating songs and make pointless complaints about Titi and Vicky in particular.

It is at this time that Adah chances upon a vacant room notice that appears to be available to them. It is located in Hawley Street. So she and Francis go to see the landlady.

Unfortunately, upon realising that they are a black couple, the white landlady, who had previously promised Adah the room, sends them away in a rather dramatic fashion, with the excuse that the room is no longer available.

“At first, Adah thought the woman was about to have an epileptic seizure. As she opened the door, the woman clutched at her throat with one hand, her little mouth opening and closing as if gasping for air, and her bright kitten-like eyes dilated to their fullest extent. She made several attempts to talk, but no sound came. Her mouth had obviously gone dry. But she succeeded eventually. Oh yes, she found her voice, from wherever it had gone previously. That voice was telling them now that she was very sorry, the room had just gone.”

Now, with the one-month deadline very near, it is only a miracle that can save Adah and her family from their predicament.

Thus, the novelist largely succeeds in highlighting the complex nature of discrimination in racial and tribal relations in England at the time.

This is the end of our summary of Second Class Citizen Chapter 6.

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