Under the Udala Trees

Ijeoma is our first-person narrator who spends the novel coming to terms with her sexuality in an oppressive and war-torn country. She is Igbo—part of the losing faction of the Nigerian Civil War—and raised Christian. Repeatedly called beautiful by many characters, Ijeoma has “Yellow skin, the color of a ripe pawpaw” which is considered “very lucky for a girl” (54).

After a brief first relationship with Amina, a Hausa Muslim girl, Ijeoma suffers at the hands of her society’s homophobia. Her mother uses the Bible to try abusive gay conversion therapy, condemning gay and lesbian lives and shaming Ijeoma for her innate self. Soon, Ijeoma feels like her “mind was infested with images of graves. [She] had become a little like a coffin: [she] felt a hollowness in [her] and a rattling at [her] seams” (196).

Though she continues pursuing relationships with women, Ijeoma feels the weight of cultural and religious expectations as a horrific and unbearable burden until she decides to marry Chibundu, a childhood friend. On the night of their wedding, Ijeoma describes herself as “a snail protected by its hard shell [...] alarmed [...]” and “retreating into its shell” (234) when Chibundu tries to consummate their marriage.