Freshwater

“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.

“It’s not as if you can escape us—where would you run to?”

This rhetorical question emphasizes how indifferent the ogbanje are to Ada’s consent, foreshadowing the sexual assault and journey that Ada goes on to reclaim her own body.

“Wait, is this how humans feel? To know that you are separate and special, to be individual and distinct?”

Emezi uses a rhetorical question to convey Asughara’s joy yet lack of assuredness in using Ada’s body and receiving a name from her. The idea of being “separate” and “distinct” clashes with the motif of “we” and epitomizes the novel’s conflict between a search for identity and a desire for multiplicity and connectedness.

“It was a small mercy, though, to be around those humans who could see us flashing beneath the Ada’s skin.”

The image of the ogbanje flashing beneath Ada’s skin expresses how desperately they want to be seen. While it generates a sense of “mercy” for the ogbanje, the image is also implicitly violent and suggests pain and a feeling of exposure for Ada.

“I don’t mean that in a good way—he made me suffer but I still cast idols in his name, as people have done for their gods for millenia.”

Here, Ada compares Ewan to a god who has made her suffer but whom she still worships. This parallels her experience with Yshwa because when she thought she betrayed him, it caused her more pain. He made her suffer, but she worshipped him anyway.

“It was Halloween a few days later and Ada showed up to the party at Ewan’s house dressed as me.”

This sentence acknowledges the costume that Asughara can be. Ada uses her as such, putting her on when she wants to be a certain way. It is a comedic moment that clashes with the dark subject matter, mimicking the clash of identities and personalities inside Ada.

“They were balanced now—the Ada, her little beast, and her saint—the three of them locked in the marbled flesh, burning through the world.”

This sentence provides imagery of the three of them working in harmony, alluding to the father, son, and holy spirit—all three in one. They are burning through the world with their violent exterior, like the sun, something to which Ada is frequently compared throughout the novel.

“‘Yeah.’ I looked into my bottle. ‘I shouldn’t even have existed.’”

Asughara, through a drunk conversation with Ada in the marble mind, admits that she should not be there because she was born of trauma that Ada did not deserve. This is a turning point for her character because she is the one who is wrong, suggesting the beginning of healing from trauma.

“The space between the spirits and the alive is death. The space between life and death is resurrection.”

This novel explores the liminal spaces between binaries through both gender and other worlds. Here, the ogbanje name the spaces in between, suggesting the danger of resisting binaries (“death”) but also the possibilities (“resurrection”).

“Do you have a better plan? Do you know how to make the pain stop?”

Asughara yells these questions at Yshwa in anger. However, when Yshwa responds that the pain does not stop, she is unsatisfied. The repetition of “[d]o you” heightens the urgency of her questions and emphasizes the sense of separation that she feels from Yshwa—they are not a “we.”

“There was too much safety in sin, too much sweetness to walk away from.”

Emezi uses alliteration here to imitate the hissing of a snake and suggest, through Christian imagery, how tempting it is to continue on the path of sinning. They use repetition of “too much” to emphasize this idea.

“When you look at life from far away enough, the things we talk, think, and gossip about fade to tiny dots, to nothing. I think, will this all matter in thirty years?”

Written by Ada to Yshwa, this idea suggests that she is able to love without fear but is also evidence of her lack of investment in her own life, highlighting The Lifelong Impact of Trauma.

“Honestly, Yshwa, I just want to rest. Let me find a place where even if I’m alone, I can sit on my veranda and look at a mango tree and we can just talk.”

Ada confesses how exhausted she is from her life. She wants simplicity and human pleasures. Her mother ate mangoes when she was pregnant with Ada, so mangoes represent something human, familial, and simple.

“She did not die, yes, but she was not guarded; she was violated, so as far as we were concerned, they failed.”

Emezi uses simple syntax to express the ogbanje’s clear view of things: They would not have taken over Ada if she was being protected, but they were forced to do so.

“The Ada could look back on her life and see, like clones, several of her standing there in a line.”

This sentence reinforces the imagery of Ada looking “at life from far away enough” (192), emphasizing her traumatized sense of separation from her own identity. Throughout the novel, Emezi represents Ada as “several” people until she understands herself as a god.

“What are your fears? Why are you doing this? No, that is a lie. Try again. That is also a lie. Stop being afraid.”

This syncopated, one-sided conversation keeps hidden the parts of Ada that she reveals to Leshi during their time together. It paints a picture of what Leshi did for her without reexplaining the content of the novel, highlighting the healing rather than the trauma. It also immerses the reader in the whirlwind world of interrogation.

“Ah, we have always claimed to rule the Ada, but here is the truth: she was easier to control when she thought she was weak.”

The interjection “Ah” implies that the ogbanje are tired and ready to give up. They have been claiming that they have been honest for this entire time, but here they finally say the truth because they have been caught and exposed. This epitomizes the fact that each narrator in the novel is unreliable before Ada develops her true sense of self.

“We couldn’t find the anger to keep us afloat.”

This image of anger exemplifies how the ogbanje used anger for so long: It did not save them, but it kept them afloat in one place instead of drowning in painful memories.

“When you have been hiding in a great shadow, it hurts to look at the light, to be awake, to feel.”

Ada has been hiding in the shadows cast by the ogbanje. When she awakens, she is in pain because she knows and feels things of which she has only felt filtered versions. The light represents the truth of her being.

“But it’s a relief to finally be thrown, to lie with my back on the sand, alive and out of breath.”

Ada is relieved that the metaphorical wrestling match she has competed in for her entire life is over. She has been fighting herself and has finally surrendered, but it feels good for it to be over, even though she has been thrown.

“Touch your tongue to your tail so you know where it is. You will form the inevitable circle, the beginning that is the end.”

Ala says this to Ada when Ada first prays to her. This circle symbolizes the course of Ada’s life and the comfort of being the python that she is. It suggests that the binaries—this side or that side, the end or the beginning—are all, in a circle, the same thing.

“I am my others. We are one and we are many.”

By using both “I” and “we,” Ada acknowledges the unity of herself and the ogbanje. This also refers back to one of the first lines of the novel in which the ogbanje say “we are many,” narratively reflecting the circle.