2 things certain

Despite whatever the dispute may be, it all comes down to death and taxes. “NO MORE TAX”, “NO MORE TAX”, the women chanted in the face of their sovereign. The courtyard reverberates with the demand of the working woman who have grown tired of watching middle class merchants profit off of their labor. This is an all too familiar scene, but one which is fitting given the thematic nature of our course. The retainers, “some of them with some minor palace titles, who usually lounged on mats in the courtyard” , are lucky peripheries lounging in affluence. The struggle between the wants of the masses, proclaiming in unison vs. the few, generally undeserving, holders of power is a climactic scene to draw a novel to a close. In finality the working woman of Egbaland beseeching their patron on the behalf of democracy and equality. It similarly could have been Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. The whole scene screamed “no taxation without representation”, but with obvious palpable social ramificationis. The situation is plausible enough, is easily historical, and I suppose must be accepted in some fashion given the autobiographical nature of the book, but it seems fitting to end a novel about post colonial Nigeria with a consort with a king.