Summary-

“Runs Girl” written by Chinelo Okparanta is a short story following a young woman named Ada who lives in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. She and her mother live together and struggle to make ends meet, her father having died years before. While she attends the University of Port Harcourt, studying government policy, her mother sells crops at the market. One day, after a black bird drops a mouse near their front door, her mother mysteriously falls ill. Deeply religious, her mother believes she will be healed through praying. This belief and also the fact that they are not well off money wise, leads Ada’s mother to not go to the hospital until she is forced. Together they go to the “teaching hospital”, where the doctors find swelling from an “abscess — localized fluid collection–” located on her shoulder. The doctors drain the abscess and admit her to the hospital to administer antibiotics through an IV. Ada patiently takes care of her mother when they return to their home, watching as she struggles to get better. She eventually returns back to university, where a friend of her’s, Njideka, inquires after her troubles. In the beginning of the story, we learn that Njideka is a “runs girl”, or an escort. At this point, she begins to push for Ada to get into the escort business in order to pay for her mother to go to specialized and private doctors that only those with money can afford. At first, Ada refuses; however, as she realizes her mother is not improving, she returns to Njideka to get ready to run a job. 

Ada is then set up with a rich man who is supposed to take her to a dinner. Njideka convinces her that most men in this business do not want sex, but this is misleading, as Ada’s client seems to only want sex. When she tries to refuse him, the man rapes her and drops her off on the street. Ada returns to her home shameful with 1000 American dollars from her rapist and an apology at ready for her mother. Her mother, only perhaps knowing that her daughter is no longer a virgin from the dried blood on her daughter’s thighs, appears to reject Ada, refusing to speak to her or accept the food she prepares. Weeks later Ada finds her mother dead, kneeled down as if about to pray, having not taken her to a specialist yet. The short story ends with Ada yearning for forgiveness, imagining a new Eve from the Bible. 

Analysis-

Okparanta’s writing is usually filled with themes of religion, the women struggle, and class conflicts. This short story is no exception. 

After Ada’s mother becomes ill, she insists that it is simply “the curse of the black bird” and can be cured by praying and the Bible. It is obvious early on that Ada and her mother are Christian — the denomination (if they have one) is not forthcoming. Every night during her illness, her mother, and usually Ada as well, would pray for her recovery. The quote her mother often read is “Happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty: For he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole”. Although not entirely important to know, I believe that they may be using the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, verse Job 5:17-18. The two also seem to be surrounded by a community and family that is of the same faith. At her mother’s funeral, many of the guests speak of “Ekwensu”, or “The work of the devil”. There is nothing wrong with their faith being Christianity, but it opens up the conversation of why. Hundreds of years before, colonizers and missionaries forced Christianity onto native cultures of Africa, Nigeria being no exception. The result is a mixture, a hybridity of culture and religion that comes through in Okparanta’s short story. Although they are praying and using the Bible, possible hints of their native religion shines through. Ada’s mother, and others, believe that the black bird and dead mouse are bad omens, ones that make her mother sick. In Ada’s thoughts, she says matter of factly that the doctors would not think of this idea, because they were “not superstitious, like the rest of us”. The idea of superstition could lean more towards their traditional native roots than Christianity. 

Religion sneaks its way into women’s issues as well. When Ada’s friend, Njideka mentions the thought of sex for money by being an escort, Ada rejects this and explains “it’s sinful”. While premarital sex is often frowned upon and thought of as sinful in Christianity, I think her comment goes beyond that.

There is a common attitude in many cultures that women are to be submissive and beneath men. Women are meant to be virgins until marriage and not fool around — although men are allowed to. These views can be a product of Christianity but has always been a general idea as well. Similarly, there is an image of women needing to be young and beautiful. Other literary works have tackled this issue, and Okparanta injects subtleties of it in this short story. In a part that may be hard to miss, Ada reflects on a time when her father was still alive. In the memory, her mother smears a little lipstick on Ada’s child-lips and parades her in front of her father, boasting at her beauty. When Ada’s father speaks that she is beautiful without the lipstick, her mother agrees but adds “every girl needs to learn how to put on lipstick”. It is interesting to see another woman promoting the damaging views that women need makeup in order to look beautiful, and a man first refuting it. It is often that people think only men can enact misogyny, but females can as well. This theme continues when Njideka transforms Ada into a “desirable” women with makeup and beauty products. Becoming desirable, of course, is merely for the enjoyment of men. The submissive view of women comes out towards the end as Ada’s client takes advantage of her with no remorse. Even as she says no and screams, he rapes her. The pervasive attitude that men can take whatever they want from women is clearly present here.

The reason that Ada even goes through with becoming a runs girl brings up the issue of money and poverty, while also tying in the issue of women’s rights in a patriarchal world. With Ada’s father dead and not many job opportunities for women, her mother has no means of getting proper care for her illness. A comment made by Ada reflects this problem: “Papa had gone and left us to fend for ourselves in a world where it was hard for a woman to do so honestly”. Her mother’s possibilities are limited, as are Ada’s. This quote foreshadows Ada becoming a runs girl for money.

Turning back to money, throughout the story, there are stark comparisons between impoverished people, such as Ada and her mother, and the wealthy. An obvious one that I have already mentioned, is that between a teaching hospital and a “real” hospital. When she visits Njideka, Ada notices signs of wealth all around her. Njideka has a large flat screen television and air conditioning, two objects that are taken for granted in Western culture, but to Ada are impossibilities for her mother and herself. Similar people are seen at Ada’s university. She mentions how the wealthy students have “shiny shoes on their feet, and on their ears, tiny Bluetooth headsets…”. Other than object wealth, there is an important contrast between dark and light in the story. A couple times there is mention of NEPA taking the light. In Nigeria, NEPA stands for National Electric Power Authority (renamed later Power Holding Company of Nigeria). During times of oil spills and power outages, NEPA was created to control electricity usage and to bring electricity to those that do not have it. The truth is that blackouts are still common, and people often refer to NEPA as “Never Expect Power Always”. 

Ada’s house loses “light”, as does the teaching hospital, in this story, but it is obvious that Njideka does not have this problem. She even specifically mentions how the fancier hospitals she speaks of have “No reliance on NEPA”, a distinct sign of wealth in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. 

Each theme collides in the final two paragraphs. Her mother’s illness and their inability to pay for better care drives Ada to become a runs girl. Their poverty results from her mother not being able to find work because she is a woman and Ada gets raped from her client because of the pervasive misogynistic view that men can take advantage of women with no consequences. When Ada returns home after being raped, her mother turns her away, refusing to speak to her on the basis that Ada has shamed the family by disobeying the Bible and their religion. I believe because of her own shame, and her mother’s rejection, Ada doesn’t bring up taking her mother to a specialist, and her mother dies untreated. The sequence of events leads to Ada despairing over her situation, despairing over the overwhelming shame of her action. She wishes for forgiveness, projecting this dream onto the idea of creating a “new Eve”, which further ties in the religious aspect of the story. Ada projects herself as this new Eve. Her version of Eve still eats the forbidden fruit but is not “cast away from the garden, because she would be given the opportunity, just once, to ask for forgiveness”. It portrays Ada’s desire to have a chance for forgiveness from her mother and maybe even God for becoming a runs girl, even though the circumstances leading up to it were not her fault and she is entirely blameless for her rape.