Cell One

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 2007

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Character Analysis

Nnamabia

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses police violence, gang violence, sexual assault, and colorism.

Though the story is narrated by his younger sister, Nnamabia functions as the story’s dynamic protagonist, undergoing a journey rife with political conflict and self-realization that drives the narrative forward. In his sister’s eyes, he is charming and carefree but also disingenuous and shallow. These character flaws are at the root of the story’s conflict, since they motivate the bad behavior that eventually leads to his arrest. Above all, a selfish need to attain popularity by adhering to the mentality of the boys around him leads Nnamabia down a criminal path, demonstrating The Dangers of the Bandwagon Effect. The narrator assesses his intentions in the wake of the gold robbery, observing, “[h]e had done it, too, because other sons of professors were doing it” (Paragraph 6). Here, his blatant disregard for his mother’s feelings demonstrates his self-centered performativity at the expense of empathy.

By the end of the story, however, Nnamabia develops into a conscientious, empathetic character who recognizes the cruelty of the violent systems in which he has participated. This change is catalyzed when he witnesses the senseless cruelty levied against an innocent old man brought to the prison by police and other prisoners. In a simple act of rebellion against the social violence that surrounds him, Nnamabia defends the man at the risk of his own safety, demonstrating the fundamental shift in his character from selfish to selfless. The straightforward tone of his account reflects the humility of his actions, as he tells the family, “I didn’t care. I didn’t shut up. So they pulled me out and slapped me and took me to Cell One” (Paragraph 67).

Narrator

The narrator is the second primary character in “Cell One.” She recounts her version of events honestly and authentically, but she is unreliable in that she does not always have access to pertinent information and often judges other characters harshly because of her biases and lack of self-awareness. Though she is critical of the systems of violence and injustice that surround her in Igboland, the narrator unthinkingly contributes to them herself. For example, she displays the same social attraction to the popular deviant boys about which she critiques Nnamabia. She describes “Osita, our neighbor who had stolen our TV only weeks before Nnamabia’s theft, [as] lithe and handsome in a brooding sort of way,” and she “imagine[s] that he was walking toward me, coming to claim me as his” (Paragraph 7). This unabashedly lustful portrayal of Osita’s sleek swagger betrays the inconsistent moral standards to which the narrator holds herself, as opposed to her brother.

At first, the narrator embodies The Harms of Privilege-Fueled Apathy. Her most significant character development is therefore a gradual loosening of her apathetic relationship with Nnamabia, such that by the end of “Cell One,” she has newfound empathy and respect for him. One of the first signs of this changing dynamic occurs when she actively empathizes with Nnamabia’s visible sadness about the old man and “felt a tenderness for him that I would not have been able to describe if I had been asked to” (Paragraph 40). The wistful, affectionate tone of this sentence is notably different than the narrator’s default blunt voice. Adichie therefore shows that changes in Nnamabia’s demeanor are motivating the narrator to change her attitudes as well.

Parents

While the narrator has an antagonistic relationship with her parents, “Cell One” does not necessarily position them as antagonists. Early in the story, the narrator reveals formative experiences that inform her biases against her parents, particularly her mother. She says:

When my mother took us to the market, traders would call out, ‘Hey! Madam, why did you waste your fair skin on a boy and leave the girl so dark? What is a boy doing with all this beauty?’ And my mother would chuckle, as though she took a mischievous and joyful responsibility for Nnamabia’s looks (Paragraph 8).

This passage demonstrates the widespread colorism in a postcolonial culture and, more subtly, demonstrates the sexism aimed at both mother and daughter, who are instantly and callously judged for their looks. Furthermore, this widespread praise of Nnamabia, at the cost of the narrator and encouraged by her mother, is presented as an event that catalyzes the narrator’s negative outlook on her parents and their treatment of her brother. Adichie suggests that all direct characterizations of the parents by the narrator, therefore, must be read somewhat critically because of her overarching resentments.

Indirect characterization, however, paints a slightly different portrait of the parents. In particular, their relentless campaign to set Nnamabia free by visiting him every day and holding the prison guards accountable for their treatment of him is presented as heroic in its own right. The ferocity of their determination is evident during their final confrontation with the police, which results in Nnamabia’s release. In the face of indignant and armed officers, both mother and father are unrelenting in their demands for their son. The father’s firm refrain, “Where is our son?” and the mother’s more urgent commands, “Take me to my son! Take me to my son right now!” (Paragraphs 43-61), underline their steadfast commitment to his liberation from a corrupt and violent system.

Though the parents do embody The Harms of Privilege-Fueled Apathy when they are seemingly unmoved by the plight of the old man and any other victims of the violence who are not their son, their dedication to Nnamabia is a redeeming quality that the narrator largely ignores. However, the story offers a glimpse past the narrator’s biases to suggest that they are not as antagonistic as she understands them to be.

The Old Man

The old man is a static character who operates as a foil to Nnamabia, exposing Nnamabia’s own character flaws to himself. Because the old man never appears in the action of the story, he is characterized entirely by what Nnamabia reports back to the family about him. Nnamabia describes him as “innocent and ill” (Paragraph 67), and this description is in direct contrast with the narrator’s perception of Nnamabia, who remains physically until the end despite the dangerous prison conditions and his dubious innocence.

Because the old man is characterized exclusively by Nnamabia’s account of him, he remains one-dimensional for the extent of the story. He exemplifies the injustice of police brutality as its most vulnerable victim amongst the characters. Nnamabia’s description of his sexually violent treatment within the prison is one of the most significant portrayals of The Normalization of Violence Under Oppressive Systems in “Cell One”: “The policemen started to laugh when they saw him do this, and then they asked him to take all his clothes off and parade in the corridor outside the cell; as he did, they laughed even louder” (Paragraph 40). Witnessing the overwhelming injustice of the old man’s circumstances—especially when contrasted with the indifference of the police and other prisoners (characters with whom he previously identified)—forces Nnamabia to reckon with his own history of apathy and cruelty. As such, the old man plays an essential role as Nnamabia’s foil, not only in terms of narrative function but for Nnamabia himself. This is a meta development of the foil archetype by Adichie, since foils usually operate as a characterization device unapparent to other characters within the world of the narrative.