The Headstrong Historian

Nwamgba is the central protagonist in the narrative. Other than the state of her dress—a wrap around her waist—and the “grace in her straight back” (209), physical descriptions are few in the story. Instead, her character is her most remarkable feature. According to her father, she is “sharp-tongued, headstrong,” and he often found her exhausting because she was the type of girl who crossed gender lines and “wrestled her brother to the ground” (199). Her manner of speech, too, goes against the usual manner of the women in her clan, as Father Shanahan remarks that “she, unlike others, had not spent too much time going round and round in her speech” (209).

Nwamgba’s stubbornness and decisiveness also affect her relationships. Though rumors circulate about Obierika and his family, “she had believed that her chi and his chi had destined their marriage” and could not otherwise be deterred from her plans to marry him (198). Though her stubbornness can be a strength in her life, Nwamgba’s inflexibility unintentionally causes rifts in her family. When Obierika dies and she suspects his cousins of murder, her stubbornness and dedication to her husband drive her to reclaim his titles and lands for her son and maintain the family legacy by enrolling Anikwenwa in the missionary school.