Girl, Woman, Other

Secrets are an important motif throughout Girl, Woman, Other, often developing themes of The Impact of Family Legacy and Human Connectivity and Interdependence. Shirley hides her anti-gay bias from Amma, though she can’t hide it from Dominique. Morgan hides their true nonbinary identity from their unaccepting mother until their adulthood. Winsome hides her affair with Shirley’s husband, allowing Shirley to believe in Lennox’s near faultlessness. Bummi never tells her daughter, Carole, about her affair with her employee Omofe. These details imply that no life is ordinary. Furthermore, the failure of Hattie’s father, Joseph, to divulge his family dealings in the trade of enslaved Africans points to the continuing dark legacy of oppression and colonialism, prompting readers to think critically about how structural oppression manifests in family lives, institutions, and ways of thinking.

The motif of feminism develops the novel’s interest in intersectionality and generational change. Evaristo presents a prismatic, evolving understanding of feminism, the meaning of which changes from character to character. Shirley associates feminism with the radical thinking of Amma’s queer community and secretly harbors a disdain for it that is only palpable to