The story opens with Ese’s musings on a painting of herself, trying to figure out what the countless suitors had seen that made her so beautiful in their eyes. She concludes, “This was long ago, when we had not seen much of civilisation, and our daily existence was guided by ancient rules and traditions.” – a statement of the lot which awaited her after the death of her husband.

Ese is a young widow who once excelled in business on Main Street Market until that fateful Friday when news filters in from the farms that her husband, Tanto, is dead. This leaves Ese and her son, Noah, so devastated that she resolves not to remarry out of love for her late husband and son, though tradition requires her to. Her decision not to remarry makes the inhabitants of Main Street regard Ese as foolish. Especially since she rejects the incessant advances of the Chief, who owned the lone white horse in that neighbourhood. So, the Chief, bent on reinforcing the law of the land, which holds that a widow is supposed to remarry after a given period or her children are handed to her late husband’s brother, connives with the High priest to place Ese under house arrest and give her son, to one of his mean paternal uncles, Jaja. However, Tanto’s best friend, Kpofe, intervenes, and Ese triumphs.

She regains custody of her son and resolves to return to Main Street to revamp her business. The people on Main Street experience a commercial and social revival, most especially due to Toya’s painting of Ese – a highly coveted portrait. Unfortunately, one day, it is stolen, and its theft causes chaos and throws Ese’s village into another dark episode. After several weeks of heavy storms, the High Priest dies, predicting that the sanctity of the village will only be restored by a young man whose half-obscured face was in the stolen painting. 

In the meantime, Ese and Noah live on food reserves while hoping for better days. Noah befriends the orphans on the outskirts of the village but, regrettably, starts suffering from a high fever and dies. His death takes a toll on Ese, who, after recalling Mazamaza’s words, “Go back to your village, one day your son will live again,” decides to transform her house into an orphanage by taking in her son’s four orphans from the outskirts. Again by tradition, Ese, as a woman, is not supposed to build and own a house in her village. So when she starts moulding blocks for this purpose, she is stopped. The chief and high priest plan to hang her at the marketplace on Main Street. Fortunately, the orphans and Jaja’s son persuade Ese to leave. She does so on the eve of the execution. After a month’s journey, fate leads her to Mama, the kind old widow who gives her sanctuary in her mansion. 

Coincidentally, Ese’s arrival in that village appears to be a fulfilled prophecy that Mama had held on to for the past twenty years; three days later, she dies after bequeathing her mansion to Ese. Mama’s death marks the start of Ese’s journey to fulfilling destiny: the gods bless her with a stray boy who coincidentally is her late son’s lookalike. Convinced that he is her late son, she names him Noah; they both start a flourishing business and she resolves to transform her mansion into an orphanage.

Finally, Ese triumphs over the dreadful laws in her adopted village, thanks to the help of Kewe and the youths, coupled with the young Chief’s approval. Kpofe finds his way to the new village and confirms to Ese that her son has truly died and that the adopted Noah is a gift from the gods as a reward for her faith. This confirms Mazamaza’s prediction that Ese’s son will live again. The adopted Noah returns to Main Street, Ese’s village of birth, where the people eagerly await his arrival to fulfil the late High Priest’s prophecy. It held that Noah would become the new chief and lead them into an era of prosperity and beauty.

Repressive institutions like the patriarchy, have always been at the core of societal instability, whether one is speaking of it in our present, daily lives or mythic and fictional narratives from ancient times. In the Yoruba, as in many other African cultures, widows and orphans are often victims of such oppressive institutions. The story of Ese is one of great tragi-comedy as it chronicles the struggles of a widow to surmount cultural and patriarchal limitations. Through her faith, determination, and the help of good-willed people, she is able to remake life, re-actualise herself, celebrate the joy of motherhood, and offer hope to orphans. Kpofe’s intervention for Ese to be released and regain custody of her son is an indication that some of these repressive traditions are dying. Furthermore, the gods often come to the aid of these vulnerable groups. Ese becomes the inheritor of the unknown Mama, while Noah becomes the ruler of Main Street as it was prophesied. Like the Biblical Noah, Noah leads a new breed of people in the above story. The narrative decries repressive traditional norms, particularly those oppressing, stigmatising and depriving widows and orphans. More so, the gods, use a widow and an orphan to restore beauty and prosperity in Main Street. So, as the title of the novel suggests, these repressive traditions must be confronted and erased to grant equity among people. 

The myth, therefore, accentuates the necessity for children and young adults to remain hopeful for a fulfilling life while at the same time being bold to defy constraining cultural practices.

Genyi, Akwaya George, “Widowhood and Nigerian Womanhood: another Context of Gendered Poverty in Nigeria”, Research on humanities and Social Sciences 3.7 (2013): 68–73.

Habila, Helon, “Wake Me When I’m Gone by Odafe Atogun review – magical thinking in Nigeria”, The Guardian 2017, October 14 (accessed: September 19, 2020). 

Okoye, P. U., Widowhood: A National or Cultural Tragedy, Enugu: Nucik Publishers, 1995.

Henley, Tara, “Odafe Atogun’s Wake Me When I’m Gone ‘delightful’”, Toronto Star, November 10, 2017 (accessed: September 19, 2020).