Rhetorical analysis of “In Nigeria, You’re Either Nobody Or

Somebody,” by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

In the article “ In Nigeria, You’re Either Nobody Or Somebody,” published

February 9, 2013, ​Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani writes about the racist life in Nigeria.
Nwaubani expresses that in Nigeria you either are very well known or you are not
considered a human being. The author's intended audience are people specifically not
living in Nigeria and are oblivious to their lifestyle. Nwaubani relies heavily on and uses
ethos and pathos effectively to inform her readers of the somebody to nobody mindset
in Nigeria. Nwaubani establishes ethos throughout her article through her personal
experience as a Nigerian with her own house helps growing up. She emotionally
engages her readers as she tells about the painful and drastic living conditions Nigerian
house helps suffer through.
The author starts her article by explaining that as a young child she had “house
helpers” that came to clean and cook in her house, usually from a poor family. They
were either earning money that was sent to their parents or they were sent to school for
education. Nwaubani explained that her father and her family treated them like inferior
peasants when one time they were all singing and her dad got furious and yelled at
them to stop. She described the children as having a “feral scent” and having “ a
bottomless hunger.” She describes them in a demeaning manner and makes them
sound more of a disgusting burden. As the author is explaining these stories her tone is
angry. The author’s diction and tone correlate as she is describing the children's lifestyle
as a burden to her life as she explains that they have to do blood tests on them and
search them for stolen items. After explaining her own story, she informs the reader
about the Nigerian culture and racism that has overcome their country.
Nwaubani uses ethos to her advantage in the introduction by saying she
personally had “househelps” in her home and told her own personal story. Nwaubani
says , “ Throughout my childhood, “househelps” — usually teenagers from poor
families — came to live with my family, sometimes up to three or four of them at a time.”
(Nwaubani.)This establishes credibility to the author from personal experience as she
had four to five house helps in her own family. Because the audience most commonly
are people from different countries, people will listen to her because she has her own
personal experience. By telling us that she has lived this herself, the audience knows
that she has lived through it and knows the result of the issue first hand. In paragraph
thirteen, she writes about the Nigerian Constitution and how it compares to the
Declaration of Independence and the terms of equality. By using the declarations to
explain the equality enforcement rules this add credibility to her argument through an
official document. (Nwaubani.)
Nwaubani appeals to pathos as she not only connects to the readers emotions
but expresses the emotions of the characters in the story. She says “Finally, my father
would lose his imperial cool, stomp over to the kitchen and stand by the
door.”(Nwaubani.) In this quote, the author is able to effectively convey the anger in the
home towards these children which cause the reader to feel the characters emotion with
diction leveraging the tone. Not only can we feel the family’s emotion in the article but it
also appeals to the emotion of the reader as we learn about the horrible treatment of
these Nigerian children. The correlation of the author’s tone and diction in the article
adds pathos because the author sounds frustrated and uses negative words toward the
househelps which rises feelings of anger and sadness in the reader.Nwaubani explains
the house helps horrible backgrounds, for example, their father was left half dead with
machete wounds, their brother had been accused of stealing and sent to jail, and a
huge storm took the roof off of their house.By explaining the tragic background the
audience is able to feel compassion for the Nigerian house helps.
Nwaubani ineffectively uses tone throughout her article. At the beginning of the
article, Nwaubani’s tone is more angry and of the Nigerian culture but as the article
goes on she is changing to more of an empowerment tone. Her tone relies heavily on
her diction choice. She uses words to describe them such as “ Scoundrels,”and ”Below
the level of the human species,” These words ineffectively help her argument because
she is claiming that she has a negative view of these house helps but then later she
says she was kind to them. “ Some years ago, I made a decision to start treating
domestic workers as “somebodys.” The two tones contradict each other which affects
the consistency of the passage and confuses the reader.(Nwaubani.)
Nwaubani goes on to use logos to further convince the audience of the tragic
poverty level and culture in nigeria. For example, she argues that Nigeria economic
system is the largest but one of the poorest by saying, “it produces around two million
barrels of crude oil per day. And yet, in 2010, 61 percent of Nigerians were living in
“absolute poverty” — able to afford only the bare essentials of shelter, food and
clothing.”(Nwaubani.) Because she used facts and percentages it adds credibility to her
argument and the audience can see on a world wide scale the work Nigeria puts in but
never gets back. The author uses these facts to exclaim that Nigeria is working to
produce but has barely enough to survive.
By appealing to ethos,logos,pathos, the author effectively conveys the problems
of househelpers and the racist culture in Nigeria. The text gives credibility to the author
by using personal experiences of life down in Nigeria as well as connect with the
readers emotions. In the last paragraph, Nwaubani ends her article with an
empowerment statement, “Economic growth will continue to bypass the majority, the
gap between rich and poor will continue to widen, so long as we see ourselves as
divided between somebodies and nobodies. Only when that changes will the
househelps sing more cheerful tunes.” (Nwaubani.) Because this sentence is a call to
action of change, this is a strong way to conclude her story.

Revision:

Rhetorical analysis of “In Nigeria, You’re Either Nobody Or

Somebody,” and “Trafficked,beaten,and abused:The life of an Nigerian
Housegirl,”by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
 In the article “ In Nigeria, You’re Either Nobody Or Somebody,” published
February 9, 2013, ​Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani writes about the racist life in Nigeria.
Nwaubani expresses that in Nigeria you either are very well known or you are not
considered a human being. The author's intended audience are people specifically not
living in Nigeria and are oblivious to their lifestyle. Nwaubani relies heavily on and uses
ethos and pathos effectively to inform her readers of the somebody to nobody mindset
in Nigeria. Nwaubani establishes ethos throughout her article through her personal
experience as a Nigerian with her own house helps growing up. She emotionally
engages her readers as she tells about the painful and drastic living conditions Nigerian
house helps suffer through.
The author starts her article by explaining that as a young child she had “house
helpers” that came to clean and cook in her house, usually from a poor family. They
were either earning money that was sent to their parents or they were sent to school for
education. Nwaubani explained that her father and her family treated them like inferior
peasants when one time they were all singing and her dad got furious and yelled at
them to stop. She described the children as having a “feral scent” and having “ a
bottomless hunger.” She describes them in a demeaning manner and makes them
sound more of a disgusting burden. As the author is explaining these stories her tone is
angry. The author’s diction and tone correlate as she is describing the children's lifestyle
as a burden to her life as she explains that they have to do blood tests on them and
search them for stolen items. After explaining her own story, she informs the reader
about the Nigerian culture and racism that has overcome their country.
Nwaubani uses ethos to her advantage in the introduction by saying she
personally had “househelps” in her home and told her own personal story. Nwaubani
says , “ Throughout my childhood, “househelps” — usually teenagers from poor
families — came to live with my family, sometimes up to three or four of them at a time.”
(Nwaubani.)This establishes credibility to the author from personal experience as she
had four to five house helps in her own family. Because the audience most commonly
are people from different countries, people will listen to her because she has her own
personal experience. By telling us that she has lived this herself, the audience knows
that she has lived through it and knows the result of the issue first hand. In paragraph
thirteen, she writes about the Nigerian Constitution and how it compares to the
Declaration of Independence and the terms of equality. By using the declarations to
explain the equality enforcement rules this add credibility to her argument through an
official document. (Nwaubani.)
Nwaubani appeals to pathos as she not only connects to the readers emotions
but expresses the emotions of the characters in the story. She says “Finally, my father
would lose his imperial cool, stomp over to the kitchen and stand by the
door.”(Nwaubani.) In this quote, the author is able to effectively convey the anger in the
home towards these children which cause the reader to feel the characters emotion with
diction leveraging the tone. Not only can we feel the family’s emotion in the article but it
also appeals to the emotion of the reader as we learn about the horrible treatment of
these Nigerian children. The correlation of the author’s tone and diction in the article
adds pathos because the author sounds frustrated and uses negative words toward the
househelps which rises feelings of anger and sadness in the reader.Nwaubani explains
the house helps horrible backgrounds, for example, their father was left half dead with
machete wounds, their brother had been accused of stealing and sent to jail, and a
huge storm took the roof off of their house.By explaining the tragic background the
audience is able to feel compassion for the Nigerian house helps.
Nwaubani ineffectively uses tone throughout her article. At the beginning of the
article, Nwaubani’s tone is more angry and of the Nigerian culture but as the article
goes on she is changing to more of an empowerment tone. Her tone relies heavily on
her diction choice. She uses words to describe them such as “ Scoundrels,”and ”Below
the level of the human species,” These words ineffectively help her argument because
she is claiming that she has a negative view of these house helps but then later she
says she was kind to them. “ Some years ago, I made a decision to start treating
domestic workers as “somebodys.” The two tones contradict each other which affects
the consistency of the passage and confuses the reader.(Nwaubani.)
Nwaubani goes on to use logos to further convince the audience of the tragic
poverty level and culture in nigeria. For example, she argues that Nigeria economic
system is the largest but one of the poorest by saying, “it produces around two million
barrels of crude oil per day. And yet, in 2010, 61 percent of Nigerians were living in
“absolute poverty” — able to afford only the bare essentials of shelter, food and
clothing.”(Nwaubani.) Because she used facts and percentages it adds credibility to her
argument and the audience can see on a world wide scale the work Nigeria puts in but
never gets back. The author uses these facts to exclaim that Nigeria is working to
produce but has barely enough to survive.
By appealing to ethos,logos,pathos, the author effectively conveys the problems
of househelpers and the racist culture in Nigeria. The text gives credibility to the author
by using personal experiences of life down in Nigeria as well as connect with the
readers emotions. In the last paragraph, Nwaubani ends her article with an
empowerment statement, “Economic growth will continue to bypass the majority, the
gap between rich and poor will continue to widen, so long as we see ourselves as
divided between somebodies and nobodies. Only when that changes will the
househelps sing more cheerful tunes.” (Nwaubani.) Because this sentence is a call to
action of change, this is a strong way to conclude her story.
Nwaubani story isn’t the only house girl story that is going on in Nigeria.In the
article,”Trafficked,beaten and abused:The life of a Nigerian house girl,” written on July
2017 ,Nwaubani writes about ,Titi,a young,14 year old girl who was an abused
housegirl. Through ethos,logos,and pathos Nwaubani effectively informs her readers
that Nigerian house girls are being trafficked and abused through the story of a young
girl.
Nwaubani starts her article by connecting to the readers pathos through
sympathy for Titi and how she was treated. “Sometimes she’d beat us… or not feed us
breakfast until after 1pm.”(Nwaubani). She goes on to explain that Titi had no bed or
time to sleep to further her argument through pathos. She also connects to pathos
through not only Titi’s story but stories of other house girls by saying, “​There is one
case... a girl of about 14 was serving this woman, who mistreated her to the extent of
running a hot iron over her breasts,” This appeals to pathos because the reader reads
of life stories about these girls that are being physically abused and feel the readers
emotions.
After explaining how Titi was treated and abused, Nwaubani goes on to explain
that there are so many housegirl accounts that no one even knows about. Although
Nwuabani relies heavily on pathos,she uses logos to explain how many lives are being
affected by these hoursegirls. She appeals to logos through an outside source, the
NAPTIP, to inform her reader that there is no evidence of how many girls are being
trafficked. She also goes on to explain that these housegirls are only making thirty three
dollars every month and some agents even keep the money for themselves. By
informing her audience of these facts it not only connects to pathos because of the
horrible conditions they are in and not getting paid, but the logos of the factual evidence
being provided. She also adds logos and credibility by saying, “​Nigeria's laws regarding
the minimum age of employment are inconsistent, according to a 2015 US Labour
Department report.”(Nwaubani)
The author also effectively appeals to her audience through ethos and her
credible sources.Throughout her whole article, Nwaubani interviews credible sources to
use to her advantage in her argument. She does personal interviews with Arinze
Orakwue and a mother that has her own house girls. Nwaubani explains the reason why
there are needs for househelps by interviewing a women who owns these girls. She
says, “I decided to hire house help because of too many domestic
responsibilities,”(Nwuabani) By stating these personal interviews this adds credibility to
her article and allows the audience to listen to her argument.
The two articles Nwaubani writes are very similar but just in different
perspectives. In her first article, “ In Nigeria you are either Nobody or Somebody,”
Nwaubani is writing from the perspective of having a housegirl and how her family
treated them but in her second article she wrote about the perspective of the house girl
which connects to pathos in two different ways.These two articles both have evidence of
these house girls being abused which grabs the reader's attention through their
emotions. Both of these articles effectively make an arguments that Nigeria’s lifestyle
needs to be changed due to the horrible conditions of the housegirls. The author also
effectively uses ethos,logos, and pathos to connect to the audience and leverages tone
and diction to her advantage. The different perspectives of these two articles help the
audience see this situation in both situations which allows the readers to formulate their
own opinion. Nwaubani effectively conveys here argument through both articles and
uses these rhetorical strategies to her advantage.

Works Cited
Nwaubani, Adaobi Tricia. “In Nigeria, You're Either Somebody or Nobody.” ​The New
York Times​, The New York Times, 9 Feb. 2013,
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/opinion/sunday/in-nigeria-youre-either-somebody-
or-nobody.html.

Nwaubani, Adaobi Tricia. “Trafficked, Beaten and Abused: The Life of a Nigerian House
Girl.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 24 July 2017,
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/nigeria-house-girls-trafficking-beaten-
abused-servants-modern-slavery-titi-14-case-study-a7856861.html.