Every Day Is for the Thief

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2007

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-6

Chapters 7-12

Chapters 13-17

Chapters 18-21

Chapters 22-27

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

“A Moving Spot of Sun”

The narrator returns to this quote from Tomas Tranströmer several times throughout the novel, and it represents what he’s searching for during his time in and around Lagos. The “moving spot of sun” is a place that fosters artistic, literary, and musical culture for the Nigerian people, creating community and a sense of national pride and identity. Most of the time in his searching, he finds that the places he explores fall short of this ideal: The bookstores and shops he visits have a dearth of sophisticated literature and music (or are fronts for piracy), and the MUSON Centre and National Museum are both adulterated experiences; the former demonstrates how economic status limits access to culture, and the latter’s connection to the corrupt government has exposed it to plunder by officials looking to gain status and stripped of Nigerian culture by rulers who can’t abide criticism.

For the narrator, finding a place that’s pure is a key to his feelings of hope for his homeland’s future, and everywhere he looks in Lagos, he runs up against experiences that are chaotic, compromised, or threatening. The immediacy of existence in Lagos prevents the kind of peace he’s looking for. When he finds it, finally, at a store called the Jazzhole, he’s reassured that at least a few people in Lagos strive toward artistic appreciation and community for its own sake. Still, he has seen firsthand the difficulty of that pursuit, and the refuges are rare.

Touts, “Yahoo Yahoo,” and Area Boys

Throughout the novel, the narrator runs across men in the public sphere who represent the larger problems of Nigeria—who are driven by the society they live in toward a way of life that centers on status, posturing, and a willingness to victimize others. Each of these men exemplifies the problems of Nigeria as a developing nation and highlights some particular problems of its society: a willingness to sell out others for personal gain (even at your community’s expense, as in the case of the “yahoo yahoo” tarnishing the nation’s reputation). A focus on image that ignores or disallows criticism, a belief that escalation toward violence is the best protection against it, and a might-makes-right mentality permeate every aspect of public life. For the narrator, these men are mirror images of the dictators, corrupt officials, and colonial slave owners that defined Nigeria throughout the era of slavery and colonialism and the postcolonial leadership that functions in similar ways.

Carpenter’s Alley

The novel’s final image is of a group of carpenters working together to make coffins. Throughout the book, photos from Cole’s travels accompany the narrative. Sometimes these photos correspond directly to the events and are meant as another kind of record. Here, the narrator refuses to take a photo, seeing this practice as too sacred to interrupt.

The scene is a powerful symbol of the state of Nigeria and the narrator’s hope for its progress. The carpenters work to care for the living by honoring the dead, which correlates to the narrator’s frequent claim that Nigeria is a broken society because it papers over its past with a historical record that downplays its role in slavery and disallows criticism. This, as well as the idea l’a need and the pressing immediacy of the threat of violence and economic struggle, means that Nigerians must live without a context of their past. The image of the carpenter’s alley asserts that a few Nigerians see beyond the present tense—and engage in work that functions to assuage the grief people feel by honoring it instead of ignoring it.