Freshwater

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses sexual assault, self-harm, suicide, domestic abuse, and mental illness.

Throughout the novel, Ada experiences trauma. When she is young, she is molested, abused, and neglected. She watches her sister get hit by a truck. In college, she is raped. Then, inhabited by ogbanje who gain more control, her body is used for their pleasure and exploration.

The impact of these events manifests through the ogbanje. It is during the sexual assault that Asughara is born, and when Ada’s family fails to protect her as a child, Smoke and Shadow are forced to step in. They begin to separate selves so that Ada does not have to live in her body with the knowledge of what happened to her. They create so many selves, all separate from one another, in order to forget, but the issue becomes that she no longer knows what is real and what is not. The question of “Who was the real Ada?” goes unanswered for much of the novel (199), but to answer it would be to relive those memories. This central conflict therefore suggests that trauma disrupts the sense of self and leaves one vulnerable to the control of others.