Bunmi Falodun: A Study of Submission and the Curse

Overview

Bunmi Falodun, also called Grandma West, appears in Cursed Daughters as Monife’s mother and, later, Eniiyi’s grand‑aunt. She is a daughter of Afoke, placing her in the direct line of the Falodun curse, and her story illustrates one woman’s attempt to appease a perceived inherited doom through rigid compliance. While the narrative presents Bunmi’s actions primarily through the interleaved “Falodun Family Curse” chapters, she also plays a quiet but forceful role in the present‑day events surrounding Ebun and Eniiyi. Her arc exemplifies the tension between autonomy and superstition that runs throughout the collection.

Plot Role

Bunmi’s primary function in the plot is twofold. First, as a character in the historical curse vignettes, she offers a cautionary example of a woman who does everything “right” according to tradition yet still loses her marriage and her home. Second, in the main timeline, she appears as “Aunty Bunmi” during Eniiyi’s naming ceremony, where she pressures Ebun to eat lizard meat and later suggests the name Motitunde (“I have come again”), explicitly linking the newborn to the deceased Monife. This moment deepens the mother‑daughter conflict and reinforces the theme of reincarnation. Bunmi represents the older generation’s unquestioning acceptance of the curse and its rituals.

Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions

Bunmi’s central motivation is survival within the curse’s framework. She knows of the curse from childhood, so when she marries a wealthy man she takes extraordinary care to keep him. She cooks, cleans, defers to him, bears his infidelities, and never raises her voice. She trains herself to be the perfect wife, believing that self‑denial and silence will secure her position. Yet her husband falls in love with another woman and asks Bunmi to leave. Despite her efforts, the curse “wins.”

Her traits emerge through these actions:

• Submissiveness: She refuses to confront her husband even when she finds condoms or lipstick stains. She sees looking away as a marital duty.
• Pragmatism: She accepts that infidelity is inevitable, but draws the line at him loving another woman. Still, she leaves without protest because she feels she has no other option.
• Observant and traditional: She knows exactly what her husband wants (a hot meal, an ironed shirt) and performs those roles flawlessly. She also knows the curse and tries to outmanoeuvre it through perfection.
• Enforcer of tradition: In the naming ceremony scene, she insists Ebun eat the lizard head, calling it “culture” and “tradition.” She is determined to pass rituals to the next generation, even when they seem archaic.

Chronological Arc

Bunmi’s timeline is given mostly in fragments. Based on the “Falodun Family Curse” chapter that bears her name (chapter 61), she marries a handsome, wealthy man. She bears two children, the first a boy, which she believes secures her. She follows him to London, endures loneliness, and ignores his affairs. Her husband’s love for an “independent woman” ends her marriage. Banished, she returns to Nigeria with the children. No further events are documented for her until the naming ceremony years later, where she is already an older woman (grandmother and grand‑aunt). The narrative does not show her old age or dementia; dementia is mentioned only in the page context, not in the supplied evidence, so it is not included here. Her arc moves from hopeful compliance to resigned defeat.

Relationships

With Her Husband

Bunmi’s marriage is a transactional arrangement. She offers domestic perfection; he offers financial security. She does not expect fidelity, only the outward appearance of a wife. When he falls in love, she has no tool to counter it. She leaves not out of anger but out of acknowledgment that she has lost.

With Monife (Her Daughter)

The evidence does not detail their interactions directly, but Monife’s story (chapter 98) notes she falls in love with Golden Boy and later drowns herself. Bunmi must have raised Monife in the shadow of the curse. The naming‑ceremony scene suggests Bunmi sees Eniiyi as Monife’s reincarnation, implying she carries unresolved grief.

With Ebun (Her Niece)

Bunmi is Ebun’s aunt (via Kemi). In chapter 10, she is present at Eniiyi’s naming and pressures Ebun into eating lizard. She also suggests naming the baby Motitunde, which Ebun resists. Bunmi is gentle but insistent, using tradition as leverage. Their relationship is strained by Ebun’s skepticism of the curse.

With the Curse Itself

Bunmi treats the curse as a tangible entity. She tries to beat it by being a flawless wife, but the curse “wins.” Later, she propagates the curse’s rituals onto the next generation, passing on both the story and the practices.

Key Decisions and Consequences

• Decision to play the perfect wife: She suppresses her own desires, stays silent, and ignores infidelity. This decision does not save her marriage; her husband leaves her for a woman who challenges him.
• Decision to leave without fighting: She returns to Nigeria with her children. The consequence is that she falls back into the Falodun household and becomes a matriarch who continues to believe in the curse.
• Decision to enforce the lizard‑eating ritual: At Eniiyi’s naming, she forces Ebun to eat lizard so that Ebun “learns to sacrifice.” The consequence is further alienation between generations and a reinforcement of tradition over individual choice.
• Decision to propose the name Motitunde: She tries to brand Eniiyi as Monife’s reincarnation. Ebun rejects this and names her daughter Eniiyi, a direct challenge. This shows Bunmi’s inability to let go of the past.

Theme and Symbol Connections

Bunmi’s story is a direct illustration of the Falodun family curse as a self‑fulfilling prophecy. No matter how obedient she is, the curse matches her outcome. She also embodies generational trauma: she learned the rules from her mother Afoke and passes them to her daughter. The motif of submission versus autonomy is central: Bunmi sacrifices her voice to keep her husband, while her granddaughter Eniiyi will later reclaim bodily ownership. Bunmi’s name, “Bunmi” (Nigerian origin meaning “gift of God”), contrasts with her fate, perhaps ironically. Her role in the naming ceremony links her to reincarnation and identity; she believes the baby is Monife reborn, a belief Ebun rejects.

For more on these themes, see the Falodun family curse page and the mother‑daughter conflict page.

Book-Specific Questions and Answers

1. Why did Bunmi leave her husband instead of fighting for her marriage?
Bunmi believed the curse had already won. She had tried every tactic she knew—submission, silence, cooking, ignoring affairs—and still her husband fell in love elsewhere. Leaving was the only face‑saving option she saw; she had no model for resistance. Her decision is rooted in fatalism, a key trait of many women in the Falodun line.

2. What does the lizard‑eating ritual reveal about Bunmi’s character?
The ritual, described in chapter 10, shows Bunmi as enforcer of tradition. She insists it is “culture” and that Ebun must “learn to sacrifice.” It reveals her belief that hardship and self‑denial are necessary for motherhood. It also shows her complicity in passing down the curse’s psychological weight.

3. How does Bunmi’s story contribute to the theme of reincarnation?
Bunmi proposes naming Eniiyi “Motitunde” (“I have come again”), directly linking the baby to Monife. This highlights the family’s tendency to see daughters as repetitions of previous generations. Bunmi explicitly treats Eniiyi as a reincarnation, a view that Ebun rejects, setting up a core ideological clash.

4. In what way is Bunmi a victim of the curse despite her efforts?
Bunmi’s effort to be perfect—cooking every meal, deferring to her husband, bearing loneliness abroad—still fails. The curse manifests not because she misbehaves but because her husband’s love transfers elsewhere. Her victimhood is that the curse targets women regardless of their behaviour; no strategy can break it except leaving the family line entirely (which Eniiyi later does symbolically).

5. Why does Bunmi not appear to question the curse’s validity?
Bunmi grows up in a house where the curse is treated as tangible; her mother Afoke saw it “watching them.” By the time she marries, she has internalised the belief. She does not question it because no one in her family has successfully disproved it. Her faith in the curse becomes self‑reinforcing: every bad outcome is attributed to it, so no evidence can shake her certainty.

For a full reading of the ending and the curse’s resolution, see the ending explained page. For more discussion, visit the questions and answers page.