The motif of reincarnation serves as the novel’s primary engine for exploring The Struggle for Independent Selfhood Within Families. For the Falodun family, reincarnation is far more than a spiritual belief; it functions as a psychological mechanism for coping with grief, which in turn threatens to erase Eniiyi’s identity. From the moment of her birth, the family projects the ghost of her deceased aunt onto her, naming her “Motitunde,” meaning “I have come again” (29). In this context, the act of naming becomes synonymous with claiming. When a grieving Aunty Bunmi declares, “Monife has come back to me. She has come again” (25), this statement negates Eniiyi’s own unique identity, which is immediately subsumed by the family’s need to resurrect the dead. As a consequence, she has no room to exist as an individual. To counter this external pressure, Eniiyi engages in calculated acts of rebellion, such as shaving her head, in her desperate attempts to escape Monife’s shadow. Her journey thus becomes a battle against her family’s suffocating belief that her life is not her own.