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“I could smell the freshly spilled blood. Memories from when I was in the dining room of a ship in the middle of outer space where everyone had just been viciously murdered by Meduse.”

The olfactory imagery in this passage, as Binti boards the transport to Weapons City to help Okwu, links multiple of Binti’s senses directly to trauma. This connection reflects how Binti’s past violence cannot be strictly contained or controlled. Instead, the lasting psychological effects of her trauma are something that will need to be grappled with throughout her journey of healing.

“The Seven were in the soil of my home and I was planets away from that home. Would they even hear me? I believed they would; the Seven could be in many places at once and bring all places with them.”

This quote emphasizes Binti’s feelings of detachment and dislocation, developing the theme of The Meaning of Home in a Liminal Existence. It suggests that home is not solely a geographic location but something that is spiritual and portable. In this way, Binti attempts to transform the idea of Himba culture, repositioning it as a source of comfort in this new place—even as she is unsure if it will work. Ultimately, what matters more is the peace, connection, and sense of home that it provides her.

“Similar to the Meduse, in my family, one does not go to a stranger and spill her deepest thoughts and fears. You got to a family member and if not, you hold it in, deep, close to the heart, even if it tore you up inside.”

As Binti reflects on Oomza Uni’s decision to force therapy on Binti and Okwu, she reflects on the fact that it is something outside of their cultural norms. This contrast between the university and her culture emphasizes Binti’s internal conflict as she accepts new ideas and norms into her developing identity. This moment complicates the idea of emotional openness with regard to her culture, showing how what she values can both protect and harm her.

“Just from standing in line and looking around, I saw people of many shapes, sizes, organisms, wavelengths, and tribes here. […] Being in this place of diversity and movement was overwhelming, but I felt at home, too.”

As Binti stands in the transport station preparing to leave for Earth, she notes the diversity that she sees around her. This quote develops the theme of The Meaning of Home in a Liminal Existence, as Binti acknowledges that this diversity is slowly becoming a normal part of her life and something she considers “home.” At the same time, the diction of “diversity and movement” paired with the paradoxical feeling of being “overwhelmed” yet “at home” illustrates the fact that Binti’s definition of belonging is still evolving, acting in both a comforting and disarming manner.

“‘When you face your deepest fears, when you are ready,’ [Dr. Nwanyi had] said. ‘Don’t turn away. Stand tall, endure, face them. If you get through it, they will never harm you again.’”

Dr. Nwanyi’s words from their therapy session echo in Binti’s mind as she is overwhelmed by a panic attack in the hallway of the Third Fish. These words reflect how Binti wants to feel about her trauma, as she tries to force herself to endure it. However, her subsequent decision to tree and withdraw emphasizes the process of healing she continues to go through in the novella. Despite her desire to confront her trauma, she opts instead to endure and survive it—for now.

“The fresh otjize I’d rubbed on every part of my body felt like assuring hands.”

As Binti prepares to leave the ship on Earth, this moment emphasizes the importance of otijze in the novella as well as Binti’s continued understanding of The Meaning of Home in a Liminal Space. This cultural ritual provides grounding and emotional safety for Binti, while she also subverts it for her own use. The simile which compares the otijze to “assuring hands” emphasizes its value as a source of comfort and belonging in this wholly unique situation.

“I slowly turned around. For a moment, I was two people—a Himba girl who knew her history very very well and a Himba girl who’d left Earth and become part-Meduse in space. The dissonance left me breathless.”

In this passage, Binti realizes that something is wrong with Okwu as she steps from the transport and rejoices with her family. The parallel structure, repeating the word “a Himba girl,” emphasizes the duality that exists within Binti as she grapples with her identities. As much as she would like to enjoy this reunion, she also has a duty to her friend, taking on new responsibility as she tries to reconcile the different facets of herself.

“[My mother] was rubbing the otjize off to reveal the true transparent blue of them with darker blue dots on the tips. I held my breath, as she inspected me with a mother’s eye and hand. She whispered softly and I held still. My mother only used her mathematical sight to protect the family. Now she used it to look into me. Deep.”

This moment, when Binti’s mother speaks with her privately and uses her insight to see Binti’s experiences, emphasizes Binti’s change through color. She uses otijze, which is red and representative of her culture, to try to mask the blue of her okuoko underneath. The care with which Binti’s mother holds her tentacle and reveals its true color highlights Binti’s mother’s care for Binti herself. The acknowledgment that her mother typically only uses her “sight” as a form of protection reaffirms the nature of their relationship: Binti’s mother desires to ensure Binti’s safety, even if she does not agree with her choices.

“Then Dele was gone. And for the first time, it really sunk in. No man wanted a girl who ran away. No man would marry me. I pushed my astrolabe and edan aside, lay on my bed, curled up, and cried myself to sleep.”

The blunt diction and short sentences in this passage mirror Binti’s emotional collapse, while the repetition of the words “no man” underscores the internalized societal judgment she faces. After she is confronted by her family for her choices, then rejected by Dele, Binti is isolated and forced to confront her feelings. This passage connects to the theme of Familial Expectations Versus Individual Autonomy in its emphasis on how patriarchal societal norms shape Binti’s self-worth. However, despite this moment of vulnerability, Binti does not succumb to these norms; instead, she leaves this moment with a reaffirmed commitment to her pursuit of knowledge and changing identity.

“My edan was all about communication, one layer on top of another and the way they were arranged was another language. I was learning, but would I ever master it?”

As Binti grapples with her edan in the Root, she acknowledges its complexity and confusing nature. This moment metaphorically reflects Binti herself: She, too, is layers of cultural identity that she is attempting to reconcile. The rhetorical question that ends this passage emphasizes her desire for knowledge and its role as a source of motivation, as she pushes forward with learning about both the edan and the layers within herself.

“Some were men, some were women, and all had skin that was ‘old African’ dark, like my father’s and mine. They wore the traditional goat-pelt wraps around their waists, blue waist beads, and blue tops.”

As Binti considers the Desert People that arrive at the Root in this passage, the use of the color blue, a motif throughout the novella of transformation, highlights the differences of these people from the Himba while foreshadowing Binti’s connection to them in her own use of blue clothing. At the same time, this moment is an unconscious acknowledgement of Binti’s prejudice, highlighting the theme of Identifying and Addressing Internalized Prejudice. Binti notes that the thing that mostly differentiates this group—their darker skin—is a trait she shares with them, yet she still cannot see how this is a form of prejudice.

“One of you finally somehow grows beyond your cultural cage and you try to chop her stem. Fascinating.”

Binti’s grandmother’s harsh rebuke of her son and daughter-in-law (Binti’s parents) is a metaphorical comparison of Binti to a plant, which emphasizes her growth and change. This moment highlights the theme of Familial Expectations Versus Individual Autonomy, as Titi verbalizes the restrictive nature of the Himba people in trying to prevent Binti’s growth. This metaphor positions Titi in contrast to Binti’s parents, foreshadowing her willingness to help Binti understand herself and change in ways that her culture will not.

“I couldn’t understand how this boy was going to protect a group of nineteen adults until I saw what he could do.”

The first-person point of view allows the reader insight into Binti’s expectations, further developing the theme of Identifying and Addressing Internalized Prejudice. Her evaluation of Mwinyi as a “boy” emphasizes her misunderstanding of both Mwinyi and the broader Enyi Zinariya. She fails to understand his strength and their strength, judging him instead by his size and the dangers she has heard about the desert.

“The desert wasn’t a mystery to me. I wasn’t supposed to, but I went into it quite often. Sometimes, I went to play, other times I went to find peace and quiet so I could practice treeing. The desert was largely responsible for why I’d gotten so good at treeing so young.”

In the flashback to her discovery of the edan, Binti acknowledges that she was in the desert when she was not supposed to be. The very place she was told to avoid by society is the thing that allowed her to develop her treeing, a part of her that would then become invaluable to that same society. This moment emphasizes Binti’s ability to create her identity outside the norms of her society and family, pushing the boundaries of her autonomy to expand her world beyond Himba culture.

“They were all so sure of what I was, that I had the gift. I did have it and now everything was changing because of it. But I just wanted to dance.”

The flashback to Binti’s childhood reminds the reader of her youth and immaturity while developing the theme of Familial Expectations Versus Individual Autonomy. The tension that exists between the two has been within Binti for years, exemplified by her simple statement that she “just wanted to dance.” While Binti is grappling with events that literally take place on an intergalactic scale, the reader is reminded that she is a child, underscoring her internal conflict over her identity that she still struggles to form.

“For the second time, they would be forced to deal with my disappearance and the fact that they couldn’t do a thing about it. My mother would get terribly quiet and stop laughing, my father would work too hard in his shop, my siblings would feel an ache akin to one caused by the death of a loved one. Family. I had to reach Okwu.”

The accumulation of imagined familial reactions to Binti’s elongated journey in the desert underscores her guilt that is tied to her familial expectations. Despite the tumultuous night she spent with them, Binti knows that she still has a place of belonging with them and values their emotional safety. Ultimately, this quote underscores The Meaning of Home in a Liminal Existence as her family holds value for her and serves as a source of home—even when she is physically absent from them.

“‘Auntie Titi, your grandmother, is my grandfather’s best friend,’ he said. ‘So I know all about your father and his shame. You have the same shame.’

I blinked for a moment as two separate worlds tangled in my mind. Back when I was on the ship with the Meduse, they had referred to my edan as ‘shame’ and now here was that word again, but in a completely different context.”

The use of the word “shame” to connect two moments in Binti’s life emphasizes her identity formation between worlds. Mwinyi verbalizes how these two moments are connected: The Meduse rejected her as part of her culture because of her “shame” in carrying the dangerous edan, while her father rejects his Enyi Zinariya heritage as incompatible with his Himba culture. This is the first time that this idea is conveyed to Binti, who is tasked with taking the different “shameful” pieces of herself to construct a new identity despite the social implications of doing so. Mwinyi and the rest of the Enyi Zinariya people are the first ones to give her the opportunity to do so without imposing moral judgment on her.

“Those who were there documented the Zinariya times, but the files were kept on paper and paper does not last. So all we really know is what elders read and then what the elders after those elders remembered and then what the next elders remembered and so on.”

These words by Auntie Titi, as she explains what happened to her people’s history, evoke the idea of oral tradition in written history. Her thoughts address the real-world idea that only written history matters, dismissing oral traditions of African cultures as irrelevant because they fall outside written, Western histories. Her words critique archival authority while simultaneously validating her lived knowledge, shifting Binti’s worldview of what history is true and why she feels that way.

“I felt a sting of shame as I realized why I hadn’t understood something so obvious. My own prejudice. I had been raised to view the Desert People, the Enyi Zinariya, as a primitive, savage people plagued by a genetic neurological disorder. So that’s what I saw.”

This moment of explicit self-recognition by Binti marks a turning point in her engagement with Identifying and Addressing Internalized Prejudice. Her blunt diction, noting, “So that’s what I saw,” underscores how perception is shaped by cultural inheritance rather than the truth. The use of the word “shame” connects back to her previous use of the word in her conversation with Mwinyi (123), drawing a parallel between Binti’s recognition of first the Meduse part of herself, and now the Enyi Zinariya part.

“I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself, but I’d thought I’d broken myself because of the choices I’d made, because of my actions, because I’d left my home to go to Oomza Uni. Because of guilt. The relief I felt was so all encompassing that I wanted to lie down on the rug and just sleep.”

This passage comes after Ariya tells Binti that she is not “unclean” but rather still grappling with her new identity as Meduse. The repetition of the word “because” emphasizes the different feelings that Binti has had about her identity, underscoring her choices that defined her individual autonomy. This moment marks Binti’s change, as she finally recognizes that her autonomy is not defined by the shame or “guilt” she feels as much as it is defined by her growth and development.

“Oh, they know, someone in those clans knows enough to build toxic ideas against us right into their cultures. That’s really why we are so outcast, untouchable to them. To Himba and Khoush we are the savage ‘Desert People,’ not the Enyi Zinariya. No one wants our blood in their line.”

These words by Ariya, where she explains that humans know of their Enyi Zinariya heritage but reject it, exposes system prejudice as an intentional cultural construction. The Enyi Zinariya are Othered by Himba people, a fact which serves as a metaphor for the real-world idea of ethnicity and Othering: People reject and demonize that which they do not understand or see as inferior.

“The priestess did nothing but watch me. The owl puffed out its throat and hooted three times. Soft and peaceful. My eyes wide as I stared into the owl’s, I inhaled a deep breath, filling my lungs to full capacity.”

In this moment, Binti is given the choice of whether to activate her zinariya and accept her Enyi Zinariya roots or to reject this idea altogether. The fact that she is given a choice at all underscores the theme of Familial Expectations Versus Individual Autonomy, as this is the first time that Binti is encouraged to make her own decision about her identity. At the same time, the emphasis on the owl’s “soft and peaceful” witnessing of the event conveys the importance of the Enyi Zinariya as observers of her change rather than forcing it upon her, a new experience for Binti after the pressure of familial and cultural expectations throughout her life.

“When I was five, I had asked my mother what it was like to give birth. She smiled and said that giving birth was the act of stepping back and letting your body take over. That childbirth was only one of thousands of things the body could do without the spirit. I remember asking, ‘If you step away from your body to give birth, then who is there doing the birthing?’ I wondered this now, as my body acted.”

As Binti begins the ritual of activating her zinariya, the situation is metaphorically compared to childbirth. This comparison conveys Binti’s literal and metaphorical change in the novella’s climax. She has chosen to accept a new part of her identity, birthing a wholly new version of herself.