The woman as a heroine in the victimisation of social conditioning is afashionable portrait of the protagonist in contemporary romantic fiction. The reader encounters a character whose radical personality is quite difficult to judge. While exonerating themselves from the injustice of gender crisis, they also entangle themselves with the choice(s) they make. Sample this premise with the canonical works on women in romantic fiction and you find that nothing has ever undone her like her puzzling resolution. This is the background on which Under the Rain is set, positing Ayo Deforge as a novelist of classical realism.
Alternating between past and present, Under the Rain is a contemporary love story following the romantic journey of two characters, Bolaji and Shola, first as teenagers and later as adults. In the present, Bolaji is a dedicated doctor who advocates for safe sex among young girls, pushing against the moral pretence upheld by society. He is driven by a personal mission to discover a cure – or at least a better solution – for sickle cell anemia, the illness that claimed his brother Bamidele at thirteen. When Bolaji learns that Shola is back in Nigeria, old emotions resurface. The ex-lovers reunite and find themselves slipping into a familiar intensity, overwhelmed by memories and attraction that time never erases. In the past, their story unfolds quietly: childhood friendship deepens into love. Still, misunderstanding and fear fracture the bond before it ever fully becomes what it could have been, sending them onto separate paths. In the present, both admit to the incompatibility of their respective partners and the shared affection which will not be quenched.
This text is a critical fictional narrative on the continuing mysticism of the woman’s disposition to her marital desire. Literature has shown from one era to another that the jeopardy of her heartfelt issue of love and marriage is an unavoidable occurrence in the woman’s independent craft of status sensibility. In other words, her choice only satisfies the immediate need of gender constructs and the politics thereof. Bolaji is therefore not the least represented as a victim of this feminine power. It is a universal picture drawn from the cultural perceptions of power and ideology that women in love are driven by factors beyond the dictates of the compelling obvious. Shola passes for a realistic character that exudes the brilliance of what women are capable of. That is, their signature caprice which eludes any patriarchal standard. It can be detrimental or beneficial. But the obscurity of which one prevails remains the backdrop from which writers have continued to hoist women’s power of choice. This kind of profound characterisation belongs to classical writers who were honest enough to spotlight the recondite area of marital utility for the traditional man. It is thus not an overstatement to reiterate that Ayo Deforge writes with classical realism.
In a similar vein, Under the Rain brings a fresh insight into the continuing discourse on women’s lives as it matters within the range of socio-cultural prejudice. Their sexual lives. The novel openly challenges our enlightenment as contemporary witnesses to these experiences: teenage sex adventures, abortion, vulnerability, abuse and allied forms of topical predicaments. It is a call to conscience and consciousness that Deforge, through the character of Bolaji, clamours for an end to stigmatisation. It advances the argument that teenage sexuality is a significant topic to broach. That parents should shift focus from anxiety to security. It confronts the notion of victimising the teenage girl who already is a victim of the tradition of patriarchal expectations. This is not to say the erstwhile standards and values are moribund; it is only an intensive discussion on the facts we sidestep as proponents of virginity culture. To be concise, Under the Rain underscores the contemporary perspective on truly protecting the female child.
Again, the all-time offence of childlessness. If, as professed, culture and tradition are protective of the woman’s interest, on what front is the disdain of her womanhood on the ground of motherism? Culture in this regard would contradict itself by solely contextualising the essence of the woman in motherhood. Similarly, the criticism levied against this stance hinges on the criminality – not merely complicity – of patriarchal expectations. Although this fact only underscores the apparent drama of self-redemption in the text, we cannot sidestep the concerning issue of men and their predator instinct. It appears that a woman’s shortcoming revolves round the inevitable predicament of adapting to and surviving in the precarious conditions of a male-centred society. The naturalist’s theory provides an acceptable evaluation of this situation: that an organism is affected by heredity and the environment. That exactly is the bane of victim blaming in situations of rigid sexual politics. This again standardises Ayo Deforge’s fresh insight into the female condition in contemporary society.
Consequently, Under the Rain employs a narrative style and technique that facilitate a delectable reading from beginning to end. Long after the story is read, the reader keeps ruminating on the extent of its tangibility. The characters cut across generations of literary expositions on the subject matter. The characterisation touches on antiquity and posterity. It altogether projects the lingering conflict women from any class and background encounter at every level of sexist constructs. But the credibility of this story is in the freshness of its style – chief among which is the prominence of the motif. If little else, the subject matter of this text is a novel perspective on the leitmotif of women’s paradox of gender crisis. And this has been facilitated by the entirety of stylistic opulence. The genius of the writer proportionately inheres in the mastery of style.
On the whole, Under the Rain is a comprehensive discussion on the extant factors of women voiding societal standards. It addresses the conflict between womanhood and motherhood. But themed principally on love, the woman as a round character in the romantic fiction is a continuum of the portrait of women victims who survive against the backdrop of lame ideals. And in an attempt to live above the derision, they inadvertently solve the obvious with the ridiculous.
Kehinde Folorunsho is a literary critic and a scholar of literature. His interest in literature spans poetry, visual arts and translation studies. He made it to the shortlist of the Atẹlẹwọ Prize for his translation of Chimamanda’s Ngozi Adichie’s “We Should All Be Feminists”; shortlisted for the Gbemisola Adeoti Poetry Prize, 2025. He is the recipient of the 2025 Ken Saro-Wiwa Prize for book review.
