Fidelity

Fidelity and loyalty in romantic relationships form a major theme in The Death of Vivek Oji. Emezi uses both the traditional marriages of the parents in the novel as well as the relationships between Vivek and his peers, which are sometimes non-heterosexual and sometimes (but not always) carry less traditional ideas about faithfulness, to examine larger questions of fidelity in romantic relationships.

Sexual fidelity in marriage, along with issues of masculine pride, is explored through the marital troubles of Chika and Ebenezer. Early in the novel, Chika shows that he is willing to violate the bounds of traditional marriage when he makes a pass at his brother’s wife, Mary, and later he begins to have an affair with Eloise, one of his own wife Kavita’s married friends, to deal with the problems he and his wife are having as a result of their son...