Please can anyone help me with a stylistic analysis on Buried beneath the Baobab Tree by Adaobi Tricia

The language in Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree, is richly layered and often densely metaphorical. For example, when Sarah and Ya Ta discuss breast size together, the reader is told, “She has pineapples; I have limes” (7). Ya Ta goes on to reflect, “If only breasts were like tomatoes and onions, which were certain to grow succulent and healthy if you put them in good ground at the right time of the year, then watered and weeded weekly” (7). This kind of language showcases not only the author’s talent, but also draws connections between the human and agricultural world, weaving together an image of the organic world that they both occupy together.

The text also uses a number of recurring images, often slightly altered, as a strategy to build a density of meaning. As the text revisits small details and prior scenes in new ways, the text uses these resonances to subtly make larger points about the passage of time and the changes in Ya Ta’s life. For example, in one of the first scenes between Ya Ta and Sarah, in a chapter called “Sitting on a Wooden Stool,” the reader is told: “Sarah plaits my thick strands into thin cornrows, the ends drooping over my ears and around the back of my head” (25). The same image of the girls braiding their hair occurs in the first Boko Haram camp, in a chapter titled “Sitting on a Rock.” The reader is told: “Zainab plaits my thick strands into straight cornrows, the ends scratching the back of my head” (145). This scene makes a small change to the original, this time substituting “Zainab” (the Muslim name given to Sarah) for her birth name. This change is meant to echo the internal and external changes in the girls’ lives. The text returns to this image a third time in the later chapter called “A New Friend.” Here the reader is told: “Zainab plaits Fanne’s hair. Fanne whispers into Zainab’s ears. Zainab giggles. Fanne gives Zainab an extra palmful of date fruits. Zainab shares some of the dates with me” (221). This passage makes an additional, and especially poignant change. Now it is Zainab plaiting Fanne’s hair, not Ya Ta’s hair. This substitution mimics the distance that has begun to grow between them, and the fact that Zainab has made, as the chapter title suggests, a “new friend.” The final appearance of these scene, in “Old Friend,” begins in exactly the same fashion as the third: “Zainab plaits Fanne’s hair. Fanne whispers into Zainab’s ears. Zainab giggles” (259). However, this moment goes on to explain that, this time, “Fanne gives Zainab an extra palmful of groundnuts. Zainab does not share the groundnuts with me” (259). Not only have groundnuts been swapped for dates, but Zainab is no longer sharing wtih Ya Ta. Though these moments in the text are subtle and quiet, they reflect a realistic understanding of the ways that relationships change, subtly, over time.