A Spider, a Girl, and a Guitar
The irony is that Eme’s husband, Andrew, makes some portion of his income by stealing oil from the pipeline—a dangerous prospect.
There’s an interesting interplay between the machine and Eme, who is a member of an economically colonized culture. They engage in a very tender and loving relationship, even though the nature of the machine is to kill humans who get too close to the pipeline. There are many of these mechanical spiders, all a sort of A.I. They don’t seem to have any freewill, yet, spider chooses to befriend Eme. The spiders are slaves, they represent an extension of their masters’ will, the master being the pipeline company that built and ostensibly controls them. Spider the Artist defies that. In fact, Spider saves her life from a spider ambush against oil thieves.
Has Eme stumbled upon a truth that our nation didn’t learn until many years too late, the truth of agency? The prevailing wisdom, once upon a time, was that African slaves were chattel, legally defined as such. They were objects to be used, extensions of their slaveholders’ will. Despite that belief—arguably still held by some—they were thinking and feeling beings. Eme wasn’t in the power position and, consequently, was able to recognize the “humanity” in the victim of control.
In the end, the spiders set a trap for oil thieves. They allow a large group to congregate near a leak in the pipeline and use fire to kill many. Okorafor doesn't make it clear if this is the will of the spiders or the will of the spiders' controllers. In fact, the controllers are never identified. It's clear that the spiders are capable of learning and adapting, but is that what happens here? It seems to me that, probably, the spiders were instructed to do something by the pipeline owners. Maybe they were left to their own devices to decide what to do, but they were told to do something. Spider the Artist makes a choice to save Eme, despite the instructions. He/It demonstrates some level of agency by defying the will of the masters.
