Cast in the Same Mould: The Reflections of Comfort and Dolores on the Changing Faces of Slavery

Distinguished Nigerian businessman Kó̩lé has a past full of mysterious heartache and betrayal. Born out of wedlock, young Comfort is a child of low circumstance and few prospects. But their love story is one that hearkens to a more innocent age. Kó̩lé at first resists the much younger Comfort's charms, but when it soon becomes clear they are soulmates, he sets out to mould her into his own made-to-measure bride and the most accomplished of young women.

Steeped deeply in the Yorùbá storytelling tradition, the main narrative, told by Kó̩lé himself, is interwoven with the stories of others and African parables to create parallel themes and lessons as the characters move through their own lives and challenges.

Kó̩lé lifts Comfort from her own circumstances by providing her with an education otherwise unavailable to her. Her own mother, Ale̩ro̩, whose youthful indiscretion led to Comfort's conception and being forced into a polygamist marriage, is aided by Kó̩lé when her husband dies. Upon Comfort's graduation from A Levels, Kó̩lé unites Comfort with the father she has never met, and Ale̩ro̩ is able to finally forgive herself and Akín, the man who stole her innocence so many years ago. Ale̩ro̩ and Akín marry, and Ale̩ro̩ is able to cast aside the slavery chains of the title paramour.

Kó̩lé finally reveals his past to Comfort. When younger, he was engaged to a girl named Tó̩lání. The night before their wedding, he discovered she had been having an affair with another man, Bashy. Distraught, he retreated into the woods to stay with the Sage, a wise old mystic.

Comfort earns her degrees in Bristol, England, and Kó̩lé and Comfort marry, but during her studies, Comfort becomes passionate about the history of the slave trade. One day, she learns the story of a wealthy Bristolian white woman, Dolores, who was the daughter of a slave trader. A devout and religious woman, she was disgusted by the family trade and begged her father to stop. She finally convinced him - only after one more sale. He and her brother met a storm on their return from the Caribbean. The twelve slaves survived; her father and brother did not. Dolores liberated the slaves and found a young black tutor, Boripé̩, originally from Nigeria, to teach them English. The former slaves learned trades and gained employment, and Dolores and Boripé̩ fell in love. As no church in Bristol would marry them, they travelled to the Caribbean, where the eventually wed in a church in Antigua.

Throughout her years teaching high school, Comfort is haunted by Dolores's story and the horrors of slavery. She sees parallels between the slave trade of old and the political and economic slavery of today. She realises that the only way for the people to take back their lives and the economy is to turn their focus from the white-collar sector that has seduced them with empty promises of prosperity to learning trades that can provide them with self-sufficiency and self-employment. She decides she must finally act, and she and Kó̩lé, with the help of the Sage, set up a trade school.

At the trade school, Tó̩lání and Bashy both make an appearance, as they are unknowingly employed there. Comfort and Kó̩lé, with the Sage's help, work to heal the wounds of the past, and eventually all is forgiven. Bashy realises that Tó̩lání was his soulmate and not a mere conquest, and the two marry.