The Joys of Motherhood

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This blog is a response to a task assigned by Megha madam as we are having the African literature in our syllabus of  M.A part two, we were assigned to give answers of any two questions among some questions given by ma'am From unit named The Joys of Motherhood in google classroom.

 1) “The most celebrated female character in African creative writing is the African mother.” by Marie A. Umeh according to this, is the character of Nnu Ego celebrating motherhood or not? Explain.

2) “The title of Emecheta's novel is patently ironic, for it would seem that there are few joys associated with motherhood after all.” Explain.

Buchi Emecheta is one of the most important female writers to emerge from Nigeria. She is distinguished for her vivid description of female subordination and conflicting cultural values in modern Africa. In Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood Nnu Ego, the protagonist, has to suffer as a wife both in the tribal environment in which she was born and the urban community in which she is compelled to live the rest of her life. Nnu Ego has to suffer because these two environments have different cultures. She falls a victim of the tension of the collision of these two conflicting cultures. This collision occurs between the institutions of the traditional Ibo society and the institution of Western Europe. The hardships that Nnu Ego experiences are the result of the clash between the Ibo traditions and the colonized Lagos. It is a clash of traditions, values and priorities. Nnu Ego is victimized because of what the village (Ibuza) community demands her to do, on the one hand, and what the rules of a European political regime requires her to be. She finds herself in a predicament as she has to assume different roles in accordance with the values of the surrounding communities in which she has to live. She escapes from Ibuza because she is not accepted as a wife who cannot produce children. She flees to the distant city of Lagos to start a new life with another husband with the hope of fulfilling her dream of carrying children. This dream is rooted in the cultural values of the Ibo society where motherhood is the primary source of female self- esteem and public status. In Lagos Nnu Ego fulfills her dream of motherhood and begets a lot of children but the pleasures associated with motherhood are negated by the difficult economic conditions of her new urban community and its norms and values. She has to work day in and day out as a street-side peddler to sustain her children because her husband is away working for the colonizers most of the time. Nnu Egos has to adapt to the system that is devastating to maintain her role as a traditional wife and mother regardless of the fact that this system works against the success of that role and ends up with contributing to her subjugation

Taking Nnu Ego as a model of the African woman who is torn between two cultures, the present study attempts to answer the following questions: In what ways are Nnu Ego’s experiences and responses to events in her life representative of the condition of the Nigerian woman under colonization? To what extent do cultural expectations contribute to her plight? How does Emecheta provide a true representative of the Nigerian woman conditions? Is Nnu Ego representing the state of affairs for all African women or only the Nigerian women? How does Nnu Ego convey her message about the condition of the Nigerian woman through her own experiences? How is Nnu Ego is victimized by her first husband, her father and the community in Ibuza because of her inability at child producing? How far she is also victimized by her second husband, the colonizing economic, social and cultural systems as well as by her own children? To what extent Nnu Ego’s adherence to the traditions of her Ibo culture contribute in victimizing her? Nnu Ego’s journey through life is characterized by a number of continual tragedies that reflect the tragedies of the modern African woman in general and the Nigerian in particular. In her struggle, Nnu Ego represents the Nigerian woman’s struggle in defending her female status. Emechta uses her personal experience as a Nigerian woman to express her contempt toward female subjugation underscoring the oppressive systems perpetuated by Nigerian culture. As Nadaswaran points out “In this novel Emecheta demonstrates how the traditional point of view of a woman’s role in precolonial Nigerian was not applicable during the colonial period… As the Nigerian society changes, women are still expected to play traditional roles as wives, economic provider and nurtures. This change brings about many problems for them”. (Nadaswaran.2012, p.146) In The Joys of Motherhood, Emecheta wants to underscore what it means to be a woman and a mother in the Nigerian society during the 1940s. She wants to explore the dilemma of the rural and urban woman whose efforts to come to terms with the situation in which she finds herself is overwhelming. Emecheta uses her personal experiences as a Nigerian woman whose life is distorted as a result of living between two cultures. “Emecheta lives between two cultures. Her African culture makes her portray females as traditionally subordinate but, on the other hand, she is exposed to western values which influences how she portrays her female characters”. (Chikodili. 2011, p.24)

The Most celebrated female character

The Most celebrated female character in African creative writing is the African mother. Anglophone African writers from the sub-Saharan area esteem her as the epitome of love, strength and affection. This image of the African mother for the most part reflects traditional African societies' mores. African societies highly regard African women for their reproductive ability, and African writers similarly portray African women in roles where they are protecting, comforting and nourishing their children. Accordingly, two predominant images of the African woman as mother dominate African creative writing. The first holds the African mother as a supreme symbol. This in1age of the African mother as supreme is found in the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Achebe points out that when there is misfortune and sorrow a man finds refuge in his motherland. Achebe contends that "it is to a mother to whom one turns, of whom one speaks of when nostalgia grips . . . when distress clouds the vision of the moment . . . when there is sorrow and bitterness . . . the mother is there to protect you and that is why we say Mother is Supreme." 1 In this novel, Achebe establishes the mother image as representative not only of maternal love, protection and comfort, but also of power and respect. The second portrayal of the African woman as mother depicts her as an all-suffering , self-sacrificing victim. Take Ama, the mother in Christina Aidoo's short story, "No Sweetness Here," as a case in point. According to Aidoo, the typical mother is one who sacrifices herself for her children. Other views of motherhood in African writing depict the African mother as the symbol of security and dignity. In Buchi Emecheta's novel, The Joys of Motherhood, one witnesses the collapse of these glorifying images of the African Mother. As a literary artist preoccupied with promoting change, author Emecheta, an iconoclast, breaks away from the prevalent portraitures in African writing in which motherhood is honorific. Children do not always maintain strong and loving ties with their mothers throughout adulthood. As Emecheta states in her novel, "the joy of being a mother is the joy of giving all to your children." 

Nnu Ego, the protagonist in the novel, is an offspring of Agbadi, a great chief and elephant hunter, and the proud Ona, who remains the great love of Agbadi's life although she refuses to become one of his wives. Because Nnu Ego, the reincarnation of a slave girl who has come back to live her life again, is barren in her first marriage, she is returned to her father's village. The old chief is reluctant to see her marry a second time but he relents and allows Nnu Ego to marry Nnaife Owulum, a man she has never seen and does not know. Nnaife Owulum lives in Lagos where he is employed as a laundryman in the home of an English family. Upon arriving in Lagos, Nnu Ego is disappointed with her spouse because of his obesity and his servility before Dr. and Mrs. Meers, his employers. In any event, Nnu Ego remains with her husband and bears him nine children of whom seven live: three boys and four girls. When she despairs because of a loveless marriage, she draws comfort from the fact that Nnaife is responsible for her seemingly esteemed position as norther. Upon the birth of their first son, Oshia, she reflects: "She was now sure, as she bathed her baby son and cooked for her husband, that her old age would be happy, that when she died there would be somebody left behind to refer to her as 'mother' " (p. 54).

The basic narrative lends itself toward neo-feminism. The main female characters struggle to shed the conditioning which forces them to act out roles that bring little fulfillment. Like the African-American dramatist, Ntozake Shange, Emecheta has two of her characters-Nnu Ego and Adaku-evoke radical feminist ideologies in their quests for abundant life. 5 After experiencing both the joys and pains of motherhood, Nnu Ego realizes that children do not always bring fulfillment. Nnu Ego ruminates, "God, when will you create a woman who will be fulfilled in herself, a full hunlan being not anybody's appendage?" (p. 186). What Emecheta does is to present an African woman's reaction to a universal problem: children often fail to honor their parents. In voicing this idea through the traditionalist, Nnu Ego, Emecheta emphasizes the fact that women have the social responsibility to criticize and participate in the social order. Structurally, this text is more complicated than her earlier works. Her artistic growth as a writer, demonstrated in her prolific use of literary devices such as flashback, interior monologue and Bildungsroman, is stylistically exciting. For example, Emecheta employs the technique of the Bildungsroman-novel of formation-to underscore the development of the protagonist's mind and character as she nlatures and recognizes her role in life. She also skillfully uses flashbacks to weave together crucial information central to the development of the plot and to the full understanding of her characters' relationships to both the external and spirit worlds. The result mirrors working-class Ibuza men and women from the beginning of the twentieth century to the 1960's providing sport for their gods. 6 Additionally, what makes the novel stylistically refreshing is the air of social realism brought about by the author's use of the English language. Emecheta is careful to select the manner of speech which authentically represents each character in his particular environment.

"I was born alone, and I shall die alone. What have I gained from all this? Yes, I have many children, but what do I have to feed them on? On my life. I have to work myself to the bone to look after them. I have to give them my all. And if I am lucky enough to die in peace, I even have to give them my soul. They will worship my dead spirit to provide for them: it will be hailed as a good spirit so long as there are plenty of yams and children in the family, but if anything should go wrong, if a young wife does not conceive or there is a famine, my dead spirit will be blamed. When will I be free?" (pp. 186-7)

Introspective characters of African women are rare primarily because the situational novel, which is concerned with external events, looms large in African creative writing. 7 For the most part, African writers-male and female-tend to approach their characters "objectively," describing their external reactions to their circumstances without attempting to probe their minds in order to illuminate the psychological forces that motivate their actions. In The Joys of Motherhood, however, one is eased right into Nnu Ego's subconscious mind and into her thoughts. For example, in explaining her temporary nervous breakdown following the loss of her first son, Ngozi, Nnu Ego laments, "But I am not a woman any more! I am not a mother any more. The child is there, dead on the mat. My chi has taken him away from me. I only want to go in there and meet her... " (p. 62). Here Nnu Ego puts forth traditional Igbo ideas as well as the role of one's chi in the psyche of an Igbo person.

The Indian couple allegedly used dumbbells as murder weapons. Despite their academic backgrounds, both claim their children will return from the dead.(Pundir) and Tirupati: The couple who bludgeoned their two college-going ..

I am a prisoner of my own flesh and blood. Is it such an enviable position? The men make it look as if we must aspire for children or die. That's why when I lost my first son I wanted to die, because I failed to live up to the standard expected of me by the males in my life, my father and my husband-and now I have to include my sons. But who made the law that we should not hope in our daughters? We women subscribe to that law more than anyone. Until we change all this, it is still a man's world, which women will always help to build. (p. 187)

When he came to know that Nnu Ego had left for Logos, he consoled himself as, “Let her go, she is as barren as a desert.” (39) One of the eldest wives of Agbadi eldest mother of Nnu dies from the strain  of pretending to  be a ‘complete  woman”. Interestingly, the  predicament  of wives and mothers ware not cramped to any specific generation.  The very first encounter with her husband  gave  horrendous  shock  as  she  describes  him  as  a  “pregnant  cow”.  Her  husband asked his  connubial rights at the  very first  night and raped her without giving  a choice to change  her  mind.  In  Emecheta’s  novels,  rape  is  a  recurring  narrative  and  that becomes a symbol of manhood. The male characters controlled their wives in the name of tradition. She robustly contends that sexual enjoyment is as essential for women and as for men.

Without motherhood, Nnu Ego feels empty and struggled very hard to be a mother. Emecheta wants to transmit the point that bearing more than five or six children do not mean that  a mother  is going  to be  prosperous in  her old  age. She  examines the  institution of motherliness, unpleasant experiences mixed up in motherliness, and its shock on the minds of the Nigerian women. According to Katherine Frank, "The  complete futility of motherhood that we find in The Joys of Motherhood is the most heretical and radical aspect of Emecheta's vision of the African Women "The chapter  titles, "The Mother,"  "The Mother's  Mother," "The Mother's Early Life," "First Shock of Motherhood," “A Mothers Investment”, ‘A Failed Woman” etc., describes the ups and down in the destiny of Nnu Ego. The author has ended the novel by giving ironical title to its chapter as “The Canonized Mother”. Nnu  Ego had  to experience patriarchal slavery throughout her life and died in solitude. All mothers, Ona, Akadu and Nnu Ego, have been victimized in the patriarchal  and traditionally strong Ibo society.  But  Emecheta’s  Nnu  Ego  challenges  the  conservative  conception  that  producing numerous children will give a woman much ecstasy.

Conclusion : 

Buchi Emecheta's novel "The Joys of Motherhood" challenges traditional portrayals of African motherhood, particularly the glorification of motherhood as the ultimate source of joy and fulfillment. Through the protagonist Nnu Ego, Emecheta explores the complexities and hardships faced by women in navigating societal expectations, cultural clashes, and the oppressive systems perpetuated by Nigerian culture. Nnu Ego's journey reflects the struggles of African women under colonization, the victimization she faces due to cultural expectations, and the disillusionment she experiences as a mother. Emecheta's narrative highlights the futility of traditional roles imposed on women and critiques the patriarchal norms that constrain their lives. Ultimately, Nnu Ego's story serves as a poignant commentary on the challenges faced by African women striving for autonomy and fulfillment in a society marked by inequality and oppression.

Thank You!