Thinking Activity: The Joys of Motherhood

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Welcome to my blog.  We had task assigned by Yesha ma'am. We have to write about The Joys of Motherhood. The topic given by ma'am we have to write any one topic. So I have written about the Motherhood – game of power and control. 

 BUCHI EMECHETA

A Nigerian-born author who has resided in England since 1962, Emecheta is best known for her novels that address the difficulties facing modern African women forced into traditional and subservient roles. Emecheta's heroines often challenge the restrictive customs imposed on them and aspire to economic and social independence. Although some critics have categorized Emecheta's works as feminist in nature, Emecheta rejects the label, stating, "I have not committed myself to the cause of African women only. I write about Africa as a whole."

The Joys of Motherhood 

Nwokocha Agbadi is a wealthy and proud local chief. He is enamored with Ona, the daughter of another chief. Although Chief Agbadi has many wives he is determined to have Ona. Ona is a proud and headstrong woman and she refuses to marry Agbadi because she must produce an heir to continue her father's lineage.

Chief Agbadi and his friends go elephant hunting in the monsoons. The chief gets seriously injured during his expedition. He is wounded severely and taken for dead by his friends. Many days later he regains consciousness and wakes up to see Ona by his side. They spend a number of days together and eventually Ona becomes pregnant with Agbadi's child.

Ona gives birth to a baby girl and she names her Nnu Ego, which means twenty bags of cowrie shells. Ona soon dies in labour with her next child who also fails to survive her. Nnu Ego grows up to be a smart and beautiful young woman. She is Chief Agbadi's favorite daughter and he marries her off to a wealthy and influential family. However, her marriage soon grows stale because Nnu Ego is barren and cannot give her husband, Amatokwu, any children. Amatokwu marries another woman who before long produces his heirs.

Nnu Ego is unhappy and dispirited, she becomes frail and morose and so she goes back to her father's house. Chief Agbadi arranges her second marriage to a man from Lagos called Nnaife. Nnu Ego travels from her village to the city to meet him. Nnaife is not her ideal man but she decides that if she can have a child with him then she could perhaps grow to love him. Nnu Ego becomes pregnant but her son dies almost immediately after he is born. This devastates her and she tries to throw herself off a bridge but a villager finds her and manages to dissuade her.

Nnaife loses his job and the two struggle to survive, he eventually gets a job on ship which requires him to be gone for months at a time. Nnaife returns from the ship after many long months to the news of his brothers death and his consequent inheritance of all his brother's wives and children. The youngest wife, Adaku moves to Lagos with her children to Nnu Ego's house, fostering a bitter rivalry in the process.

Over the years Nnu Ego's has given birth to four children and she works hard to put them through school and provide for them. After a rather cruel disagreement with the family Adaku leaves and becomes a prostitute to support herself. Nnaife goes to Idubo to assert his rights and settle his brother's inheritance with his brother's eldest wife but he instead comes home with another wife, Okpo.

Nnu Ego has a difficult time supporting her children along with the children that Nnaife keeps fathering. However, one day Nnaife offers to pay for his and Nnu Ego's son, Oshia's, expensive education. Everybody expects Oshia to complete his education, procure a good job and help raise his younger brothers and sisters. Oshia has other plans for himself which distresses and causes great grief for his family. He wants to study in America and he eventually leaves.

Kehinde, Nnu Ego's third child runs away from home with a Yoruba man. Nnaife is enraged and assaults the Yoruba man's father for which he is sent to prison. Adim, their second son emigrates to Canada. Nnu Ego returns to her father's home alone with both her sons abroad and both her daughters married. She eventually dies a lonely death in the village with nobody by her side.

After Nnu Ego's death all her children come down to Ibuza and hold an elaborate funeral for their mother. The four children set up a shrine for her, so women who want children can pray to her. It is said, however, that Nnu Ego never answers the prayers of the women who pray to her for children.

Motherhood – game of power and control

Many African authors have been dealt with the notion of motherhood. Catherine Obianuju Acholunu has coined the term ‘Mothers’ as an alternative to Western feminism. Buchi Emecheta’s The Joy of Motherhood (1979)discuss motherhood in the Ibo society as a power game of desire and control. Nnu Ego tries to become an ideal mother. But found no life outside the preview of motherhood. (Kapgate)

The Joy of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta is one of the most sophisticated Bildungsroman books produced in colonial Nigeria between the early and mid-twentieth centuries, describing the protagonist's twenty-five-year journey. The protagonist, Nnu Ego, has progressed from a powerful tradition-bound character to a feminist, as the author has highlighted. Her efforts to prove the validity of motherhood are thwarted at every point, regrettably, by a tangle of inconsistencies that she finds herself unable of resolving.

The novel is devoted to all mothers, beginning with "The Mother" in the first chapter and ending with "The Canonized Mother" in the last chapter. It provides a caustic examination of patriarchal, colonial restraints encountered by women like Nnu Ego, whose societal worth is predicated on two factors: first, her ability to produce children, and second, her readiness to meet male-oriented Ibo culture's demand and serviceability. As a passionate author in finding the difficulties encountered by Nigerian women, she stated in a talk  with Adeola James that  

“in Joys of Motherhood…I created a woman who had eight children and died by the wayside”( Adeola )

Traditions played an important part in the development of the concept of motherhood. They assumed that motherhood would deliver a fulfilled and distinguished life to the protagonist. Emecheta uses the technique of mother's introspection in which the protagonist realizes that she has not brought fulfillment to the family. Nnu Ego, who is a doubly colonized mother, describes her sorrows and sacrifices in a statement released shortly after the birth of her twin daughters. She had one of these epiphanic moments when stuck in the web of delivery and a difficult position. The following remark expresses the psychological temperament and sadness of a mother, and it represents the Nigerian women's response to the prevalent problem. (Kapgate)

The Joy of Motherhood, the tale of a mother, Nnu Ego, is written with subtlety, power, and abundant compassion. (New York Times)

Nnu Ego feels empty without motherhood and has fought hard to be a mother. Emecheta wishes to convey the message that having more than five or six children does not guarantee that a mother would be rich in her later years. She looks at the institution of motherhood, the horrible experiences that come with it, and the impact it has on the brains of 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 author has given the novel's final chapter the satirical title of "The Canonized Mother." Throughout her life, Nnu Ego was subjected to patriarchal enslavement and died alone. In the patriarchal and traditionally strong Ibo society, all three moms, Ona, Akadu, and Nnu Ego, have been mistreated. However, Emecheta's Nnu Ego defies the conventional wisdom that having a large family will provide a woman with a lot of ecstasies.

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