Thinking Activity:The Joys of Motherhood

Hello Friends

I am Daya Vaghani, a Student of the Department of English, MKBU. As a part of the syllabus, we are studying the paper on African Literature. This task is assigned by Yesha Ma’am as a part of the thinking activity. In this blog, I am going to write about the African novel The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta. Let's begin with the author’s introduction.

Buchi Emecheta

Buchi Emecheta is a Nigerian novelist. Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence, and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honors, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005.

Buchi Emecheta used to say,

 “I work toward the liberation of women but I’m not a feminist I’m just a woman.”

 Buchi Emecheta was born on July 21st, 1944 in Lagos Nigeria. Her father, who was a railway worker, died when Emicheta was eight. Her mother also died, later on, leaving Emecheta an orphan. She lived with different family members while attending Methodist Girls High School on a scholarship that she won. Emecheta was known to be very intelligent, and her desire to obtain an education was always noticeable. Despite her challenging childhood she continued to work hard in school to pursue her dreams. At the age of sixteen, she married Sylvester Onwardi who she was betrothed to at age eleven. One of her dreams was to move to England, and after a bit of convincing, they journeyed to England with their two children in the year 1962.

Emecheta’s living condition in England was entirely different than she was used to in Nigeria. At twenty-two, Emecheta was a mother of five living in a strange land and being abused by her husband. She worked as a librarian and attended London University in 1970 where she studied and earned her degree in Sociology in four years. Soon after she started to work as a social worker. Emecheta found her job to be very rewarding. She loved writing and decided to write her first novel. Filled with pride and excitement, she shared the moment with her husband. Filled with jealousy and rage her husband destroyed her manuscript. Emecheta reported feeling as if she had lost a child, this malicious act was enough to ask for a divorce from her abusive husband.

Emecheta’s first book in The Ditch (1972) focused on the single immigrant mothers in the UK and also did her second novel Second Class Citizen (1974). Her love for writing produced more than 20 novels which are also based on her past experiences, sexual politics, and racial prejudice. Emecheta’s work continued with The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977), The Joys of Motherhood (1979), Nowhere to Play (1980), The Moonlight Bride (1980), The Wrestling Match (1980), Our Own Freedom (1981), Double Yoke (1982), Naira Power (1982), Destination Biafra (1982), The Rape of Shavi (1983), Adah’s Story (1983), Head Above Water (1986), A Kind of Marriage (1986), Family Bargain (1987), Gwendolen (1989) The Family (1989), Kehinde (1994) and The New Tribe (2000).

The Joys of Motherhood 

The Joys of Motherhood is a novel written by Buchi Emecheta. It was first published in London, UK, by Allison & Busby in 1979 and was reprinted in Heinemann's African Writers Series in 2008. The basis of the novel is the "necessity for a woman to be fertile, and above all to give birth to sons". It tells the tragic story of Nnu-Ego, the daughter of Nwokocha Agbadi and Ona, who had a bad fate with childbearing. This novel explores the life of a Nigerian woman, Nnu Ego. Nnu's life centers on her children and through them, she gains the respect of her community. Traditional tribal values and customs begin to shift with increasing colonial presence and influence, pushing Ego to challenge accepted notions of "mother", "wife", and "woman". Through Nnu Ego's journey, Emecheta forces her readers to consider the dilemmas associated with adopting new ideas and practices against the inclination to cleave to tradition. In this novel, Emecheta reveals and celebrates the pleasures derived from fulfilling responsibilities related to family matters in childbearing, mothering, and nurturing activities among women. However, the author additionally highlights how the 'joys of motherhood' also include anxiety, obligation, and pain.

“God, when will you create a woman who will be fulfilled in herself, a full human being, not anybody’s appendage? she prayed desperately.”

― Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood

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.

Thank You..

Work Cited

• Adeola, J. “Buchi Emecheta,” In Their Own Voice: African Women Writers Talk. London: Currey, 1990, p. 43.
• Kapgate, Laxmikant. (2020). MOTHER’S INTRICACY IN BUCHI EMECHETA’S THE JOY OF MOTHERHOOD.
• Frank, Katherine. “The Death of the Slave Girl: African Womanhood in the novels of Buchi Emecheta “, World Literature Written in English, 21.2,1984, p.490.