Paper- 206 Assignment

Paper- 206 Assignment

Feminist Studies in Buchi Emecheta’s 'The Joys of Motherhood'.

Name- Kishan Jadav

Assignment Paper - 206 The African Literature 

Roll no-10

Enrollment no-3069206420200008

Email id- jadavkishan55555@gmail.com

Batch-2020-22 (MA Sem-VI)

Submitted to- S. B. Gardi Department of English,

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Introduction :

Buchi Emecheta, a Nigerian-born British author, and published by Allison & Busby in 1979. Emecheta has written and published over twenty works, from novels to plays, each of which delve into the complexities of what it means to be a woman and a mother in societies where the morals and traditions are constantly changing. The protagonist, Nnu Ego, has bad fortune with childbearing, and through her life centered on her children, she gains her community’s respect. The African socio-cultural setting is predominantly a patriarchal society where women are marginalized and are not recognized in the scheme of things. There are many ideologies about women generally in African society. ╺ We can see the complex socio-cultural problems faced by women in Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood.These socio-cultural problems, otherwise known as feminist issues in this study, were identified in the text and discussed in the light of the ideological realities in the African society, especially the Igbo society in Nigeria. Thus, the feminist critical discourse analysis theory was considered appropriate for the investigation. ╺ Thefindings revealed that feminist ideological issues such as gender inequality, sex-role distinctions, wife inheritance, gender violence, men’s dominance and control, bride price, daughters seen as a source of wealth, choosing husband for a girl-child against her wish, child or early marriage, women as object of sacrifice, lack of freedom and motherhood were presented throughout the text.So in this novel mentioned some key arguments. Let's start our discussion.

1)Gender Inequality

 In The Joys of Motherhood, African women are presented as second-class citizens and as a result, there is preference for boys to girls. In this text, the gender issue created is that it is better to give birth to a male child than a female one in the patriarchal Ibo society where the story is set. Nnaife’s second wife, Adaku gives birth to a male child, which makes him very ecstatic. Unfortunately this male child dies some days after and this is greeted with sorrow and depression and in lamenting about the death of Nnu Ego’s son, Adaku says she prefers one of her rival’s set of twins had died. Adaku laments: “O God, why did you not take one of the girls and leave me with my male child”. The importance of male-child is very paramount that it even creates jealousy and unhealthy rivalry between Adaku and Nnu Ego.

2) Sex-Role Distinctions

A dominant belief that permeates the novel Joys of Motherhood is the sex- role distinctions. The various roles, duties and expectations from male and female are implicit in the novel. African women are depicted as people whose permanent place is the kitchen, hence, the popular quote; “Female’s Education Ends in the Kitchen”. Consequently, men and women are socialized at birth to perform different roles; boys go out to play whereas girls do household chores. This text presents a scene where Adaku beckons Oshia, a male child and Dumbi, a female child to go and fetch water from the tap for the evening’s meals and what comes out of Oshia’s mouth is unfortunate: “I am not going! I am a boy, why should I help in the cooking? That’s a woman‘s job”. Oshia declines to play with his friends but Nnaife adds to this problem by instructing him to “go out and stop listening to female gossip”

3) Men’s Dominance and Control

In this novel, it is the men who dictate or rule over the women, and as a result, the women have no option than to succumb to the dictates of the men. Coupled with the cultural practices, the women are remote- controlled and as such, they do not have any choice that leads to their fulfilment. To shed light on this, Nnu Ego reflects on herself and asserts that: “God, when will you create a woman who will be fulfilled in herself, a full human being, not anybody’s appendage?.. After all, I was born alone and I shall die alone. What have I gained from this? Yes, I have many children.  I am a prisoner of my own flesh and blood. Is it such an enviable position? 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 more than anyone until we change all this, it is still a man’s world which women will always help to build.

4) Women as Object of Sacrifice

In this novel, the first wife of Agbadi, Agunwa, dies and as the culture of the people of Ibuza demands when it is time for Agunwa to be lowered into her grave, her slave is expected to jump into the grave willingly and die with her but because she is a woman she is cajoled into the grave. This beautiful slave woman consistently pleads for her life to be spared as she tries to come out of the grave after she has been pushed into it. This painful episode is narrated as: “Then her personal slave was ceremoniously called in a loud voice by the medicine man. She must be laid inside the grave first. A good slave was supposed to jump into the grave willingly happy to accompany her mistress but this young and beautiful woman did not wish to die yet. She kept begging for her life, much to the annoyance of the many men standing around. The woman stood far for this was a custom they found revolting. The poor slave was pushed into the shallow grave but she struggled out, fighting and pleading, appealing to her owner Agbadi.

5) Lack of Freedom

African women lack freedom, they are prisoners in their own households. Emecheta projects this in the text Joys of Motherhood. This is symbolic of the fact that Nnu Ego sacrifices all that she has including meeting the needs of her family. She effectively agrees that she has become a prisoner throughout. She makes it abundantly clear when she picks quarrels with Nnaife over the low housekeeping money he gives her and the co-wife to cook through this narration: On her way back to their room, it occurred to Nnu Ego that she was a prisoner, imprisoned by her love for her children, imprisoned in her role as a senior wife. She was not even expected to demand more money from her family; that was considered below the standard expected of a woman in her position.Tied to the above is the fact that in this book, Nnu Ego is again, imprisoned by the entrenched cultural practices of the people of Ibiza, she is a typical traditional woman. She is imprisoned by the culture that requires that women should bring forth many children preferably males in order to be deemed successful in an African society.

6) Girl-Education

Another issue that has eaten deep into African society is the girl-education issue. The female gender is seen as inferior beings and so because of this, so much importance is not given to their education. Nnu Ego’s daughters could not go to school because the education of their brothers is considered more important. The only important that the female folks have is the payment of their brideprice which would probably be used to sponsor the male folks to school. Taiwo complained about the boys not joining them to hawk and her mother replies: They have to go to their lesson, Taiwo: and stop moaning. You are a girl you know. This shows that Nnu Ego is not concerned about the girls’ education. She is only after Oshia and Adim’ schooling. The narrator also confirms this:The Owulum twins were very beautiful. They did not go to school.

7) Motherhood

With motherhood, a woman is considered blessed, she acquires a higher status in society, she is respected and mythologized. Emecheta shows this in her book, The Joys of Motherhood through the character of Nnu Ego. She cherishes children more than material gains. Nnu Ego loses her child through miscarriage and she decides to stop trading during her second pregnancy ostensibly to forestall any miscarriage so she concentrated solely on having a baby thereby neglecting any opportunity to make money through trading but she prefers having a baby to trading which might make her lose another baby. The raconteur conveys Nnu Ego’s thought cleverly as: She had reminded herself of the old that money and children don’t go together. If you spent all your time making money and getting rich, the gods wouldn’t give you any children, if you wanted children, you had to forget money, and be content to be poor.

Conclusion

The study has been able to establish the fact that the achievement of the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes in African society especially is still far from happening now. This study also posits that the African society gives recognition to the male point of view, while women are treated unfairly within the societies. Although some women tries to make efforts to change such ideology by fighting gender stereotypes and seeking to establish educational and professional opportunities for women that are equal to those for men in the text and in the real world, little success is achieved because the African society is a patriarchal one.