The Joys of Motherhood essays

The Joys of Motherhood essays In Buchi Emechetas The Joys of Motherhood novel, the main character, Nnu Ego shows what it means to be a woman and a mother in Nigerian society. Also, Emecheta explores the idea that women having the ability to bear children are the only way to define femininity and womanhood in the novel. However, The Joys of Motherhood plays two important roles to the women at that time. First, even though society is changing, some women are still maintaining the traditional roles, the customs and the values in the Lagos City. At the same time they defeated the standards of feminist theory. Secondly, the novel gives an understanding of some of the aspects of the feminist theory and encourages women to achieve social equality among men and women. However, men still dominated women during that time. Nnu Ego is one of the women who had been trying to be traditional in a modern urban setting (81). In The Joys of Motherhood, she plays many general roles - as a daughter, a wife, a mother, a woman, a worker and a senior wife. As a daughter of Nigerian Chief, Nwokocha Agbadi, Nnu Ego always listens to her fathers disposition and she never opposes him. Therefore, she agrees to marry the man whom her father has chosen for her. After she is married to her first husband, Amatokwu, she wants to be a good wife, which means that she is able to conceive a child with him. However, the first marriage failed because she did not bear him a son (49). In the traditional society, if the married woman is not able to bear children and offer her husband a son, she is considered a failure and has failed to fulfill her gender role as a wife. She will also bring disgrace not only to her husband but also to her father. Her first marriage, Nnu Ego has condemned herself as a failed woman. Later she married a man, Nanife, who works on the coast in a British colony. She is able to bear children with her second husb...