Name: Nidhi P. Jethava
Paper: African Literature
Roll No. : 13
Enrollment Number: 306920200009
Email ID: jethavanidhi8@gmail.com
Batch: 20-22( MA SEM- 4 )
Submitted to: S. B. Gardi Department of English, Maharaja KrishnaKumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Double colonization of African Women in 'The Joys of Motherhood'
Introduction:
Literature is an interesting way to go back and see the narrated things. Africa was colonized country. The history of Africa is very interesting. Especially the post-colonial era because during that era so many things happened. In this assignment, the situation of African women is described in the context of two major works. One is ‘The Joys of Motherhood’ and ‘Petals of Blood’. The two important characters Nnu Ego and Wanja, are double colonized women. They are not only being colonized by colonizers but also with masculinity.
About ‘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".[1] It tells the tragic story of Nnu-Ego, 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 centres 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.
About Buchi Emecheta:
Florence Onyebuchi "Buchi" Emecheta OBE (21 July 1944 – 25 January 2017) was a Nigerian-born novelist, based in the UK from 1962, who also wrote plays and an autobiography, as well as works for children. She was the author of more than 20 books, including Second Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Most of her early novels were published by Allison and Busby, where her editor was Margaret Busby.
Emecheta's themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education gained recognition from critics and honours. She once described her stories as "stories of the world, where women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical." Her works explore the tension between tradition and modernity. She has been characterized as "the first successful black woman novelist living in Britain after 1948".
Double colonization of Women in 'The Joys of Motherhood'
What is Double Colonization?
According to Fuad Abdul Muttalib
“The notion of 'Double colonization' indicates that women suffer from a double colonization: one is exercised by the colonizer and the other by her society. We can see this notion presented in the work of Neeru Tandon, in her book Feminine Psyche: A Post Modern Critique (2008), discussing that women have faced the oppression of colonialism and patriarchy together, which respectively refer to the term of 'Double colonization'. The studies about representation of women from colonizing and colonized culture show that double colonization affected women of different cultures in different ways. Actually, women have suffered from double colonization in different societies and different cultures. Also, women have faced different kinds of oppression: from their masculine society on the one hand, and from colonization on the other hand. They have experienced the oppression of patriarchy because of socially constructed roles which make them an inferior class in the society with no rights, also they have experienced the oppression of colonization”
The Joys of Motherhood is the story of Nnu Ego. She is the protagonist of the story. Nnu Ego is belonging to the Ibuza community. So throughout the play, she was craving for motherhood, double colonization, and destiny also. So, Why in ‘The Joys of Motherhood’ is Enu Ego described as a double colonized woman. Why are other women described as double colonized? What are the possible reasons? So Nnu Ego belongs to the community known as Ibu and here is some information about that community. So each community has some rules and regulations of the Ibu Community.
According to Dr. Mohamed Fathi Helaly
“Ibuza is a village where people live in a rural environment. Such an environment has its own traditions, customs, values and norms at the economic as well as the social levels. According to traditions in Ibuza, women are made to understand that men are the source of power and the masters of the houses. Women are also made to understand that they are brought up to obey and fulfill men’s needs and desires. Moreover, women are considered as properties that can be bought and sold. They can be sold to men who can pay the bride price to their families. However, the price can be given back to the husband if a woman fails to produce children.
In a tribal society such the Ibo society, a woman is free but is not allowed to marry on her own. She cannot make her own decision regarding marriage and maternal life. Moreover, she is not allowed to make any decision associated with raising her children. In Ibuza, the role of men is different from their role in an urban community. Here, in Ibuza, a man’s role is defined by his culture and his people while his role in an urban community is defined by outsiders (colonizers). In the tribal society, men seek to enforce the traditions of the land. Such traditions have been there for generations with no change at all”.
So through the character of Nnu Ego and Adaku writer tried to depict the situation of African Women. African women were colonized by the British on one side and by class, culture and masculinity on the other. The widespread belief that African women are helpless and/or insignificant in the male-dominated community of Igbo culture is a serious mistake. Men's work is widely regarded as more authoritative than women's work, and polygamy and patriotic settlements (married women who live in their husband's village rather than their own) are generally practiced by women. While securing men's power against, Ibo women were still exercising considerable influence both in their marriage and in the larger community. For example, women were an important force in the agricultural economy of society. The women cultivated their own crops, sold the surplus crops (and their husband's crops), and had exclusive control over the operation and operation of the village market. A local transaction was made. In addition, women actively participated in the bigender political system of Iho society, Iho boys and Iho women governed separately, men and women chose their respective leaders and ministers, and established matters related to their respective members. .. Related members.
The Joys of Motherhood – Exploring the Double Marginalisation of African Women!
Ankita Ghoshal reviewed the book and mentioned that:
“The portrayal of women in African literature has often been problematic. Women in these books are not depicted as characters of flesh and blood but as symbols and abstractions. They are presented either as nurturers or courtesans, benefiting the men in both cases. Buchi Emecheta‘s novel “The Joys of Motherhood” gives us a break from the stereotypical narratives about Black women being portrayed as manipulative and oversexed. Here, we see from the very beginning how a woman’s confidence, arrogance, and sauciness don’t add to her dignity. The traits are solely for enticing and entertaining the men. More than the Igbo tribal society’s norms, colonialism posed a bigger threat to Nigerian women’s collective well-being. Western capitalism has had a destructive influence on autonomy as well as the relative power of Igbo women.”
So, in ‘The Joys of Motherhood’ the character of Ennu Ego, Adaku, Adanko, and Opko majority talk about this idea of double colonization. Especially character Nnu Ego talk about the concept of Double colonization. On one hand, she becomes colonized by Britishers, and another hand becomes colonized with class, culture, and masculinity. In this same way, the character of Adaku has faced this thing. Buchi with the help of the character Nnu Ego widely talks about this. Another character has not faced such things while Nnu had to go through such things which are mentioned above.
Conclusion:
To sum up, one can say that Nnu Ego is not an individual character but she represented the whole community. Teresa Derrickson mentions that “Nnu Ego becomes a casualty of a conflict between the old and the new, a casualty of a colonial system whose modern values and modern economic configurations are fundamentally irreconcilable with the traditional social structures of indigenous Africa. That Nnu Ego finally comes to recognize her predicament as such by the end of the novel is somewhat auspicious, and yet Emecheta ultimately offers no real solution as to what it means to be an African woman who is contained neither by the confines of the old patriarchy nor by the confines of the new. Nnu Ego's final role as a vengeful spirit who denies the blessing of children to other Ibo women seems to locate one solution in a shift toward Westernization, and yet cultural homogenization can hardly be the answer. Adaku, who chooses that path, finds herself rejected by her own people. Nnu Ego, who chooses the opposite, dies destitute and alone. In the end, each path is condemned as unacceptable for African women, a fact that remains both the point of Emecheta's novel and the problem it cannot solve.”
Works Cited
Derrickson, Teresa. “Class, Culture, and the Colonial Context: The Status of Women in Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood.” https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/IFR/article/view/7715/8772. Accessed 17 March 2022.
Ghoshal, Ankita. “The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta [Review].” BookWritten, 5 May 2021, https://bookwritten.com/the-joys-of-motherhood-by-buchi-emecheta-review/2133/. Accessed 17 March 2022.
Helaly, Dr. Mohamed Fathi. “CULTURAL COLLISION AND WOMEN VICTIMIZATION: A STUDY OF BUCHI EMECHETA’S THE JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD (1979).” Journal of Language and Literature, vol. 7, 2016, p. 12.
Muttalib, Fuad Abdul. “The Double Colonization Of Women In Tayeb Salih’s Season Of Migration To The North And Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.” International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation (IJLLT), vol. 3, no. 2, 2020, p. 9.
Characters: 10,872
Words: 1.738
Sentences: 95
Paragraphs:35
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