Yesha Bhatt, a ma'am, has been given the task of this blog. I'm responding to the allotted question related to Neo-feminism in Buchi Emecheta's book The Joys of Motherhood.
The Joys Of Motherhood
Buchi Emecheta
Florence Onyebuchi Emecheta, known as Buchi Emecheta (1944- 2017), was a Nigerian-born novelist, based in the UK. She belonged to an Igbo community and is also known as an Igbo writer. Her novels deal largely with the difficult and unequal role of women in both immigrant and African societies and explore the tension between tradition and modernity. She wrote plays, and autobiographies as well as work for children. She has written more than 20 books and her famous works are The Second Citizen, The Bride prize, The Slave Girl, and The Joys of Motherhood. Emecheta's themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence, and freedom through education gained recognition from critics and honors. She has been characterized as "the first successful black woman novelist living in Britain after 1948".
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."
About Book ‘The Joys of Motherhood’
The novel was first published in 1979. The basis of the novel is the ‘necessity for a woman to be fertile, and above all give birth to sons.’ The genre of the novel is Bildungsroman (a class of novel that depicts and explores the manner in which the protagonist develops morally and psychologically). It is set in the early twentieth century (1909) to 1950s (opens in Lagos in 1934) in Ogboli, the village of Ibuza; Lagos, and Nigeria. The narrator is anonymous. The narrator narrates mostly in the third person point of view focusing mostly on the action of the protagonist, Nnu Ego, and sometimes in objective. However, the narration becomes omniscient. The novel shifts 25 years back after presenting the present scenarios in the life of the protagonist.
The Joys of Motherhood is the story of Nnu Ego, a Nigerian woman struggling in a patriarchal society. Unable to conceive in her first marriage, Nnu is banished to Lagos where she succeeds in becoming a mother. Then, against the backdrop of World War II, Nnu must fiercely protect herself and her children when she is abandoned by her husband and her people. Emecheta “writes with subtlety, power, and abundant compassion”
Characters
This image includes the main characters of the novel.
Title
The title of the novel The Joys of Motherhood is taken from Flora Nwapa's pioneering novel Efuru (1966). The closing sentences of Nwapa's book raise a paradox about the much-consulted childless river goddess, Uhamiri:
“She had never experienced the joy of motherhood.
Why then did the women worship her?” (Efuru, 221).
The Joys of Motherhood is Emecheta's hauntingly ironic elaboration on those venerated, so-called joys
The irony of the title of the novel is that she did achieve the joys of motherhood, but could never entirely live up to social ideals and had never expected the selflessness of giving all to her children to demand such great cost and reap so little reward.
The reviewer in West Africa wrote:
"Buchi Emecheta has a way of making readable
and interesting ordinary events.
She looks at things without flinching
and without feeling the need to distort or exaggerate.
It is a remarkable talent.... this is, in my opinion, the
best novel Buchi Emecheta has yet written."
The basic narrative lends itself toward neo-feminism. The main female characters struggle to shed the conditioning which forces them to act out roles that bring little fulfillment. With reference to this, study The Joys of Motherhood by applying a feminist theory.
Neo- feminism
Neo- feminism praises a womanly essence over claims to equality with men, and neo-feminism portrays a developing image of women as being empowered through the celebration of traits thought to be traditionally feminine. In other words, this concept depicts a growing perspective of women as becoming empowered through the celebration of traits believed to be traditionally feminine. It elevates the womanly essence above claims for equality with men. It is also called Lipstick feminism.
Lipstick feminism is a subset of feminism that aims to embrace both conventional conceptions of feminism and traditional concepts of femininity, such as the sexual power of women. The idea first appeared in the third wave as a reaction to earlier movements' ideas, which led women to believe they couldn't be feminists and also be feminine.
The first wave of feminism focused on women's suffrage, or the right to vote. Activists during this time period fought for women to have the same political rights as men.
The second wave of feminism, also known as the women's liberation movement, sought to address a broader range of issues, including reproductive rights, equal pay, and ending discrimination and violence against women.
The third wave of feminism was characterized by a focus on intersectionality or the idea that different forms of oppression, such as racism, classism, and homophobia, intersect and compound one another. This wave also saw the rise of feminist activism on the internet and the use of social media to mobilize and organize.
The fourth wave of feminism, also known as intersectional feminism, continues to build on the principles of the third wave and emphasizes the importance of inclusivity and diversity within the feminist movement. This wave has also seen the rise of the #MeToo movement, which aims to expose and challenge sexual harassment and assault.
Connecting to the last two waves of feminism which gave a new perspective to feminism, neo-feminism emerged in the 21st century. Feminism basically seeks to advance the rights and status of women. Feminism advocates for the equality of women and men and challenges systems of patriarchy, which are social and political structures that prioritize the interests of men and perpetuate male domination and discrimination against women. While Neo-Feminism, This idea or movement of feminism promotes feminine abilities and demands to stand up in a society with those abilities without any source of comparison, it honors women and their abilities in itself without comparing or asking for equality with men.
Buchi Emechaeta in her novel ‘The Joys of Motherhood’ brings forward the traditional Igbo Culture and conditions of women in Igbo society. Women were considered the source of reproduction. This novel rejects the feminist code and associates it with motherhood. The woman who is fertile is honored in society and adding to it if she is the mother of sons she is respected in society. The novel revolves around the life of protagonist Nnu Ego who is the daughter of Ono and Agbadi.
Ono, when died, urged Agbadi to let her daughter live a life of her own that is detached from the feelings and expectations of her husband and father. But perhaps Agbadi didn't understand the intention of this request. Nnu Ego was married to Amtokwo. Nnu Ego was also inspired by the grandmother of the village, Mama Abbey, and dreamt to earn respect like her by accepting and celebrating motherhood. Unfortunately, Nnu Ego was barren and couldn't be a mother, Amatokwo brought a new wife (polygamy in African culture) and she gave birth to a baby. Once he saw Nnu Ego was breastfeeding a baby and he insulted Nnu Ego and so she returned to his father.
She believed that her Chi (angel, god of creation) was a slave who was forcibly killed in the death ceremony of Agbadi’s senior wife death ceremony and her revenge is causing all the suffering in her life. Later she married Nnaife and had to go to Lagos after marriage into a new culture. She got pregnant and gave birth to a boy but he died in infancy. The death of a child caused her to have suicide but was saved. In her lifetime she gave birth to 9 children.
The purpose of Nnu's ego’s life was not to achieve liberation or self-knowledge but to be the mother of healthy sons, which was what a typical Igbo culture wished for. Nnaife was inherited from the wives of his elder brother, among four wives Adaku, the young and prettiest, joined him in Lagos. Nnu Ego and Adaku used to have a rivalry, Nnaife was sent to war and they started having a financial crisis.
Nnu Ego with her children returned to her native and worked hard to feed and educate her children. When she asked for the money from Nnaife, he refused and asked her to work for her children on her own. Marriage and motherhood are constructed as allegories of slavery.
“She was a prison, imprisoned by her love for her children”
Nnu Ego hoped for the reward of all her struggles for her children but she never gained it. Her children went to foreign countries for the betterment of their life. The reward for Nnu Ego was the funeral ceremony by her children. Nnu Ego died in the streets and there was no one around her, her children were not there to help her in her struggles. Which brings the image of illusory motherhood. He was so busy celebrating her mother that she never looked above her children. She earned respect for being a mother but lost her own identity and didn't even earn the reward of motherhood.
“no child to hold her hand and no friend
to talk to her”, she had “never really made
many friends, so busy had she been
building up her joys as a mother”
On the other hand, Nnaife married a new young girl, Opko. Adaku was the complete opposite of Nnu Ego, she could give birth to a boy child but she knew the importance of education and educated her daughter. Adaku joined prostitution for her earnings and decided to be an independent woman. While Nnu Ego was afraid of losing her respect in society and so she refused prostitution and worked in the fields to enjoy her motherhood.
The title of the novel The Joys of Motherhood is the irony by which the novelist tries to present the oppression, suffering, and loneliness which African mothers experience within a patriarchal society. Nnu Ego and Adaku present a dichotomy of motherhood. Adaku aptly presents neo-feminism, to be empowered through the feminine powers while Nnu Ego loses herself in a path of empowering herself as a mother. Nnu's ego’s character throws light on the dehumanizing of women as a means of reproduction.
Here are some detailed readings on feminism reading in The Joys of Motherhood
I hope this blog is useful. Thanks for visiting.
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