Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Ignoring Open Doors by Alexandra Winter
Buchi Emecheta portrays a heartrending tale of one woman who struggles to gain cultural validation as a female in West Africa in her ironically titled novel The Joys of Motherhood. The novel consists of flashbacks that lead up to the moment that begins the novel: Nnu Ego is at a time in her life of complete desperation as she contemplates suicide after her son’s death. The novel moves backward in time to explain how the protagonist got to this tragic situation. The Joys of Motherhood expresses the deep-seated gender issues of West Africa, in particular the Western Igbo women of the Nigerian southeast. Emecheta takes us on a journey to discover the hardships of wanting a child for cultural acceptance and then discovering all that can go unexpectedly wrong when a woman is finally “blessed” with children. This novel not only reveals the importance of motherhood in West African Society, but also unveils the cultural differences that can arise between those born in a civilized and urban population of Nigeria versus those raised in rural, agricultural villages. These themes can be closely analyzed using a gender literary critique.
Nnu Ego’s pursuit for perfection in motherhood and womanhood often keeps her oblivious to opportunities to take on new social roles and cope with the other hardships of Lagos between the 1930s and 1950s. She first dwells on how to be the perfect daughter, then the perfect wife, and then the perfect mother, all social pressures that ultimately distract her from other paths she could take. However, Nnu Ego is cursed to live an unhappy life as she is haunted by a spirit (chi) of the slave girl who was sacrificed at the death of her mother. The curse takes immediate effect when Ona’s father dies, and then Ona herself, leaving Nnu Ego motherless and without mother’s kin to offer protection, support, and much needed affection. Nnu Ego “knew her chi was a woman, not just because to her way of thinking only a woman would be so thorough in punishing another.” This passage provides insight into the female relationships in the Ibo culture. Women fear other women because they are in constant competition for male approval. Nnu Ego is convinced that only another woman would take her child away from her. The curse along with her self-imposed standards of how to be a real woman keep Nnu Ego culturally imprisoned.
Her initiation to social roles is unbalanced as her idea of what constitutes a woman is learned from her father, making her view of womanhood skewed to that of a male perspective. She sets out to be the perfect woman, according to male standards. From the onset, Nnu Ego is completely dependent on her father and his wishes. This is the beginning of her compliance to gender subjugation. Nnu Ego’s own name is cursed. Her name translates to “twenty bag of cowries,” implying a bride price. It is clear early on that a woman is something to be sold and is a commodity from which a father can profit. From the beginning, her name marks her as nothing more than a transaction between men. She is linguistically doomed to be a victim to male domination. Having never learned through a mother figure how a woman should act, Nnu Ego is determined to fill this masculinized perception of womanhood as perfectly as possible. This is a story of woman who does not want to go against tradition, but rather wants to fill the mold according to the Igbo cultural standards. Her inability to have children is her introduction to failure as a woman and the author’s depiction of a woman’s dependence on cultural standards. It becomes obvious that the cultural standards for women are ruthless, especially when nature does not allow a woman to fulfill her role as a mother.
Her first marriage with Amatokwu proves to be another event that reveals the curse on Nnu Ego’s life. She fails to have produce children with him, so Amatokwu turns cold toward her and takes on a second wife, with whom he is able to give birth to a son. The husband favors his second wife and requests her companionship over Nnu Ego’s, leaving the child in the hands of the protagonist. Feeling dejected and alone, Nnu Ego begins breast-feeding the baby, fantasizing that he were her own. Her fated denial of children and her rejection from her husband causes her to essentially “steal” another woman’s child to feel validated as a woman. This event is found out and Nnu Ego is sent back to her father’s household as a disgrace. Her misfortunes become even more pronounced as her desire for womanly perfection grows.
The Joys of Motherhood demonstrates how colonialism changed the concept of the “ideal” woman in Igbo culture. Amatokwu “knew from experience that such women [from big houses] had an extra confidence and sauciness even in captivity. And that type of arrogance…seemed to excite some wicked trait in him. In his young days, a woman who gave in to a man without first fighting for her honour was never respected.” Before colonialism, Ibo men enjoyed women with some edge to them. In fact, “to regard a woman who is quiet and timid as desirable was something that came after his time, with Christianity and other changes.” Throughout the novel, we see Nnu Ego suffer under these false cultural ideals. Rather than being herself, Nnu Ego tries to mold herself into an image that isn’t even considered attractive by the Ibo men. Amatokwu “watched each other them sink into domesticity and motherhood [and] he was soon bored and would go further for some other exciting, tall and proud female.” It is apparent how Nnu Ego’s perception of what a woman should be only makes her more uncomfortable and unnatural as she brings about more rejection from men.
Her second marriage to Nnaife proves again to be another failure. Nnaife “could tell that Nnu Ego did not approve of him…It was a big joke to the men, women from home wanting to come to Lagos where they would not have to work too hard and expecting a handsome, strong figure of a husband into the bargain. Women were so stupid!” It is clear that Nnaife doesn’t really care whether Nnu Ego approves of him or not. After all, men are in charge and it is not up to the woman what her husband is like anyway. To Nnaife, women’s opinions are ridiculous anyway. This quote really shows not only the gender dynamic in the Igbo culture, but also the lack of respect that men have for women in the first place. It is not just a cultural standard, but a mindset as well.
Nnaife’s character reveals further insight into the importance of having children in the Ibo culture. Nnaife said, “Pity your ideal Amatokwu almost beat you to death because…you did not bear him a son…I’ve given you a home and, if all goes well, the child you and your father have been wanting, and you still sit there staring at me with hatred in your eyes. The day you mention Amatokwu’s name in this house again I shall give you the greatest beating you have ever had. You spoilt, selfish woman!” According to Nnarife, he has fulfilled his duty to get Nnu Ego pregnant, but she remains unhappy with him. This scene is just one demonstration of the aggressiveness of men toward women, along with their unsympathetic perception. He continues, ”You who put Amatokwu’s manhood in question so that he had to marry again quickly and have many children.” This shows that not only is a woman’s cultural role dependent on bearing children, but so is a man’s. A woman’s “failure” directly reflects on her husband in the Igbo culture.
During the time of colonialism, there was a lot of hypocrisy. Cordelia, Ubani’s wife, points out that “men here are too busy being white men’s servants to be men…The shame of it is that they don’t know it. All they see is the money, shining white man’s money.” Nnu Ego then points out the irony that whites in Nigeria outlawed slavery, but continue to enslave blacks with money. Cordelia then says, “They are all slaves, including us. If their masters treat them badly, they take it out on us.” Just like how the black men are enslaved by the white men, the women are enslaved by men. The black men does not see the crime in “enslaving” their women, they only see the crime in being enslaved by the white men. The white men say that slavery is wrong, yet they continue to practice it, just in a different way.
Just like how a black slave is considered property to a white master, a woman is the property of her husband. In court, Nnu Ego must explain this: “‘Nnaife is the head of our family. He owns me, just like God in the sky owns us. So even though I pay the fees, he owns me. So in other words he pays.’” The judge and the courtroom do not immediately understand this concept, showing the difference between traditional gender roles versus a modern husband/wife relationship. In the modern relatioship, an individual’s earnings would belong to the individual, man or woman. In the Igbo culture, a woman will work, earn money, pay for her children to attend school, and still have no credit. Since the woman belongs to her man, the man is the one given credit for paying for his child to go to school.
Nnu Ego is so focused on becoming the perfect traditional mother that she remains oblivious to opportunities that arise. When Nnu Ego comes across her friend Adaku in the marker, she is surprised at how well-off she is. Nnu Ego noticed “Adaku was better dressed- not that she wore anything new, but she put on her good clothes even on ordinary market days. She laughed a lot now; Nnu Ego had never known her to have such a sense of humour…After that she stopped going to Adaku in the market…Why should she deceive herself? The woman was better off than she was.” This passage shows how Nnu Ego could lead a happier, more self-sufficient life if she wanted, but she makes the choice to stay away from modernity. Rather than think about how that lifestyle might work for her too, Nnu Ego just stops going to see her. She is so miserable in her self-imposed traditional pressure that she does not even want to be around someone who has taken a wiser course.
As the story progresses, Nnu Ego begins to see more and more how there was a double standard between men and women. She began feeling “fed up of this two-way standard. When…the children were good they belonged to the father; when they were bad, they belonged to the mother. Every woman knew this; but for Nnaife to keep hurling it in her face at the slightest provocation was very unfair.” Nnu Ego starts to feel helpless and wasted. She knows that no matter how hard she tries, she will never get the title of being a “good parent” because in any patriarchal society, that title only belongs to men. The fact that Nnaife always rubs it in her face further illustrates the injustice in their relationship. It is not enough that Nnaife will always get credit for his children if they are “good,” he must also remind her of this ongoing double standard.
After Nnu Ego loses her first son, she is completely depleted. She had spent so many years trying to bear children and to have her first son die, is the lowest Nnu Ego felt she could go. She felt that “unlike the milk, this pain could not come out, though it urged her on, and she was running, running away from it.” Her culture has ingrained in her mind that the most important role she has is to be a mother and losing a child is a pain that she cannot handle. She felt the pain “was there inside her. There was only one way to rid herself of it. For how would she be able to face the world after what had happened? No, it was better not to try. It was best to end it all this way, the only good way.” Nnu Ego is so programmed by society that she is willing to take her own life before facing her community with the truth. Again, she does not feel like she has adequately fulfilled her role as mother and she feels that without that cultural verification of her femininity, she is nothing.
After Nnu Ego dies, she still receives very little recognition or appreciation. The people said that she “was a wicked woman even in death because, however many people appealed to her to make women fertile, she never did.” She is still blamed for infertility. When she was alive she was blamed for her own infertility and, in death, she was blamed for others. She might have remained bitter in the afterlife and did not grant others the “joys of motherhood” because she learned first-hand how it brought more pain than pleasure. Although this was said, many believed that “she had given all to her children. Because she was given a very expensive funeral, “people failed to understand why she did not answer their prayers, for what else could a woman want but to have sons who would give her a decent burial?” It seems that the sons only did this to make themselves look like “good sons” and in any case it was too late for Nnu Ego. Her did not live a happy life and even the best funeral would not remove the bitterness in her spirit.
The Joys of Motherhood is a complex novel that not only depicts one West African culture, but it reveals the universal demands on all women. Having children has always been a way to gain cultural verification of a woman’s femininity. Throughout time, women have always been subject to what nature grants them. Nnu Ego was cursed to begin with, but made her life worse by acquiescing to cultural subjugation. Because of the choices she made, Nnu Ego learned a little too late that “the joy of being a mother was the joy of giving all to your children.” This novel is about women’s oppression, but more than anything, this novel is about choice. Even when life seems like it could never get any worse, there are always choices that could hinder or enhance a life. It sends the message to not be blind to opportunities that arise when life seems hopeless.
Dual Forms of Currency
BY LAURA LESAUSKIS
Trying to make a comfortable life is difficult, but imagine trying to do so while having kids every couple of years. On top of that, everyone around you is telling you that having kids is your purpose in life, and that when those kids grow up and become successful, they will take care of you. All the suffering there was in raising those kids, all of that struggle with money is worth it because someone will take care of you when you are older. In Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, class conflict can be seen in the characters of Nnu Ego, Nnaife, and Adaku through their struggles with money, conflict with classes, and attempts to raise their social status.
Nnu Ego is the daughter of a very powerful and respected chief in Ibuza, but she struggles with her place in society during her first marriage. Because she is not getting pregnant, she is disregarded by her husband and he takes a new wife. Realizing that her status in his family is slipping because she has not provided them with a son, Nnu Ego confronts her husband, Amatokwo, and his response is "‘I have no time to waste my precious male seed on a woman who is fertile. I have to raise children for my line’" (Emecheta 32). Nnu Ego’s reputation is at stake because she cannot have children to carry on her husband’s name.
For Nnu Ego as well as the rest of the women of Ibuza, her worth only amounted to as many sons as she provided for her husband. Children, especially sons, can be said to be a form of currency for women such as Nnu Ego. After all, the more children the wife has for her husband, the more worth she accumulates. Children provide security in the family, and the more sons the wife has, the better off she is, and the more unlikely it will be that she will be looked down upon by the community. It is the woman’s duty to provide their husband with as many sons as they can.
When Nnu Ego is unable to have a son with her first husband, she returns to her father, and he finds her another husband, Nnaife, one that he hopes will be more understanding and treat her better. Nnu Ego’s intense desire to have "a child to cuddle and to love" has a dark edge to it because she is "bringing such shame to her family" by not being able to have children (34-5). Though she finds him to be detestable because of his "crude ways and ugly appearance," Nnu Ego manages to conceive a child with Nnaife (45). However, she realizes that with the amount of money Nnaife is making she will have to work too in order to provide for the children.
"[F]inding money for clothes… in some cases for the children’s school fees, was on her shoulders" (53). Nnu Ego learns from her fellow Ibuza wives living in Lagos how to make a trade for herself by selling cigarettes (52). She begins to make a meager profit in order to by a second outfit, and continues her trade even after her children are born in order to pay for food and school fees. Much of the time, the family is fully dependent on Nnu Ego’s selling cigarettes, firewood, or even homegrown vegetables from the garden. The work is backbreaking and exhausting, but she must continue on in order to keep her children alive.
Nnu Ego does not consciously realize that she has other choices in life. She believes that her worth is dictated by what her people and family says it is and by how many sons she has. Most of the time she is suffering in some form (emotional or physical), but she reassures herself that at least in "old age [she] would be happy" because then she would have her sons to provide for her (54). She does not outwardly question or protest her position as Nnaife’s wife because of how she was brought up. To question her marriage to Nnaife would be questioning the integrity of her father, whom she loves very much, and that would be comparable to treason. Her consciousness has been shaped such that her father and husband own her in equal parts and the only thing that could stop her husband from abandoning her is the amount of children she produces. As she produces more children, she also bring honor to her father because it shows that she has come from a good, strong gene-pool.
Nnu Ego sees clearly that Nnaife is not the typical African man that she was used to when living at home in Ibuza. "She might not have any money to supplement her husband’s income, but were they not in a white man’s world where it was the duty of the father to provide for his family?" (81) Nnaife barely earns enough money to scrape by each month, leaving Nnu Ego to find out ways to make money to purchase food, pay rent, and tuition fees for the children. Afraid to lose another son, she wishes to let Nnaife "do his duty" by being the sole provider to their little family (81).
However, as things get more difficult like when Nnaife loses his job with the Meers family, Nnu Ego begins believing that her "cross to bear" is supporting her family until Nnaife finds a new job (89). She struggles in taking care of Oshia and selling cigarettes and buying food because Nnaife is too stubborn to go find another job. Instead, he wishes to wait for something to come to him via Mr. Meers’ recommendation. As Nnu Ego goes on, she became more and more "sure this son of hers would live next door to her, whatever profession he chose, as a good son should live near his parents and look after them" (79). But it becomes increasingly clear that this is not the case. She tells herself these things to make life bearable as she struggles with making money to support her children.
Unlike Nnu Ego, whose every move is dictated by the desire to not bring shame to her family, Nnaife does not seem to be bothered by what Nnu Ego and perhaps others from her people might think of him. Nnaife’s conflict is directly with the bourgeoisie in Lagos, the white colonialists and, later, the military. He works in the compound of his "white master" Dr. Meers (41). Slavery had long since been outlawed in Lagos as well as the rest of Nigeria; however, the two classes (Africans and whites) are far from being equal. Meers refers to Nnaife as "baboon," and Nnaife does not really seem to be bothered by it (41). He justifies this demeaning treatment by explaining that "‘We work for them and they pay us. His calling me a baboon does not make me one’" (42). In part, Nnaife is right. He is not a baboon just because Meers calls him that. But the fact that Meers does it in the first place shows the disparity between the classes.
Nnaife is willing to do anything to get paid "as long as it was honest," which is commendable, but the fact that he is willing to let himself be taken advantage of and degraded by his employers shows that he has little respect for himself. Nnu Ego observes that men in Lagos "‘are too busy being white men’s servants to be men… All they see is the money, shining white man’s money’" (51). She sees that Nnaife is still being treated like a slave despite being "free."
In Lagos, men like Nnaife are less concerned with their family, dignity, and freedom. As Cordelia tells Nnu Ego their husbands have "stopped being men long ago. Now they are machines" (53). This is not to say that Nnaife does not feel entitled to being treated with dignity by his wives. He simply does not have the same type of life in Lagos as he would if he lived as a farmer in rural Ibuza. In Lagos, Nnaife is in direct conflict with the classes whereas if he lived in rural Ibuza, he would likely be held in high esteem for being married to Nnu Ego and being the father of so many children.
But from living in Lagos for so long, Nnaife has become "one of the Africans who were so used to being told they were stupid… that they started to believe in their own imperfections" (83). A fine example of this is when Nnaife sees a group of rich whites playing golf and he follows them around, retrieving their golf balls. One of the men refers to the other as "old boy," and Nnaife, "catching the word ‘boy,’ thought he was being addressed…" (93) He was so used to being referred to as "boy" by the Meers and probably other white people he came in contact with that it became all too natural for him to react to the word in such a way. However, Nnaife is not the type of person to let this type of degradation stop him from seeking employment from whoever is willing to pay him.
When Nnaife is forced to join the army, at first, he is hesitant. He does not want to join the white man’s army and fight the Germans for some unknown cause, but when he finds out how much money he will make by doing so, he decides it is the best financial opportunity. Even working as a government employee, Nnaife is still barely making enough money to get by and the government position is a stable job because the railroad always needs to be cleared of grass. By joining the British army, Nnaife sees an opportunity to make money and make his family just a little more financially secure. However, it is debatable whether or not he joined the army as a purely selfless act seeing as how he ended up throwing away most of the money on palm wine and a new wife.
Adaku, Nnaife’s inherited wife, struggles with having sons, but thrives in making money for herself. Nnu Ego sees her as an ambitious woman, a woman "who would flatter a man, depend on him, need him" (118). However, her first impressions of Adaku are wrong. Adaku is the one who conspires against Nnaife, starting a rebellion to force him into giving them more money daily instead of wasting it on palm wine (133). Nnu Ego is inspired by Adaku’s confidence, but at the same time, views her as a threat. If Adaku begins having sons for Nnaife, it could compromise her, Nnu Ego’s, position as the first wife.
Lucky for Nnu Ego, Adaku gives birth to a son that dies days after being born. Adaku knows that she must hurry and produce a son for Nnaife or else risk being tossed aside. Of course, she is bitter about losing her son, and Nnu Ego fears that Adaku will harm hers if they are left alone with her. Adaku may not be the "senior wife" or have any sons, but she can freely express her emotions without being held up to the standards that the senior wife is supposed to set (140). Adaku suffers in the family because she has not given birth to sons.
While Nnu Ego is away visiting her people, Adaku takes her trade to a whole new level, and she makes plenty of money to take care of herself while Nnu Ego is gone without having to spend the money that Nnaife sent to them. But despite her ability to make money, she is still is seen as inadequate because she has not had any surviving male children. When she decides to leave, she does it because she cannot stand the way she is being treated any longer (168).
Unlike Nnu Ego, Adaku is able to finally realize that there is a social disparity between the way wives with sons are treated compared to those who have failed to provide their husband with sons. She wants to set out because she refuses to "be turned into a mad woman, just because [she] has no sons" (169). Those around make it seem like she has a choice in what sex her children will be, and she tells Nnu Ego that women "make life intolerable for one another" (169). Nnu Ego is higher up on the family hierarchy not only because she is the first wife of Nnaife, but because she has provided him with two sons already.
In a way, Nnu Ego has become a type of bourgeoisie. She is held in higher esteem with her family and those of the community for the simple fact that she has had male children. Adaku has not had any male children so her voice in the family is not regarded as important. She has not done anything for the family. She has not provided them with the commodity that they desire so much: male children. Therefore, Adaku is "less" of a woman than Nnu Ego.
Whereas Nnu Ego failed, however, Adaku thrives. Nnu Ego struggles daily with feeding her family and working, but Adaku makes money for herself by selling abada material for lappas at her stall instead of just peppers and other vegetables (170). Adaku does not look for a man for security, and instead lives on her own as a "dignified woman" with her two daughters (170). She even has such a stable job that she sends them to school. She finds that in Lagos sons are not the most important commodity to make life happy and easy.
Nnu Ego, Nnaife, and Adaku all face struggles with class in The Joys of Motherhood. Nnu Ego originally struggles in having sons, but later in life has even greater difficulty in providing those boys with basic human needs like food and clothing. Nnaife will do anything for money even if that means allowing the white men to call him names and degrade him. Adaku is seen as unfit within her family because she has borne no sons for Nnaife, but when left to her own devices, she succeeds in making her life comfortable and helps to ensure that her daughters will grow up to be educated young women. All of the struggles these characters face come down to two things: children and money. Children are regarded as the most precious commodity, but without money, those children will eventually starve to death. Both children and money are things that can raise a person’s social standing or pull them down, and for some characters, like Nnu Ego, being raised up and pulled down happens simultaneously.
Trying to make a comfortable life is difficult, but imagine trying to do so while having kids every couple of years. On top of that, everyone around you is telling you that having kids is your purpose in life, and that when those kids grow up and become successful, they will take care of you. All the suffering there was in raising those kids, all of that struggle with money is worth it because someone will take care of you when you are older. In Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, class conflict can be seen in the characters of Nnu Ego, Nnaife, and Adaku through their struggles with money, conflict with classes, and attempts to raise their social status.
Nnu Ego is the daughter of a very powerful and respected chief in Ibuza, but she struggles with her place in society during her first marriage. Because she is not getting pregnant, she is disregarded by her husband and he takes a new wife. Realizing that her status in his family is slipping because she has not provided them with a son, Nnu Ego confronts her husband, Amatokwo, and his response is "‘I have no time to waste my precious male seed on a woman who is fertile. I have to raise children for my line’" (Emecheta 32). Nnu Ego’s reputation is at stake because she cannot have children to carry on her husband’s name.
For Nnu Ego as well as the rest of the women of Ibuza, her worth only amounted to as many sons as she provided for her husband. Children, especially sons, can be said to be a form of currency for women such as Nnu Ego. After all, the more children the wife has for her husband, the more worth she accumulates. Children provide security in the family, and the more sons the wife has, the better off she is, and the more unlikely it will be that she will be looked down upon by the community. It is the woman’s duty to provide their husband with as many sons as they can.
When Nnu Ego is unable to have a son with her first husband, she returns to her father, and he finds her another husband, Nnaife, one that he hopes will be more understanding and treat her better. Nnu Ego’s intense desire to have "a child to cuddle and to love" has a dark edge to it because she is "bringing such shame to her family" by not being able to have children (34-5). Though she finds him to be detestable because of his "crude ways and ugly appearance," Nnu Ego manages to conceive a child with Nnaife (45). However, she realizes that with the amount of money Nnaife is making she will have to work too in order to provide for the children.
"[F]inding money for clothes… in some cases for the children’s school fees, was on her shoulders" (53). Nnu Ego learns from her fellow Ibuza wives living in Lagos how to make a trade for herself by selling cigarettes (52). She begins to make a meager profit in order to by a second outfit, and continues her trade even after her children are born in order to pay for food and school fees. Much of the time, the family is fully dependent on Nnu Ego’s selling cigarettes, firewood, or even homegrown vegetables from the garden. The work is backbreaking and exhausting, but she must continue on in order to keep her children alive.
Nnu Ego does not consciously realize that she has other choices in life. She believes that her worth is dictated by what her people and family says it is and by how many sons she has. Most of the time she is suffering in some form (emotional or physical), but she reassures herself that at least in "old age [she] would be happy" because then she would have her sons to provide for her (54). She does not outwardly question or protest her position as Nnaife’s wife because of how she was brought up. To question her marriage to Nnaife would be questioning the integrity of her father, whom she loves very much, and that would be comparable to treason. Her consciousness has been shaped such that her father and husband own her in equal parts and the only thing that could stop her husband from abandoning her is the amount of children she produces. As she produces more children, she also bring honor to her father because it shows that she has come from a good, strong gene-pool.
Nnu Ego sees clearly that Nnaife is not the typical African man that she was used to when living at home in Ibuza. "She might not have any money to supplement her husband’s income, but were they not in a white man’s world where it was the duty of the father to provide for his family?" (81) Nnaife barely earns enough money to scrape by each month, leaving Nnu Ego to find out ways to make money to purchase food, pay rent, and tuition fees for the children. Afraid to lose another son, she wishes to let Nnaife "do his duty" by being the sole provider to their little family (81).
However, as things get more difficult like when Nnaife loses his job with the Meers family, Nnu Ego begins believing that her "cross to bear" is supporting her family until Nnaife finds a new job (89). She struggles in taking care of Oshia and selling cigarettes and buying food because Nnaife is too stubborn to go find another job. Instead, he wishes to wait for something to come to him via Mr. Meers’ recommendation. As Nnu Ego goes on, she became more and more "sure this son of hers would live next door to her, whatever profession he chose, as a good son should live near his parents and look after them" (79). But it becomes increasingly clear that this is not the case. She tells herself these things to make life bearable as she struggles with making money to support her children.
Unlike Nnu Ego, whose every move is dictated by the desire to not bring shame to her family, Nnaife does not seem to be bothered by what Nnu Ego and perhaps others from her people might think of him. Nnaife’s conflict is directly with the bourgeoisie in Lagos, the white colonialists and, later, the military. He works in the compound of his "white master" Dr. Meers (41). Slavery had long since been outlawed in Lagos as well as the rest of Nigeria; however, the two classes (Africans and whites) are far from being equal. Meers refers to Nnaife as "baboon," and Nnaife does not really seem to be bothered by it (41). He justifies this demeaning treatment by explaining that "‘We work for them and they pay us. His calling me a baboon does not make me one’" (42). In part, Nnaife is right. He is not a baboon just because Meers calls him that. But the fact that Meers does it in the first place shows the disparity between the classes.
Nnaife is willing to do anything to get paid "as long as it was honest," which is commendable, but the fact that he is willing to let himself be taken advantage of and degraded by his employers shows that he has little respect for himself. Nnu Ego observes that men in Lagos "‘are too busy being white men’s servants to be men… All they see is the money, shining white man’s money’" (51). She sees that Nnaife is still being treated like a slave despite being "free."
In Lagos, men like Nnaife are less concerned with their family, dignity, and freedom. As Cordelia tells Nnu Ego their husbands have "stopped being men long ago. Now they are machines" (53). This is not to say that Nnaife does not feel entitled to being treated with dignity by his wives. He simply does not have the same type of life in Lagos as he would if he lived as a farmer in rural Ibuza. In Lagos, Nnaife is in direct conflict with the classes whereas if he lived in rural Ibuza, he would likely be held in high esteem for being married to Nnu Ego and being the father of so many children.
But from living in Lagos for so long, Nnaife has become "one of the Africans who were so used to being told they were stupid… that they started to believe in their own imperfections" (83). A fine example of this is when Nnaife sees a group of rich whites playing golf and he follows them around, retrieving their golf balls. One of the men refers to the other as "old boy," and Nnaife, "catching the word ‘boy,’ thought he was being addressed…" (93) He was so used to being referred to as "boy" by the Meers and probably other white people he came in contact with that it became all too natural for him to react to the word in such a way. However, Nnaife is not the type of person to let this type of degradation stop him from seeking employment from whoever is willing to pay him.
When Nnaife is forced to join the army, at first, he is hesitant. He does not want to join the white man’s army and fight the Germans for some unknown cause, but when he finds out how much money he will make by doing so, he decides it is the best financial opportunity. Even working as a government employee, Nnaife is still barely making enough money to get by and the government position is a stable job because the railroad always needs to be cleared of grass. By joining the British army, Nnaife sees an opportunity to make money and make his family just a little more financially secure. However, it is debatable whether or not he joined the army as a purely selfless act seeing as how he ended up throwing away most of the money on palm wine and a new wife.
Adaku, Nnaife’s inherited wife, struggles with having sons, but thrives in making money for herself. Nnu Ego sees her as an ambitious woman, a woman "who would flatter a man, depend on him, need him" (118). However, her first impressions of Adaku are wrong. Adaku is the one who conspires against Nnaife, starting a rebellion to force him into giving them more money daily instead of wasting it on palm wine (133). Nnu Ego is inspired by Adaku’s confidence, but at the same time, views her as a threat. If Adaku begins having sons for Nnaife, it could compromise her, Nnu Ego’s, position as the first wife.
Lucky for Nnu Ego, Adaku gives birth to a son that dies days after being born. Adaku knows that she must hurry and produce a son for Nnaife or else risk being tossed aside. Of course, she is bitter about losing her son, and Nnu Ego fears that Adaku will harm hers if they are left alone with her. Adaku may not be the "senior wife" or have any sons, but she can freely express her emotions without being held up to the standards that the senior wife is supposed to set (140). Adaku suffers in the family because she has not given birth to sons.
While Nnu Ego is away visiting her people, Adaku takes her trade to a whole new level, and she makes plenty of money to take care of herself while Nnu Ego is gone without having to spend the money that Nnaife sent to them. But despite her ability to make money, she is still is seen as inadequate because she has not had any surviving male children. When she decides to leave, she does it because she cannot stand the way she is being treated any longer (168).
Unlike Nnu Ego, Adaku is able to finally realize that there is a social disparity between the way wives with sons are treated compared to those who have failed to provide their husband with sons. She wants to set out because she refuses to "be turned into a mad woman, just because [she] has no sons" (169). Those around make it seem like she has a choice in what sex her children will be, and she tells Nnu Ego that women "make life intolerable for one another" (169). Nnu Ego is higher up on the family hierarchy not only because she is the first wife of Nnaife, but because she has provided him with two sons already.
In a way, Nnu Ego has become a type of bourgeoisie. She is held in higher esteem with her family and those of the community for the simple fact that she has had male children. Adaku has not had any male children so her voice in the family is not regarded as important. She has not done anything for the family. She has not provided them with the commodity that they desire so much: male children. Therefore, Adaku is "less" of a woman than Nnu Ego.
Whereas Nnu Ego failed, however, Adaku thrives. Nnu Ego struggles daily with feeding her family and working, but Adaku makes money for herself by selling abada material for lappas at her stall instead of just peppers and other vegetables (170). Adaku does not look for a man for security, and instead lives on her own as a "dignified woman" with her two daughters (170). She even has such a stable job that she sends them to school. She finds that in Lagos sons are not the most important commodity to make life happy and easy.
Nnu Ego, Nnaife, and Adaku all face struggles with class in The Joys of Motherhood. Nnu Ego originally struggles in having sons, but later in life has even greater difficulty in providing those boys with basic human needs like food and clothing. Nnaife will do anything for money even if that means allowing the white men to call him names and degrade him. Adaku is seen as unfit within her family because she has borne no sons for Nnaife, but when left to her own devices, she succeeds in making her life comfortable and helps to ensure that her daughters will grow up to be educated young women. All of the struggles these characters face come down to two things: children and money. Children are regarded as the most precious commodity, but without money, those children will eventually starve to death. Both children and money are things that can raise a person’s social standing or pull them down, and for some characters, like Nnu Ego, being raised up and pulled down happens simultaneously.
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