Thesis on "Buchi Emecheta the Joys of Motherhood"

Thesis 20 pages (7109 words) Sources: 5 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Female Ways of Identity Shaping -- the Joys of Motherhood

This ironic and even cryptic title of Buchi Emecheta's book is as far from the substance of her narrative as Africa is from Germany. What the book does convey with passion and realism is that motherhood in this African tale is a struggle -- and potentially a reward -- for those women who battle through adversity the way that Emecheta's character has done. The canvas that Emecheta paints with her talented brushstrokes takes the reader on a journey that, along the way, has serious roadblocks, pitfalls and challenges. It is a fascinating literary narrative, worthy on its own merits and world class in its adherence to descriptive excellence and quality of character development. And moreover, the identities of the characters -- their changes, their adapting to the new world -- provide a powerful and pivotal dynamic to the novel.

Methods and Theory

Embracing the tenets of New Historicism, one does not question the author's motives for presenting the literature as she does. But researching other strategies and models in the quest to fully wrap scholarly arms around the book has validity and is invoked in this paper. Noting and examining the identities of the characters as the dynamics move and change is an investigative method that is effective if used consistently.

Theoretical Approach

Michigan State University professor and author Katherine Fishburn presents an approach to reading and understanding African literature that she believes should help the reader negotiate "a new kind of relationship…between the needs of communities and the rights of individuals" as an "alien text." When that new idea is approached, in this case, African literature (Fishburn, 1995, p. xi), windows of the mind will open rather than close. Historically, Fishburn writes, the cultural domination and "dogmatism" of the West towards Africa cannot be dismissed easily even when readers have the "best intentions" (p. 1). The theory she espouses for readers encountering African literature -- and in particular Emecheta's work -- is that in order to achieve understanding, "whenever we encounter others -- in person or in art or in texts -- we should be willing to suspend our prejudices and open ourselves to them" (Fishburn, p. 2). Her book, Reading Buchi Emecheta: Cross-Cultural Conversations, Fishburn insists that she is "utterly convinced we can never understand African texts on their own terms," however we can view them with "fewer Western presuppositions and prejudices" (p. 13). And indeed, "we must learn to do this -- we no longer really have a choice in the matter" (p. 13).

In other words, prior to reading Emecheta's book, individuals should become "receptive" to the utter freshness and newness of African writing. It will not be possible for a Western reader to suddenly begin thinking the way "our literary ancestors did" and hence, achieve "historical objectivity" that offers readers a chance to follow and understand the text the way it was originally written. Fishburn (p. 3) asserts that believing one can simply suspend his or her own cultural biases is "a naive claim of historicism"; by reading Emecheta, Fishburn explains, she is not just reading about African heritage.

Instead, Fishburn believes that she is allowing "the Thou (Emecheta's text) to interrogate me, even as I interrogate it." The act of reading focuses attention not on "ourselves" but rather on the text in question. Fishburn is suggesting that Westerners must abandon their white, comfortable identities and try to allow the book to come to them, rather than them going to the book. And while according to Fishburn't is not possible for Westerners to understand fully the book by Emecheta, three strategies can be embraced when reading "alien" texts. One, an ethnocentric approach "from the outside" that uses neutral language vis-a-vis "New Criticism"; two, an "indigenous one" that rises up out of the "alien culture itself (and in which we cannot participate"; and three, the one that Fishburn advocates, "a cross-cultural or hybrid reading that speaks a language of perspicuous contrast" (Fishburn, p. 11-12).

Meanwhile, Lisa Friedli-Clapie, professor of French and Italian at the University of Washington in Seattle, has published a worthy article in the journal West Virginia University Philological Papers that should be read by any enterprising student prior to dipping into Emecheta's novel. Friedli-Clapie references several scholars in her opening paragraphs and each one of them offers a warning about reading too much into the story

Yes Emecheta understood while writing the novel that "…most readers of African literature are not equipped with the same historical and cultural experience as the African author" (Friedli-Clapie, 2005). Hence, Friedli-Clapie asserts that rather than speculate about whether by writing the book in English the author intended to educate English-speaking readers in the West about African culture or not, any of those arguments are "overshadowed by themes of river spirit or Mammy Wata worship." Mammy Wata, the "spiritual and psychological personification of water and all its life-sustaining force," is "an underlying cultural value in Nigerian women's literature at large, Friedli-Clapie asserts. Friedli-Clapie describes her theory as based on "Mammy Wata's underlying presence" in literary, spiritual, biological and monetary forms; and Mammy Wata, which is acknowledged and worshiped in many ways in Nigeria, Liberia, the Congo and Cameroon, brings out "women's ingenuity, spiritual practice, and dedication" (Friedli-Clapie).

Taking the story for what it is, and not what the author may have tried to weave into the narrative, it should be pointed out that in Nigerian culture, the python is a messenger for the Mammy Wata. According to Friedli-Clapie's theory Ona is "overcome after an unsettling seduction" which ultimately results in the birth of her daughter, Nnu Ego, the book's protagonist. That the author describes seduction: the convalescing chief "slid on his belly, like a big black snake, and covered her mouth with his" (Friedli-Clapie). Hence, the link to Mammy Wata, and the magic part of that cultural belief. When Ego is pummeled by the recovering chief's penis she cried out and at that moment the eldest wife of the chief falls ill. When Ego is born nine months later, she has a lump on her head and "the fair skin of the water people."

Identity in the Realistic Novel

Nnu Ego, the protagonist, conceived as noted after her mother's recovering chief-lover rolled over like a "big black snake" has more than one identity as things move along and chance; and the identities come in many colors for many reasons. That is what makes this book both entertaining and poignant. Ego seems a strong, healthy, attractive woman on the one hand. But on the other hand she has been oppressed, she is often in despair, her sanity is challenged often and in the end, tragically she dies. But at the outset it should be noted that in terms of Nnu Ego's identities they are entirely unique to this story and do not necessarily represent the "average" African woman. Indeed there may not be an "average" African woman since there are 47 nations within the African continent, and six island nations offshore that are within the African jurisdiction, bringing the total to 53, each with its unique cultural and ethnic values and traditions.

The beginning of the book is also apparently the ending of her life (although it turns out that she does not die at this turn of events), and through this technique the reader is given a golden opportunity to speculate with great curiosity as to the pain and disturbing events that have gone into Ego's life in Africa. Or perhaps the protagonist has led a productive, positive life and in the moments prior to the opening chapter something went terribly wrong. It is not the purpose of this paper to determine the editorial motivation -- or delve into why Emecheta structured the book or how her own personal life played a role -- but rather to follow the narrative as it leads from one day to the next, from one scene and setting to the next.

Anthropological and cultural realities -- vis-a-vis Nigeria or Africa -- notwithstanding, the story's flow and the characters' identities stand on the legs given by the author. All other considerations, as per New Historicism, are negligible. Critics publish hundreds of volumes of scholarly and investigative work, examining every nuance, every conflict, every dramatic change by important characters -- in terms of what DH Lawrence or F. Scott Fitzgerald meant to convey -- but in New Historicism the substance of the writing is the story, not what Emecheta (in this case) was likely thinking when she finished this chapter or that one.

Ego's identity as the book opens is as a person seemingly owned by another person. In the first paragraph of Chapter 1 ("The Mother") she is running away in 1934. As she hustles out of the room where she has lived, she brushes against the washing that "the white master" has hung on the line. In the dark she did not know what she had just run into so she quickly… READ MORE

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