Representation Of The Sorrow Of Motherhood In Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys Of Motherhood

Abstract

In African societies, the most significant role of women is parturition. A woman must produce and fosterage children. Women as mothers are highly valued in traditional African societies. Mothers are the essential building blocks of social relationships, identities, and society. Like mothers symbolise familial ties, unconditional love and loyalty, motherhood defines womanhood. Motherhood is crucial to a woman’s status in society. Especially bearing a male child ennobles a woman into being worthier among her husband’s kinsman. Buchi Emecheta is a writer who speaks for African women. Emecheta’s works invoke the voice and perspective of African women. Emecheta’s fiction focuses on the plight of African women who struggle against patriarchal family structures, unfair gender stereotypes, and contradictory social values in contemporary Africa. Emecheta looks at motherhood as a reality. The actual condition of motherhood is enslaved in them, similar to the case of Nnu Ego in ‘The Joys of Motherhood’.