49 pages • 1 hour read
Buchi EmechetaThe Joys of Motherhood
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1979A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Chi
Content Warning: The source text and this guide depict racism, sexism, enslavement, murder, child loss, domestic violence, and death by suicide.
According to the Ibo religion Odinala, a person’s chi is their personal spiritual guardian or divinity, appointed at birth and assigned for life. Early on, Nnu Ego’s chi is identified by a priest as the spirit of an enslaved woman who worked for Agbadi’s first wife; the enslaved woman was killed and buried, according to tradition, following the death of the woman who enslaved her. As a child, Nnu Ego develops a lump on her head, along with severe headaches, and her mother, Ona, interprets this as a sign that Nnu Ego’s chi must be placated. Ona attempts to do this by moving to Agbadi’s household, where Nnu Ego’s chi lived her life, and by offering an honorary reburial to the enslaved woman’s remains. However, Nnu Ego’s chi seems bent on revenge against Agbadi’s household—and Nnu Ego in particular—by sending her a host of problems.
From the start, Nnu Ego’s interactions with her chi center on Nnu Ego’s desire to bear children. At first, her chi apparently refuses, as Nnu Ego fails to conceive in her marriage to Amatokwu. Later, Nnu Ego has a dream vision that her chi grants her a child while mocking her, and Nnu Ego then gives birth to a son who dies soon thereafter. From this point on, Nnu Ego’s chi emerges as a kind of trickster, giving her the children she so desires while hinting through her laughter that they will not bring happiness to Nnu Ego. Her chi proceeds to send her an abundance of children—more than Nnu Ego can comfortably care for, in fact.
Nnu Ego’s journey comes full circle at the novel’s close as, after her death, people who want children pray to her spirit. Those who pray to her are apparently mystified when she fails to give them children, though this is not surprising, following Nnu Ego’s own challenges with motherhood. In this way, Nnu Ego’s experience with her chi supports the novel’s exploration of The Challenges and Rewards of Motherhood, obliquely demonstrating Nnu Ego’s changing feelings about motherhood.
Nnaife’s Guitar
After the Meers leave for England, Nnaife discovers and claims a guitar they left in their house, which he proceeds to play for fun. At first, Nnu Ego regards his new hobby as a harmless, if time-consuming, pastime. Once Adaku arrives in Lagos, however, she expresses her belief that Nnaife’s tendency to play music at night could invite bad spirits into the household. Her suspicions are seemingly confirmed when, one night, the guitar apparently makes music of its own accord. At his wives’ bidding, Nnaife destroys the guitar.
Unknown to them, however, Oshia previously hid a few mice he captured inside the guitar, and it was the mice that were responsible for creating the sound as they scrambled out at night. As a child, Oshia decides to go along with his parents’ supernatural explanation for the sound, though he later adopts a more rational outlook.
As a result of this episode, the guitar serves as a focal point for various biases, beliefs, and superstitions, symbolizing the way that factual events are subject to various interpretations. This further underscores the theme of Tradition and Change in Colonial Nigeria, showing how Oshia’s parents tend to apply traditional explanations to events, even as he adopts a more skeptical outlook, influenced by his education.
Money
The Joys of Motherhood offers a close look at the travails of poverty, including the constant quest for money, which is a recurring motif in Nnu Ego’s life. Growing up in Ibuza, which features a relatively agrarian lifestyle, Nnu Ego does not think about or interact with money much, if at all. Arriving in Lagos, however, she immediately feels the necessity of money, and Nnu Ego soon begins the first of many small business ventures as she resells cigarettes after buying them in bulk at a discount. Over time, Nnu Ego goes on to sell matches, firewood, clothing, and more. Adaku, meanwhile, is even more successful in her business ventures, even reaching a point where she rents a market stall out to someone else for a monthly fee.
Concerns about money arise frequently and have sharp consequences, as Nnu Ego and Nnaife struggle to pay rent and buy food for their children. The periods during which Nnaife is absent are particularly trying for Nnu Ego, who sometimes has to pull her boys out of school after failing to pay their fees. Oshia nearly dies of malnutrition on one occasion. On another, seeing his mother’s stress, Oshia rips up her paper money into small pieces in a misguided attempt to make more money. Although Nnaife does at times make moderate sums of money, he is also prone to spend the money he makes quickly, even as inflation erodes the value of what little he has.
Overall, the novel’s frequent reminders of Nnu Ego’s financial woes underscores the precariousness of her economic situation, as well as the lengths to which she goes, year after year, to provide for her children.
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