Two African Novels

Two African novels -- The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta and Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga -- describe the trials that African women faced under colonialism.

Emecheta's novel pulls us into the world of Lagos, Nigeria, prior to its independence. Nnu Ego, the daughter of a chief whose first marriage ends because she fails to produce children for her husband, moves to Lagos to marry another man whom she has never met. Her one goal is to become pregnant, bear children, and be a mother. Ironically, though she despises her second husband for his "womanly" job as a servant of colonial officers and compares him unfavorably with her first husband who was tall and handsome, she gives birth to nine children during their marriage.

Nnu Ego's life as a mother under colonial rule is a trial from the beginning. The values of her traditional culture consistently clash with the new culture emerging under colonialism. For years, she ekes out a meager existence so that her sons can be educated, that they may find good jobs and care for her when she is old. Nnu Ego's expectation rests on the naive assumption that her boys will uphold and respect traditional, rural values. However, growing up in Lagos and educated in western mission schools, they absorb western values and fail to learn their traditional culture. Her first-born does so well in school that he leaves Nigeria to study in the U.S. and never returns. As she approaches old age, Nnu Ego never receives the honor she expected as a mother; nor do her sons take on her financial well being.

As she approaches death, Nnu Ego realizes that her love for her children and her conscience to care for them had been a "chain of slavery" (186). Her traditional culture had taught her that the only role she could have was that of a mother; she strove all her life to be just that. Because her husband had been unable to shoulder his share of the responsibilities, partly a result of his own character and partly a result of colonialism, she had taken on both roles. Yet in her old age, colonialism had robbed her of the benefits she had also been taught to expect - the "joys" that motherhood would bring.

It is after her death that her children honor her with a tremendous funeral. But Nnu Ego appears to feel that this honor, made after her death, is not enough. Though her children and grandchildren and many others come to her grave to pray, Nnu Ego "still did not answer prayers for children" (224).

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