This presentation is about character evaluation of Nnu Ego.

1. Character Evaluation of Nnu
Ego
By Nidhi Jethava

2. •Prepared by : Nidhi Jethava
•Batch : 20-22 MKBU English
Department
•Paper : 206 (African Literature)
•Roll Number : 13
•Enrollment Number :306920642020009
•Email Id : jethavanidhi8@gmail.com

3. About ‘The Joys of Motherhood’
• The Joys of Motherhood is a novel written by Buchi
Emecheta. It was first published in London, UK,
by Allison & Busby in 1979 and was reprinted
in Heinemann's African Writers Series in 2008.
• The basis of the novel is the "necessity for a woman to
be fertile, and above all to give birth to sons".It tells the
tragic story of Nnu-Ego, daughter of Nwokocha Agbadi
and Ona, who had a bad fate with childbearing.
• In this novel, Emecheta reveals and celebrates the
pleasures derived from fulfilling responsibilities related to
family matters in child bearing, mothering, and nurturing
activities among women. However, the author
additionally highlights how the 'joys of motherhood' also
include anxiety, obligation, and pain.

4. About "Buchi" Emecheta
• Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta
was born to Ibo parents in
Lagos on 21 July 1944.
• he moved to Britain in 1960,
where she worked as a librarian
and became a student at
London University in 1970,
reading Sociology.
• She worked as a community
worker in Camden, North
London, between 1976 and
1978. (“Buchi Emecheta - Literature”)

5. About Nnu Ego
Nnu Ego (Protagonist of the
story)
Mother of
Ngozi(Son)
Oshiaju (Son)
Adimabua(Son)
Taiwo and Kehinde(
Twin daughter)
Amatokwo(First
Husband)
Nnaife
(Husband)
Father
Ona and Agbadi
( Parents)

6. Character of Nnu Ego
• Protagonist of the novel and belongs to Ibuza community.
• She is a daughter of Ona and Agbadi
• She is a Mother of six children.
• Amatukwo was her first husband.
• She leaves her husband after she cannot get pregnant, and
she later attempts suicide when her firstborn is found dead.
• Nnaife is her second husband and father of six children.
• She is very strong character and she earn for feeding family.

7. What is Ibuza Community ?
• Ibuza is a village where people live in a rural environment.
• According to traditions in Ibuza, women are made to understand that men are
the source of power and the masters of the houses.
• Women are also made to understand that they are brought up to obey and fulfill
men’s needs and desires. Moreover, women are considered as properties that
can be bought and sold. They can be sold to men who can pay the bride price to
their families. However, the price can be given back to the husband if a woman
fails to produce children.
• women are victims of male dominance. They are considered as properties of
men. (Mohamed Fathi Helaly)

8. Nnu Ego’s realization of Motherhood
• After experiencing both the joys and
pains of motherhood, Nnu Ego realizes
that children do not always bring
fulfillment. Nnu Ego ruminates, "God,
when will you create a woman who will
be fulfilled in herself, a full hunlan being
not anybody's appendage?" (p. 186).
What Emecheta does is to present an
African woman's reaction to a universal
problem: children often fail to honor their
parents. In voicing this idea through the
traditionalist, Nnu Ego, Emecheta
emphasizes the fact that women have the
social responsibility to criticize and
participate in the social order. (Marie A.
Umeh )

9. Is Motherhood Joyful or painful ?
• The novel The Joy of Motherhood
is the story of female protagonist
Nnu Ego, who enjoys her life being
mother of many children in order
to have a comfortable old age. She
is ready to sacrifice herself in order
to feed and give clothes to
children. Emecheta tries to offer
her critique the patriarchal
meaning of motherhood through
her character Nnu Ego. (Varde
Hirenkumar Balavatbhai)

10. Nnu Ego as Double colonized Woman.
• According to Laxmikant Kapgate
“ Found herself as a doubly colonized mother, Nnu Ego expresses the
sufferings as well as sacrifice in her statement just after the birth of her
twin daughters. Being caught in the web of childbirth and complicated
situation, she had one such epiphanic moment. The psychological
temperament and grief of a mother expressed in the following
statement which presents the Nigerian women’s response to the
widespread predicament.”

11. According to Syed Sumaira Gilani
• Emecheta’s protagonist in The Joys of Motherhood, Nnu Ego,
primarily, does not go through any form of womanist metamorphosis.
As an adult woman, she is fully aware of her surroundings and
recognizes the social restrictions and cultural impositions on a woman
that force her to behave ideally. She is not a round character, hence,
finds it hard to change as opposed to Beatrice, who changes just
before the novel ends thus marking her independent journey.

12. According to Teresa Derrickson
• Nnu Ego spends her entire life alternately birthing children and
working day in and day out as a cigarette peddler to stave off
the hunger and poverty that invariably haunt her household.
The novel focuses on this grueling battle, a battle that ends in a
loss for Nnu Ego, as she witnesses her beloved sons grow up
and leave Nigeria for good and her daughters marry and move
away. Nnu Ego's hopes of living out her final years in the
company of her grandchildren disappear before she turns forty,
and she dies at the side of a country road, alone and unnoticed.

13. Nnu Ego and Mother India's Radha

14. Character of Radha
• The film is at once a sort of
Indian ''Stella Dallas,'' which
finds the heroine making
sacrifice after sacrifice on
behalf of her family, and a
''Gone With the Wind''-style
epic of social change. (The
New York Times)

15. Comparison of Nnu Ego and Radha
Nnu Ego
• Nnu Ego was earing for her
children.
• Her husband did not support her.
• At the end her son elope.
• Whole the life she struggled for her
children.
• Her end was tragic. At the end
none of her children was there to
take care of her.
Radha
• Radha is the mother of two son.
• One can find same story like Nnu
Ego.
• Whole she struggled a lot for pay
money, borrow from the
moneylender Sukilala and save
their children.
• Radha’s husband meet accident
and he become handicap.
• Life struggle.

16. Conclusion
• Nno Ego represents tradition of Ibo Community.
• Throughout life she fight for her children.
• Her end was tragic.
• She spend her life for her children only.
• Being mother is not joyful for Nnu ego.
• At the end of the novel when Ibo community invited the spirit for
blessings on other women for motherhood, she was not come.

17. Work Cited
• “Buchi Emecheta - Literature.” British Council Literature,
https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/buchi-emecheta . Accessed 1 March 2022.
• Derrickson, Teresa. “Class, Culture, and the Colonial Context: The Status of Women in Buchi
Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood.”
https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/IFR/article/view/7715/8772.%20Accessed%201%20March%2020
22 .
• Emecheta, Buchi. The Joys of Motherhood. London, Allison & Busby, 1979.
• Gilani, Syed Sumaira. “Appropriating Womanist Theory: A Deconstructionist Reading of Women’s
Identity in The Joys of Motherhood and Purple Hibiscus.” International Conference on Recent Trends
in Humanities, Education, Arts, Culture, Languages, Literature, Philosophy, Religion, Gender and
Management Studies (HEALM-2019), 2019, p. 5,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344934022_Appropriating_Womanliest_Theory_A_Deconstr
uctionist_Reading_Of_Women's_Identity_In_The_Joys_Of_Motherhood_And_Purple_Hibiscus .
Accessed 1 March 2022.

18. Continue
• Helaly, Mohamed Fathi. “Cultural collision and women victimization: A study of Buchi Emecheta's
the joys of motherhood (1979).” ResearchGate, 2016, p. 12,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/306159966_Cultural_collision_and_women_victimization_
A_study_of_Buchi_Emecheta's_the_joys_of_motherhood_1979. Accessed 1 March 2022.
• Kapgate, Laxmikant. “MOTHER’S INTRICACY IN BUCHI EMECHETA’S THE JOY OF
MOTHERHOOD.” LangLit An International Peer-Reviewed Open Access Journal, no. 426, p. 6,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342465490_MOTHER%27S_INTRICACY_IN_BUCHI_EM
ECHETA%27S_THE_JOY_OF_MOTHERHOOD . Accessed 1 March 2022.
• Kehr, Dave. “FILM IN REVIEW; 'Mother India.'” The New York Times, 23 August 2002,
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/23/movies/film-in-review-mother-india.html . Accessed 2 March
2022.
• Umeh, Marie A. “The Joys of Motherhood: Myth or Reality?” Colby, vol. 18, no. 1 March, 1982, p.
9, https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2471&context=cq . Accessed 1
March 2022.
• Varde, Hirenkumar Balavatbhai. “Tale of African Women: Buchi Emecheta’s a joy of motherhood.”
International Journal of Advanced Academic Studies 2020; 2(2): 11-14, 2020, p. 4,
https://www.allstudyjournal.com/article/77/2-2-7-521.pdf. Accessed 1 March 2022.