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.
Chapters 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary: “A Good Daughter”
Nnu Ego is now several months pregnant. She and her children take a train to Ibuza, where she is received by members of her father’s household as well as Nnaife’s brother’s family.
Arriving at her father’s bedside, Nnu Ego finds Agbadi in poor health. He is happy to see Nnu Ego, and he expresses his approval to Ona as if she were present. Just before dying, he promises to return and taps Nnu Ego’s stomach. After several days of mourning, Agbadi is buried in a sitting position. A second, spiritual burial marks his reunion with his ancestry.
A few weeks later, Nnu Ego gives birth to a son who closely resembles Agbadi. He is given the name Nnamdio, meaning “This is my father” (155).
Chapter 14 Summary: “Women Alone”
Following Agbadi’s death, Nnu Ego spends seven enjoyable months in Ibuza. One day, Adankwo, the eldest widow of Nnaife’s elder brother, tells her that she has fulfilled her duty to her father and suggests that she return to Lagos to fulfill her duties as Nnaife’s wife. She further warns that Adaku might try to take advantage of her absence.
Arriving in Lagos, Nnu Ego is surprised to find that prices have nearly doubled since she was away. She also learns that Nnaife visited Adaku in Lagos just three weeks earlier. Nnu Ego also finds that several neighbors have now taken over her cigarette business, so she turns to chopping and selling firewood instead. Adaku, meanwhile, runs a highly profitable market stall.
Embarrassed by her poverty, Nnu Ego takes every opportunity to make Adaku jealous of her two sons. One day, during a rainstorm, one of Adaku’s cousins comes to visit her, dressed in expensive clothes. Instead of inviting the cousin inside to wait for Adaku to return home from the market, Nnu Ego shouts at her to go away. A few minutes later, Adaku returns home and lets her cousin into the house, and Nnu Ego pretends as if nothing happened.
A few days later, when Adaku learns about the incident, she summons Ubani and Nwakusor, hoping they will scold Nnu Ego. Instead, they emphasize that, as a junior wife without any sons, Adaku has no right to criticize Nnu Ego, although they encourage Nnu Ego to send a gift to apologize for her behavior.
After the men leave, Nnu Ego expresses her sympathy to Adaku. Adaku explains that she finally understands her situation clearly; she says she will leave the next day and become a sex worker to earn money to educate her daughters. Nnu Ego tries to dissuade her, but Adaku insists that she is no longer interested in trying to live up to “impossible standards.”
Chapter 15 Summary: “The Soldier Father”
As word of Adaku’s decision spreads, many gossipers attribute her decision to “the unfaithfulness of women” or else the influence of Lagos (170). Soon, Adaku upgrades her market stall to a larger one and rents out her old one for a fee. This leads Nnu Ego to wonder whether it is better to be wealthy but socially outcast, like Adaku, or poor but socially acceptable, like herself.
Following the end of World War II, Nnu Ego looks forward to Nnaife’s return. As she runs out of money to pay for Oshia’s school fees, she signs him up for cheaper, but less comprehensive, private lessons, much to Oshia’s disappointment.
One day, while Nnu Ego and her children are preparing some vegetables for sale, she receives a letter. Leaving her daughters to tend her market stall, Nnu Ego visits Mama Abby, who reads the letter and informs Nnu Ego that the letter is a request for her to visit a local army barracks. Nnu Ego panics, fearing that Nnaife could be dead, and Mama Abby agrees to accompany her. At the barracks, Nnu Ego receives three letters addressed to her, which were not delivered since it was unknown whether she was in Lagos or Ibuza. The letters contain three years’ worth of pay and explain that Nnaife was delayed in Burma after he was bitten by a water snake.
With the money, Nnu Ego sends her boys back to school and upgrades her business to begin selling cloth. Months pass, and Nnaife still does not return. Finally, more than a year after his most recent communication, he appears, looking somewhat sickly. The family celebrates his return with an extravagant party.
Soon, Nnaife determines to return to Ibuza and officially claim Adankwo, his brother’s widow, as his wife; Nnu Ego suspects he wants to recover some of his standing following Adaku’s desertion. Adankwo soon becomes pregnant, but she refuses to join Nnaife in Lagos. Instead, she arranges for him to take a 16-year-old named Okpo as a wife. Okpo’s bride price uses up most of Nnaife’s earnings from the war, apart from a fund that he promises to use for Oshia’s continuing education.
Nnu Ego is furious when Nnaife returns with Okpo. He reluctantly agrees to search for larger living quarters. After Nnu Ego gives birth to two more girls, Obiageli and Malachi, she reflects critically on the way that daughters are viewed as inferior to sons.
Chapters 13-15 Analysis
When Nnu Ego returns to Ibuza, she throws herself into the myths and beliefs of the Ibo people. Adherents of Odinala believe that the souls of deceased ancestors can sometimes, if only rarely, be reincarnated in their descendants. Here, due to the timing of Nnamdio’s birth and some physical resemblance between him and his grandfather, Nnamdio is closely linked with Agbadi. Narratively, this connection foreshadows Nnamdio’s character development, as he later expresses his desire to become a great hunter like his grandfather. Through this, the novel shows that social change is not a linear progression. Rather, Nnu Ego’s family includes individuals who pursue advanced education, in keeping with social changes, as well as some individuals who opt for a more traditional lifestyle.
Emecheta furthers her discussion of The Hypocrisies and Contradictions of Patriarchal Society in this section. Here, Nnu Ego finds herself, just like her mother before her, torn between her socially sanctioned duties as a daughter, wife, and mother. Although she personally enjoys her time in Ibuza, she accepts the necessity of returning to the city on the mere chance that Nnaife will return unexpectedly. Meanwhile, this section also highlights a particularly insidious aspect of patriarchal societies such as the one in which Nnu Ego lives—the way that they often pit women against each other, and not simply men against women. Specifically, this section sees Adankwo reinforcing patriarchal norms as she encourages Nnu Ego to return to Lagos to claim Nnaife’s affection and warns her against Adaku. From there, tensions between Nnu Ego and Adaku reach a breaking point: Nnu Ego becomes jealous of Adaku’s wealth while Adaku resents her own position as a junior wife with no sons. Adaku’s subsequent rebellion against patriarchal norms is underscored by her decision to engage in sex work, which is a particularly stigmatized profession. Adaku’s determination to support her daughters’ education at any cost effectively inverts the dominant system that favors sons, even as the way she is ostracized for doing so indicates the powerful social mechanism by which patriarchal society is maintained.
This section also further illustrates The Challenges and Rewards of Motherhood, with Nnu Ego diligently working to support her children, even after receiving extra funds through Nnaife’s service. After paying her sons’ school fees, Nnu Ego invests the remaining funds in her own business, which is crucial to her ability to support her children in the long run. Despite her best efforts, however, Nnu Ego struggles to make ends meet. Over time, even the relatively large wartime wages paid to Nnaife and other soldiers have minimal impact as the flood of money in the market leads to price inflation, decreasing the value of money overall. Meanwhile, Nnaife’s decision to take yet another wife further weakens the family’s financial standing, even as Nnaife gives birth to another set of twin girls. Lacking the resources or cultural approval for family planning, Nnu Ego finds herself caught in a never-ending battle to increase her earnings as her family expands. At the same time, Nnaife reveals himself to be as much of a financial liability as an asset; he spends money recklessly on, among other things, large amounts of palm wine. Nnu Ego is thus left with the near-impossible task of ensuring her children’s welfare even as she faces limited authority over money management.
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