Women In Chains And Tears In The Shadow Of Motherhood: An Appraisal Of Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys Of Motherhood

Abstract

Women and suffering are still unsolvable topics across the globe. Since the dawn of time, patriarchal society has suppressed, silenced, and victimized women for a variety of reasons, leaving them entirely dependent on men in all walks of life. Despite the world’s excellence in many sectors, women are shunned, ignored, and oppressed which lead them on the periphery of society because of male dominance. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to bring out the harsh realities of black women’s lives and their encounters with the brutal exercise of control over them in Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood. The voices of repressed women and their bleak experiences in an autocratic male society have been manifested by numerous writers. In that respect, Buchi Emecheta is a skillful novelist who captures the unpleasant position of black women through her creative writing. The tragic and painful narrative of the novel sheds light on many oppressions and sufferings through the darker side of patriarchy. Women’s repression is a long-standing practice in Africa, and therefore, the biased treatment leads men to use women as tools and commodities in daily life. Hence, Buchi Emecheta’s fictional work is a true reflection of African womanhood and illuminates the issues and experiences of women in a skillful way.