The Joys of Motherhood

Question: On Nigerian culture, compare and contrast the feelings and the attitudes of Emecheta and Achebe. The essential conflict for the culture identified by each is different. Explore this.

Buchi Emecheta emigrated from Nigeria to London with her young husband, only to find herself ultimately alone, raising children in a hostile and poverty-ridden climate. Through hard work and study she became an influential writer focusing on the roles of women in both the traditional and emigrant societies. Her portrait of Ibo culture is a very different one from Chinua Achebe's; but we must bear in mind not only that she is writing as a woman, but also that her novel is set long after Things Fall Apart, when traditional structures have begun to malfunction seriously under the impact of urbanization.

Albert Chinualumogu Achebe was born on November 16, 1930, in Ogidi, a large village in Nigeria. Although he was the child of a Protestant missionary and received his early education in English, his upbringing was multicultural, as the inhabitants of Ogidi still lived according to many aspects of traditional Igbo (formerly written as Ibo) culture. Achebe attended the Government College in Umuahia from 1944 to 1947. He graduated from Univ

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Emecheta makes clear the immense importance placed on male offspring in the Nigerian Culture. She soon becomes pregnant and then immediately loses her son death.

Her eldest son returns to Nigeria and pays for a big funeral in order to prove what a good son he is. Through the characters of "The Joys of Motherhood" Emecheta depicts the changes - the Nigeria of old to the new Nigeria with all its new inherited ideas and ultimate culture change. After recovering from her son's death, she soon produces many children, including two sons. He also developed his interest in indigenous Nigerian cultures, and he rejected his Christian name, Albert, for his indigenous one, Chinua. She leaves him and is married to a man who works on the coast in a British colony.

Emecheta's view of Nigerian Culture is one of new verses old. Her younger son follows in his brother's footsteps. From this information, I gathered that both individuals not only wrote about the effects of the changes in Nigerian Culture but are also both a product of culture change.

Emecheta's novel deals with several issues and topics.

Achebe creates a complex and sympathetic portrait of a traditional village culture in Africa. Throughout the novel he shows how African cultures vary among themselves and how they change over time. Nnu Ego's anguish over the death of her first son evokes empathy for parents facing crib death or stillbirth.

Approximate Word count = 812
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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