AFRICAN PROSE
BUCHI EMECHETA: The Joys of Motherhood
Discuss Emecheta’s narrative technique in the novel
Explanation
Emecheta uses the third person (omniscient) narrative technique. The story is told by a narrator who is not within the story, but the novelist is able to bridge the gap between the narrator and the reader which sometimes occurs ir these circumstances.
She does this by allowing the story to flow almost from the consciousness of her characters. The reader is thus able to empathize with the main character Nnu Ego, understand the motives for her actions and see the story from he perspective. Her aims and aspirations, her frustrations at her inability to bear a child, and her disappointment at thE treatment she receives from her male children are vividly captured through this narrative style. Nnu Ego's story does not begin in Lagos; nor is it a story that begins in child-bearing for Nnu Ego. Her initial painful experiences in life are not to do with her losing a child; rather she has been a childless woman.
Buchi Emecheta adopt: the style 'in media res', that is, she starts the story from a point later in time according to the chronology of events. This technique of narration has the effect of surprising the reader when the earlier events begin to unfold. It also gives thE narrator room to shuttle between later and earlier events and roam in time. In starting the narrative from a certain point inside the order of the story, the narrator does not cut the story short The earlier events will be recalled and integrated in the course by means of flashback. In The Joys of Motherhood Emecheta uses flashback very successfully.
The novelist tells the earlier experiences of Nnu Ego in Ibuza in late chapters after opening the novel in Lagos. Indeed, Nnu Ego is not even born until towards the end of the second chapter which largely narrates her parentage. The real events that culminate in the Lagos episode are found in Chapter Four Mama Abby's story is not told and if we were to insist on being told how her daughter came to disgrace the family, oil medium would be a flashback.