AFRICAN PROSE
BUCHI EMECHETA: The Joys of Motherhood.
Discuss the significance of the Ona-Agbadi relationship in the novel.
Explanation
The Ona-Agbadi relationship is unique. Ona and Agbadi are genuinely in love but they cannot marry because Ona is arrogant and conceited. A further reason is that her father has decreed that she should not marry but remain a concubine and produce a son to his name.
In this relationship, both lovers suffer the pain of constrained love, although this is more pronounced on the part of Agbadi. A proud hunter and man of prominence, he is not one to be toyed with by a woman; yet he is ruled by Ona like a child. This situation builds up in Agbadi pent-up passion for, and vengefulness towards Ona. These show in the passionate love-making that results in the conception of Nnu-Ego. By not sharing Aghadi's compound and withholding herself from her man as she thinks fit, Ona teases Agbadi to distraction. This reveals the resilient spirit of womanhood that is so severely restricted in a male-dominated society. Agbadi may subdue an elephant but he is hard put to crushing Ona's stubbornness and self-willed spirit.
In a society like hers, Ona's will must follow her father's whims. Her desires are trapped in the dream will of her father to have a male child merely because her father does not have a son. Agbadi's remark that it is not Ona's fault that Obi Umunna does not father a son is not only a personal protest and a defence of Ona, but also an indictment of the norms of a society that permits a thing like that. The relationship also presents Ona as a foil to her own daughter. Ona's assertiveness contrasts sharply with Nnu Ego's submissiveness and long suffering nature.
The relationship underscores the futility of a woman's efforts to hold her own in society. Try as Ona does to bluff and torment Agbadi, she is brought to her knees finally by the man. Even though Ona appears to be in control in the decision as to the ownership of her unborn child, her child is still not hers to own; it must belong to one or the other of the two men, depending on the child's sex. The Ona-Agbadi relationship reveals the assigned places of men and women in the society: the man leads and rules the woman, who must be subservient. Emecheta however, expresses her opposition to the status quo in the Ona-Agba relationship.