Nnu Ego’s Chi, Subaltern Trauma and the Politics of Gendered Suffering in Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to analyze the strategic significance of Chi in The Joys of Motherhood and how it has been employed by Buchi Emecheta in the text to highlight gender inequality by chronicling Nnu Ego's plight in trying to adhere to the constructed, delimiting, normative notions and expectations of femininity, this paper aims to elucidate how Nnu Ego’s Chi, serves as a symbolic or metaphorical manifestation of the way female suffering gets reduced to non- being; using ‘trauma theory’ this paper underscores how through her, subaltern trauma is reified and reiterated and how she becomes a means of registering a new form of resistance to patriarchal injustice