Earth and skies as confl icting complementary or supplementary dramas in the eternal war between epistemology and ethics

Abstract

In Buchi Emecheta’s sophomore novel The Joys of Motherhood, things fall apart in the life of protagonist Nnu Ego in the 1909–1950s Ibuza and Lagos of Nigeria, but her children-centered life manages to hold, though at devastating psychological, emotional, and economic costs. Apparently, Nnu Ego has a love-hate relationship with her chi-based theodicy education which unfolds mostly gradually, silently but insistently and eventually into an Nnu Ego chimarchy (her silent war withher chi, her god or goddess). Nnu Ego’s chimarchy poses a dilemma, the Nnu Ego dilemma: how should an illiterate Ibuza-raised Igbo woman who loves being a woman, who loves being a daughter, who loves being a mother, who loves being married, and who loves being close friends with other women live her life in the face of oppressive realities of patriarchy or obligatory marriage or sexist marriage or obligatory motherhood without necessarily being anti-men or anti-marriage or anti-motherhood or anti-family? In Chapter 15, Nnu Ego poses aptly but insuffi ciently the question, “When will I be free?” (Emecheta 187). What about the following particular questions? When specifi cally will I be free? How specifically will I be free? Free specifi cally from what and for what? In Nnu Ego’s relationship with her chi lies the eternal war between heaven-based ethics and earthbased epistemology.