THE CONCEPT OF CASTRATED MASCULINITY IN BUCHI
EMECHITA’S JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD AND ZAYNAB ALKALI’S THE
STILLBORN
BY
AMUDA, MARY
DUS/END/2015/0022
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION, DIRECTORATE OF
UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES, FEDERAL COLLEGE OF EDUCATION,
YOLA
NOVEMBER, 2019
Title Page
THE CONCEPT OF CASTRATED MASCULINITY IN BUCHI
EMECHITA’S JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD AND ZAYNAB ALKALI’S THE
STILLBORN
BY
AMUDA, MARY
(B.A. ED. [English Language], F.C.E. Yola)
DUS/END/2015/0022
A PROJECT SUBMITTED TO THE DIRECTORATE OF
UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES, FEDERAL COLLEGE OF EDUCATION,
YOLA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
THE AWARD OF DEGREE OF IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION, DIRECTORATE OF
UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES, FEDERAL COLLEGE OF EDUCATION,
YOLA
NOVEMBER, 2019
i
Table of Contents
Table of Content
Title Page ................................................................................................................... i
Table of Contents ...................................................................................................... ii
Abstract .................................................................................................................... iv
Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................v
Dedication ................................................................................................................ vi
Approval.................................................................................................................. vii
Declaration ............................................................................................................. viii
CHAPTER ONE ........................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................1
1.1 Background to the Study ......................................................................................1
1.2 Statement of the Research Problem .....................................................................4
1.3 Aim and Objectives of the Study .........................................................................6
1.4
Significance of the Study..................................................................................7
1.5 Scope and Delimitation of the Study ...................................................................7
CHAPTER TWO .......................................................................................................8
LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .........................8
2.1 Preamble...............................................................................................................8
2.2 LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................................8
2.2.1 Castrated Masculinity: A Conceptual Review ..................................................8
2.2.2 The Depiction of Women in Nigerian Fiction ..................................................9
ii
2.2.3 Review of Critical Works on Buchi Emecheta’s Literary Texts ....................12
2.2.4 Review of Researches Done on Zaynab Alkali’s Literary Works..................15
2.3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .....................................................................18
2.3.1 Feminist Literary Theory ................................................................................20
2.3.2 Tenets of Feminist Literary Theory ................................................................21
CHAPTER THREE..................................................................................................24
METHODOLOGY...................................................................................................24
3.1 Methodology ......................................................................................................24
CHAPTER FOUR ....................................................................................................25
TEXTUAL ANALYSIS ..........................................................................................25
4.2 Castrated Masculinity in Buchi Emecheta’s Joys Of Motherhood and Zaynab
Alkali’s The Stillborn ...............................................................................................25
4.3 Conclusion .........................................................................................................32
CHAPTER FIVE......................................................................................................34
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION ........................................................................34
5.1 Summary ............................................................................................................34
5.2 Conclusion .........................................................................................................35
References ................................................................................................................37
iii
Abstract
More often than not African women writers, especially the Nigerian women writers
have written a good number of texts focusing on the plights of women. Thus, most
critics of these women writers have frequently concentrated their attentions on such
issues as the shackles of patriarchy and its resultant negative impacts on women. Far
less attention has been paid to how men are molested and negatively depicted in
women writing. It is against this backdrop that the present research employs the
feminist literary theory to explore the concept of castrated masculinity in Buchi
Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn, with the view to
determine the extent to which, and to what ends the concept has been deployed in
the selected texts. The research adopts the qualitative research method in which the
process of data collection and analysis is text-based. This project, basically argues
that castrated masculinity (negative portrayal of male characters in women literary
works) is a device deployed by women writers to suppress male characters and put
them in the feminine position as a metaphoric psychic threat of a sexual wounding
that signifies the universal jeopardy of being fully masculine. The research,
therefore, concludes that Buchi Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab Alkali’s
The Stillborn entire argument is that in traditional male literatures, men are presented
as the first in everything even when they are not, and the best also when they are not.
The project, therefore, recommends that women writers should, in their attempt to
depict the plight of the women folks, be objective in their portrayal of male
characters.
iv
Acknowledgements
I would like to appreciate my supervisor, Mrs. Diana Gayus whose intellectual
prowess, tolerance, and patient advice play significant role in shaping this project. I
have been, indeed, favoured to own you as my academic mentor. I also appreciate
all the lecturers in the department. It is the pieces of your academic and intellectual
lives that have metamorphosed into who I am, intellectually, today. Your reward is
inestimable and priceless. Mallam Yahya’s support and encouragement is part of the
success story of this research. Sir, I celebrate you! I also appreciate Mallam Umar
Zingina, Mr. Gilamdo Yohanna Kwem, Baba Aliyu Bawuro, Dr Agatha Nzeribe,
Auntie Aisha Farouq, Muslim Mohammed, and my friend, Safiya Umar Trader, all
of whom have contributed in one way or the other to the reality of this project. I
cannot thank you enough!
v
Dedication
This project is dedicated to Almighty God without whom I am nothing and in
whom I am everything.
vi
Approval
This project titled “The Concept of Castrated Masculinity in Buchi Emechita’s Joys
of Motherhood and Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn” by Mary, AMUDA meets the
regulations governing the award of B. (Ed) in English Education of the Directorate
of Undergraduate Studies, Federal College of Education, Yola, and is approved for
its contribution to knowledge and literary presentation.
Mrs. Diana Gayus
Project Supervisor
__________
Signature
Mallam Umar Wadu
Head of Department
____________
Signature
Abdulhamid Mohammed
Director of undergraduate Studies
________
Signature
vii
__________
Date
_________
Date
__________
Date
Declaration
I declare that this project titled: “The Concept of Castrated Masculinity in Buchi
Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn” has been carried
out by me in the Department of English Education. The information derived from
the literature has been duly acknowledged in the list of references provided. No part
of this project was previously presented for another degree or diploma at this or any
other institution.
______________
____________
Amuda, Mary
Signature
viii
_____________
Date
ix
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
This research work explores the concept of castrated masculinity (also known as
literary or alternative masculinity) in Buchi Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and
Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn. Studies have shown that, like elsewhere in Africa,
Nigerian literary world has been male-dominated. Thus, Nigerian literature has been
described as “phallic”, being dominated by male writers as well as critics who are
only interested in dealing exclusively with male characters and male concerns,
naturally aimed at predominantly male audience (Ogunyemi, 1988:60, and Chinade,
2015:23). In fact, critics like Schipper (1987:35) view Nigerian literature as a “male
heritage” because pioneer modern Nigerian male writers such as Cyprian Ekwensi
and Chinua Achebe have explored issues of male interest in their pioneer novels and
situate women in uncomplimentary roles.
These male writers have, over the years, represented women in their texts in
negative light. For example, Cyprian Ekwensi presents his lead eponymous
character, Jaguar Nana as a prostitute in the novel, Jaguar Nana. Similarly, in
Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, women are presented as either docile house wives or
priestess such as Chielo, who mediates between the deities and the humans (Chinade,
2015:23). In order to correct this negative perception of women in both the male
fictional world and the society, Chinade argues, women writers such as Buchi
1
Emecheta and Zaynab Alkali have therefore carved out a “spacious creative room”
of their own through their fictional works as robust ways in negotiating a powerful
voice for the women folks.
Buchi Emecheta, according to Nadaswaran (2012:146), is one of Nigeria’s
early prominent female writers. While the African and particularly Nigerian
women’s literature began with Flora Nwapa, as a second generation woman writer,
Buchi Emecheta’s works have created a milestone not only in Nigeria but also in
Africa at large. Nadaswaran is of the view that Buchi is one of Africa’s most
acclaimed female writers. Emecheta is said to have married Sylvester Onwordi at 16
years of age and as a young, and as a young of two, she later joined her husband in
London while he was pursuing his studies. She eventually left her abusive husband
after he burnt the first manuscript of her book in 1966. She struggled to support her
five children while working, pursuing a degree in sociology and writing. A writer
inspired by her culture and experience, Emecheta’s oeuvre is extensive. She uses her
own personal experience as the stepping stone in expressing and confronting female
subjugation. Drawing on Nigerian oral tradition she experienced as a child from her
paternal grandmother, Emecheta weaves narratives of female characters through an
African woman’s eyes, a modern story-teller through her fiction (Nadaswaran,
2012:146).
2
Zaynab Alkali, on the other hand, comes from the northern part of Nigeria.
She has been described as a woman coming from a region that is not adequately
represented in the English language fictional world, a region still holding firmly to
the ethos and values of a patriarchal order of life (Chinade, 2015:25). Thus, Zaynab
Alkali has dominated the northern Nigerian women’s English language literary
landscape. The significance of Zaynab Alkali derives from the salient features of her
vocation as a novelist, and these do not merely strengthen the force of her social
visions, they also compel attention to her literary work. She is an award winner (the
Association of Nigerian Authors' Literary Award in 1985 for her novel The
Stillborn), the best known female writer from northern Nigeria, a product of a society
where a woman's assertiveness is a function of her enlightenment and social
emancipation in its incipient stage. Alkali's social visions is here examined in the
context of traditional society under the catalysis of social mutation and with modem
development as the reference point. The preoccupation of Alkali in The Stillborn
goes beyond the theme of women's emancipation to dwell on the human predicament
in a society undergoing rapid transformations. Her apprehension of the human
predicament is naturally and understandably feminist, and her social visions emanate
largely from the predominantly feminine perspectives of the literary world she
created in her novel (Johnson, 1988:649).
3
Generally, by seeking to negotiate equality with men socially, culturally,
politically, educationally and economically, Buchi Emecheta and Zaynab Alkali, as
writers, develop effective ways, in their texts, to improve women’s conditions,
sometimes by presenting women characters more similar to men; sometimes by
making men characters more similar to women or even less than women. These
writers, according to Gardiner (2005:36) claimed that:
[…] they were equal to men, as men described themselves; that men
were not fully equal to the ideal of masculinity they themselves put
forward; and that men and masculinity placed women and feminity in
a subordinate position.
Thus, the presentation of male characters in women writing as less than the
ideal of masculinity or presenting them as less than the female characters in a text is
what is being referred to as castrated masculinity otherwise known as literary or
alternative masculinity. It is against this backdrop that this project, deploying the
feminist literary theory, investigates the concept of castrated masculinity in Buchi
Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn.
1.2 Statement of the Research Problem
Studies have indicated that the male African, and invariably the Nigerian male
writers rarely acknowledge in their creative arts, the plight of women, let alone their
fears and pains in their writings (Chinade, 2015:23). And in reaction to this, African
women writers, especially the Nigerian women writers have come up with a good
4
number of literary texts which discuss women’s plight, portraying women suffering
from patriarchal shackle and their attempt to free themselves from such oppression
(Muhammed, Mani, Talif, and Kaur, 2017:21). It is in this regard, that writers like
Buchi Emecheta and Zaynab Alkali, using their texts, set to establish matriarchal
society in which male characters are portrayed as weaker vessels below the ideals of
masculinity that men themselves put forward in their literary works (Gardiner,
2005:36). Such portrayal of men in bad light by women writers, referred to as
castrated masculinity, has been given far less attention by literary scholarship. This
project, therefore, bridges this gap by using the feminist literary theory to examine
the concept of castrated masculinity in Buchi Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and
Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn. As a result of the above, the argument of this research
work is premised on the propositions/hypothesis that:
 Feminist literary theory offers a unique insight in revealing how male
characters are represented in negative light by women writers.
 Feminist literary poetics are viable tools in studying the effects of castrated
masculinity in Nigerian women writing.
 Feminist theory can point out the extent to which castrated masculinity have
been deployed in Buchi Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab Alkali’s
The Stillborn.
5
1.3 Aim and Objectives of the Study
This project aims to employ the feminist literary theory to explore the concept of
castrated masculinity in Buchi Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab Alkali’s
The Stillborn. In view of this, therefore, the specific objectives of this research are
to demonstrate that:
1. Feminist literary theory provides deeper understanding of how male
characters are consistently and negatively represented in women texts.
2. Feminism is a viable critical tool for examining the effects of castrated
masculinity in Nigerian women fictions.
3. Feminist literary poetics can determine the extent to which and to what
purpose the concept of castrated masculinity have been deployed in Buchi
Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn.
This project, therefore, seeks to address the following questions:
1. How does feminist literary theory provide deeper understanding of castrated
masculinity in women literary texts?
2. How does feminist literary theory help to point out the effects of castrated
masculinity in Nigerian women fictions?
3. To what extent is the concept of castrated masculinity deployed in Buchi
Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn?
6
1.4 Significance of the Study
Much of the critical attention on Buchi Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab
Alkali’s The Stillborn has been centred on issues of women oppression, struggle for
women emancipation, the representation of the woman character, womanist
representation of Nigerian female characters, gender and sexuality, etc.
(Nadaswaran, 2012; Chinade, 2015; Udumukwu & Igbokwe, 2016 and Muhammed,
Mani, Talif, & Kaur, 2017). The representation of male characters and the
implications thereof have been conspicuously ignored. This study is justified and
significant because it provides the window through which the negative
representation of male characters (castrated masculinity) and its implications can be
viewed in the selected texts.
1.5 Scope and Delimitation of the Study
The present research explores the concept of castrated masculinity in Buchi
Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn within the corpus
of Nigerian women fiction. Using the feminist literary theory, this project focuses
on relevant sections of the selected texts where male characters have been negatively
represented and their implications in the overall meaning of the texts. The choice of
the selected texts is informed by the fact that they are not only canonical literary
representation of robust women voices, but they also capture the sharp
western/northern divide of the Nigerian geo-cultural society.
7
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 Preamble
As earlier stated in the introductory chapter, the present work explores the concept
of castrated masculinity in Buchi Emechita’s The Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab
Alkali’s The Stillborn. This chapter presents the review of related literature in three
parts, looking firstly at the concept of castration in relation to castrated masculinity
in literature. It then considers the depiction of women in Nigerian fiction. The third
part reviews critical works on Buchi Emecheta’s literary texts, while the final of part
of this chapter does a critical review of researches done on Zaynab Alkali’s literary
works, all of which are meant to open up the gap in knowledge that this project wants
to fill. The work also expounds on, and foregrounds Feminism as the theoretical
framework adopted in the analysis of the selected texts.
2.2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.2.1 Castrated Masculinity: A Conceptual Review
Castration, according to Ross (2002:308), “[…] in its most literal sense, is the
unsexing of male body […]”. This project is not concern with this literal meaning of
castration but with its symbolical or metaphoric reference which other literary
writers term as “emasculation”, a concept that signifies “[…] any practice that
diminishes the potency of men in family or society more generally: “to deprive of
masculine strength or vigor; to weaken; to make effeminate”. (Ross, 2002:311). For
8
Ross, therefore, castrated masculinity or male castration means “To suppress the
[…] man, […] to put him in the feminine position […]” (p. 305). Thus, castrated
masculinity […] has come to operate metaphorically as the mere psychic threat of a
sexual wounding that signifies the universal jeopardy of being fully masculine.” This
concept, in literary texts, presents “a more throttling spectacle of […] manhood
dismembered, embarrassed, and dishonored” (Ross, 2002:313).
In alignment with the above conceptualization and for the purpose of this
research, castrated masculinity or male castration can be seen as the presentation of
male characters in women writing as less than the ideals of masculinity or the
presentation of male as less than the female characters in a literary text. It is with
this working concept that this project deploys the feminist literary theory to examine
“castrated masculinity” in Buchi Emechita’s The Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab
Alkali’s The Stillborn to show the extent of its application and to what ends it has
been applied in the selected texts.
2.2.2 The Depiction of Women in Nigerian Fiction
One of the fundamental argument of this study is that a considerable number of
works done on Nigerian fictions, written by both men and women writers, have
given a pride of place to the depiction of women rather than men characters. For
example, Abolusawu-Sekula,(2000) using Gynocriticism as theoretical framework
in her work, Women on Women: The Stereotyping of Female Characters in the
9
Popular Fiction of Northern Nigerian Women Writers, explores northern Nigerian
women’s popular writing in an attempt to evaluate the significance of heroine
stereotyping. Her research work, indicates that popular heroines, despite their
apparent show of certain individuality, tread the usual line of love and live thehappily-ever-after path. In another instance, Nwagbara (n.d:293) focusing on Festus
Iyayi’s Heroes and Isidore Okpewho’s The Last Duty, analyses an aspect of the
linguistic signification of gender in war fiction by specifically examining the
metaphorical depiction of women in Nigerian civil war fiction as systematically
represented through established linguistic constructs. Using the experiences of
mainly the female characters in Nigerian civil war presented in these novels,
Nwagbara analyses the nature of and patterns of gender relations in a crisis situation.
Similarly, Olaruntoba-Oju and Olaruntoba-Oju (2013:5) using gender theory
on Akachi Adimora’s Children of the Eagle, examine the corresponding models of
representation of gendered identity and the inherent and complex negotiation of
gendered powered relations over time in Nigerian postcolonial literature. The paper
illustrates how the negotiation/survivalist modelof representing womanhood in
Akachi’s text corresponds to the dominant trend in African womanist discourse.
Thus, it concludes that sisterhood, wifehood, and motherhood remain important
parameters for the representation of African womanhood. Deviating from Nigerian
women writing but still dwelling on women representation male writers, Hassan
10
(2016:1) discusses the image of women in Chinua Achebe’s Novels: Things Fall
Apart, No Longer at Ease and Arrow of God and concludes that the image of women
has been improved through the development of the society in the selected text
studied.
Exploring both the male and female novels of Nigerian descent, Foster L.J.
(2017:22), using the liberal feminist approach as theoretical framework, investigates
the female gender construct in two Nigerian novels: Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall
Apart and Flora Nwapa’s Efuru. His paper suggests that whereas Achebe, writing
from a male perspective, stereotypes the female gender as individuals without a
voice of their own in the society; a subaltern group of sort, this portrait of the female
folk is roundly rejected by Nwapa who, telling the woman’s story, re-creates, redefines and reconstructs the battered image of the female gender by imbuing them
with capacity and ability to be responsible individuals who initiate desirable change
and contribute meaningfully to the development of their society through
collaboration and complementarity with their male counterparts.
In “Gender Representations of Women in War Literature: A Study of Akachi
Ezeigbo’s Roses and Bullets and Festus Iyayi’s Heroes”, Umunnakwe (2018:1)
explores the ways in which women’s lives are altered in times of war as presented
in fictional literature as it examines the depiction of women of the Nigerian civil
war. The paper concludes that in war situations, women’s positions become
11
precarious and that the absence of their menfolk as the socially ordained ‘protectors’
exposes women to grave forms of harassment and abuse. From a masculinist
perspective, Okereke (2018) examines women’s relationship with men in Festus
Iyayi’s Violence and Ibezute’s Dance of Horror and contends that every woman is
in control of her man and society around her. Thus, the paper demonstrates how
women use marriage, love, sex, their bodies, social status, kitchen and cradle
influence to hold men to ransom.
So far, the above review on the depiction of women in Nigerian fiction has
demonstrated that most critical works done on Nigerian fiction written either by men
or women have only focused on the representation of women characters. Far less
attention has been paid to the representation of male characters in Nigerian fiction.
To fill this knowledge gap, this research investigates the concept of castrated
masculinity in Buchi Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab Alkali’s The
Stillborn.
2.2.3 Review of Critical Works on Buchi Emecheta’s Literary Texts
Having shown the preoccupation of critical works on Nigerian fiction with the
depiction of women characters, this section of the present study will now look at
areas of knowledge covered by critical works done on Emecheta’s
Joys of
Motherhood beginning with some of the earliest to some of the most recent ones. In
Images of the African Woman in Buchi Emecheta’s Fictional Works, Matiangi
12
(1992:1), using the sociological approach, undertakes a literary analysis of the
images of the African woman in Buchi Emecheta’s four fictional works, one of
which is the Joys of Motherhood (1979). The work draws several conclusions, two
of which are of interest to this work. The first is that Emecheta’s fictions mostly
show women as mothers, innocent, receptive, dynamic, educated and assertive. The
second is that, as a writer who is sensitive to the position of the African woman and
given her socio-cultural background, Emecheta’s perception of the plight and
position of the African woman is quite different from that of her male counterparts.
In contrast to Matiangi, Bavington (1998:ii & 154) does a comparative study
of Buchi and Ruby’s literary works by discussing their individual works as well as
some of the new insights and alternative critical approaches such works open up for
readers and critics. She concludes that the writings of these authors frame the
dominant western canon in all of its linearity, rigid norms and exclusiveness,
providing a rich contrast and a space to grow. Quite different from Bavington but
similar to Matiangi, Nadaswaran (2012:146), examines Emecheta’s Joys of
Motherhood, Kehinde, and The Family to demonstrate how Nigerian female
characters challenge prescribed understanding of their roles as women, wives, and
mothers. The research, adopting the womanist theory, concludes on the note that
Emecheta’s female characters establish a tradition of women who are strong, self-
13
willed and empowered despite their different circumstances, a portrayal worthy of
emulation.
Using a postcolonial feminist theory, Barfi, Kohzadi & Azizmohammadi
(2015:26 & 36) investigate traces of colonialism, capitalism, racism and solidarity
in Emecheta’s Joys of Motherhood anchored on Mohanty’s postcolonial feminist
theory. These critics are of the view that Joys of Motherhood echoes how women
are subjected to double oppression by the intersection of oppressive forces of race,
gender and class in patriarchal societies. Thus, Emecheta’s work is an attempt to
speak for the disempowered African women who have no voice of their own.
Contrasting with the critics above, Udumukwu & Igbokwe (2016:284) approached
The Joys of Motherhood from Halliday’s Social Semiotics Structure to examine the
relevance of Sociolinguistic Functional Stylistics (SFS) in supplying a methodical
structure upon which the text can be appreciated. The research has shown that the
presence of linguistic items such as verba sentiendi, lexical, syntactic negation,
contextual use of language and paralinguistic devices such as figures of speech and
so on in the novel under review. Thus, these linguistic choices determine the
relationship between characters as they interact and also depict the specific function
of language in operation.
Conversely, Anigbogu (2017:15), in “The Quest for Male-Children in Buchi
Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood and Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the
14
Savannah”, explores the male and female attitudes to the quest for male children. In
this way, the study discusses the effects of the hankering on the female child who
discovers that her parents desired a male child before her birth and would have
preferred a male child. The paper argues that families who desperately long for male
children should not lose sight of the fact that the modern trend allows the adoption
of male children. So frustration and anxiety need not arise.
Overall, the review of works on Buchi Emecheta’s works, especially The Joys
of Motherhood has clearly demonstrated that attention has been paid more on the
images, perception, plight, and characterization of women. Thus little or no attention
has been paid to the depiction of male characters in her texts. To bridge this gap, this
project explores the concept of castrated masculinity in Buchi Emechita’s Joys of
Motherhood and Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn.
2.2.4 Review of Researches Done on Zaynab Alkali’s Literary Works
The last section has shown that critical works on Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of
Motherhood have only focused on the depiction of female characters rather than their
male counterparts. This section is built on that to review the major preoccupation of
researches done on Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn. Johnson (1988:649), in “The
Social Vision of Zaynab Alkali” examines Zaynab Alkali’s social vision within the
context of traditional society under the catalysis of social mutation with modern
development as the reference point. Johnson argues that The Stillborn goes beyond
15
the issue of women’s emancipation but dwells on the human difficulties undergoing
rapid transformation. Thus, the paper concludes that Alkali’s “apprehension of the
human predicament is naturally and understandably feminist, and her social visions
emanate largely from the predominantly feminine perspective of the literary world
she created in her novel” (p. 649).
Similarly, Okereke (1996:97), paper on “Woman’s Quest for Autonomy in
Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn”, explores women’s quest for self-extrication from
the entanglement of the thicket of patriarchal society’s sexist norms which view
women as male appendages with no identity of their own except that of their fathers,
husbands and male relations. The work contends that The Stillborn depicts women
not only grappling with limitations and eventually rising above them to achieve selfrealization, but also making themselves relevant to tradition in nurturing and
enriching dimensions. It is in the light of this that the research holds that Alkali’s
feminist stance implies that women must map out survival strategies and succeeds
despite crippling and stunting circumstances that define their existence in a
patriarchal culture.
In a way away from the depiction of female characters in Zaynab Alkali’s
works, Amase, Tsavmbu & Kaan (2014:188) appraise Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn
and The Virtuous Woman to buttress the proposition that the issues in her novels
transcend gender imbalance. Thus, their paper discusses westernization, rural/urban
16
life, political mal-administration, poor infrastructure as well as the challenging
environment of the emerging cities. The research argues that Nigerian women
writers’ works should not only be interpreted from the feminist angle alone, at the
expense of more important issues, but critics should also look at these texts from a
broader perspective. Contrary to the above standpoint, Muhammad, Mani, Talif &
Kaur (2017:21) use Nego-feminism to examine how cultural change in Alkali’s
society is used in establishing matriarchal society using her female characters in The
Stillborn and The Descendants. The paper proceeds on the assumption that Alkali’s
literary writings seem to appear as a retaliatory works because feminist writers
accused male writers for failing to portray women in a positive picture in most of
their literary works and so, they delved into writing in order to present a true picture
of womanhood.
Similarly, Ouarodima (2018:178 & 187), deploying African feminism,
investigates the position of women in a patriarchal society and the roles played by
both male and female characters responsible for the subordination of women. The
work aims at showing the reasons that have conditioned Zaynab Alkali and her
female characters to protest the place and the role given to them by the patriarchal
society and bring out its aesthetics in contributing to the liberation of the female
characters in the novel. Ouarodima notes that Alkali does not only point out that the
greatest enemy for women is neither the male nor the conservative African traditions
17
and customs but ignorance, thus the greatest struggle to free women in a society with
history of oppression and exploitation passes certainly through the liberation of the
minds of both men and women from discriminatory ideas copied from the Western
and the African traditions and cultures.
Generally, this review of literature has amply demonstrated that most works
conducted on Alkali’s literary writings were on women oppression and their struggle
for emancipation. It is in this regards that the present research surveys the concept
of castrated masculinity in Buchi Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab
Alkali’s The Stillborn to determine the extent and to what ends it has been applied
the fictional narratives.
2.3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Theories are the principles, mindsets, and possibly the assumptions that guide us in
understanding and interpreting issues. It is in line with this opening postulation that
Bressler (2003:6) looks at the term “theory” as “[…] the assumptions (conscious or
unconscious) that undergird one’s understanding and interpretation of language, the
construction of meaning, art, culture, aesthetics, and ideological positions”. This
postulation implies that theories are certain conceptualizations, principles, mindsets, and assumptions that help one in, not only understanding, but also interpreting
phenomenon. With this in mind therefore it is equally important to understand the
concept of “literary theory”. Brenton (n.d), in looking at this concept, posits that:
18
Literary theory” is the body of ideas and methods we use in the practical
reading of literature. By literary theory we refer not to the meaning of
a work of literature but to the theories that reveal what literature can
mean. (para.1).
The aforementioned argument looks at literary theory as a functional method
that does not only help in the practical reading of literary texts but also assist in the
revelation of meaning. In addition to this, Cox (2010) asserts that literary theory
“attempts to establish principles for interpreting and evaluating literary texts” (para.
1). Here, Cox has focused on the interpretative and evaluative function and nature
of literary theory. In another instance, Brizee and Tompkins (2012:1) state that:
A very basic way of thinking about literary theory is that these ideas act
as different lenses critics use to view and talk about art, literature, and
even culture. These different lenses allow critics to consider works of
art based on certain assumptions within that school of theory. The
different lenses also allow critics to focus on particular aspects of a
work they consider important.
Brizee and Tompkin’s position emphasizes the focus that literary theory
affords the literary critics in pinning down a text to a theory in order to give it a
perspective in its interpretation, analysis, and evaluation. It is therefore on this
premise that this paper decides to use feminist (a context-based) theory to read,
evaluate, and analyse the concept of castrated masculinity in Buchi Emechita’s Joys
of Motherhood and Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn.
19
2.3.1 Feminist Literary Theory
Literary scholars are of the view that “[…] the modern attempt to look at literature
through a feminist lens began […] in the early 1960s” (Barry, 2002:121; Dobie,
2012:103 and Abram, & Harpham, 2012:121). It is hinged on the “[…] struggle for
the recognition of women’s cultural roles and achievements, and for women’s social
and political rights […]” (Abram, & Harpham, 2012:121). Feminism, in fact, is a
reaction to the assumption by Western culture “that women were inferior creatures
[to men]” (Dobie, 2012:103). History has equally shown that:
[…] women were not only deprived of education and financial
independence, they also had struggle against a male ideology
condemning them to virtual silence and obedience, as well as a male
literary establishment that poured scorn on their literary endeavors.
Indeed, the depiction of women in male literature – as angels,
goddesses, whores, obedient wives, and mother figures – was an
integral means of perpetuating these ideologies of gender. (Habib,
2005:667)
In response to such male ideological dominance of women, Grabe (1986:141)
avers that: “Feminist mainly react (sic) against symptoms of male dominance in what
they regard as a male oriented society”. Thus, feminist literary theory “[…] raises
awareness of women’s roles in all aspects of literary production (as writers, as
characters in literature, as readers etc.) and reveals the extent of male dominance in
all of these aspects” (Carter, 2006:91). Some of the most prominent proponents of
feminist literary theory include among others: Virginia Wolf (1882-1941), Simone
de Beauvoir (1908-1986), Kate Millet (1934- ), Sandra Gilbert (1936-), Susan Guber
20
(1944-), Elaine Showalter (1941-), Julia Kristeva (1941-), and Helene Cixous (1937).
2.3.2 Tenets of Feminist Literary Theory
Feminists have certain assumptions, concepts and tenets (listed by Abram, &
Harpham, 2012:122-123) which they share in common for critical analysis and
evaluation of works of literature:
 Feminists are of the view that Western civilization is pervasively patriarchal
(ruled by the father) – that is, it is male-centered and controlled, and is
organized and conducted in such a way as to subordinate women to men in all
cultural domains: familial, religious, political, economic, social, legal, and
artistic.
 They hold that one’s sex as a man or woman is determined by anatomy, for
them the prevailing concepts of gender, that is, the traits that are conceived to
constitute what is masculine and what is feminine in temperament, are largely
social constructs generated by the pervasive patriarchal biases of our
civilization.
 They claim that patriarchal, masculinist or androcentric ideologies pervades
those writings which have been traditionally considered great literature, and
which until recently have been written mainly by men for men. Typically, the
21
most highly regarded literary works focus on male protagonists who embody
masculine traits and ways of feeling and pursue masculine interests in
masculine field of action.
 They condemn the literature written by men for its depiction of women as
marginal, docile, and subservient to men’s interests and emotional needs and
fears. Thus, they look at the depiction of women in male texts in an effort to
reveal the misogyny – negative attitudes toward women – lurking there.
 Feminist critics identify distinctively feminine subject matters in literature
written by women – the world of domesticity, for example, or the special
experiences of gestation, giving birth, and nurturing, or mother-daughter and
woman-woman relations – in which personal and affectional issues, and not
external activism, are the primary interest.
 Feminist scholars also enlarge and reorder, or in radical instances entirely to
displace, the literary canon, that is, the set of works which, by a cumulative
consensus, have come to be considered “major” and to serve as the chief
subjects of literary history, criticism, scholarship, and teaching.
Of these six (6) tenets of feminist literary theory, this research is primarily
interested in the feminists’ condemnation of “the literature written by men for its
depiction of women as marginal, docile, and subservient to men’s interests and
emotional needs and fears. Thus, they look at the depiction of women in male texts
22
in an effort to reveal the misogyny – negative attitudes toward women – lurking
there”. This study is of the view that this has been one of the reason why women
writers, in reaction, also tend to depict men in derogatory manner. It is in the light
of this that the work focuses on the concept of castrated masculinity in Buchi
Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn.
23
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
3.1 Methodology
This project applies qualitative research approach which uses non-quantitative and
non-statistical method of data collection and analysis to survey the concept of
castrated masculinity in Buchi Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab Alkali’s
The Stillborn to show the extent and to what purpose it has been applied in the texts.
Thus, the research relies on Buchi Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab
Alkali’s The Stillborn as its primary source of data collection and objects of analysis.
Its source of secondary data are relevant books, journal articles, library materials,
and internet sources. The work adopts feminist literary theory as its theoretical
interpretive tool of analyzing the selected texts to foreground the study literarily.
24
CHAPTER FOUR
TEXTUAL ANALYSIS
4.1 Preamble
This chapter applies the feminist literary theory to explore the concept of castrated
masculinity in Buchi Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab Alkali’s The
Stillborn to determine the extent to which and to what purpose it has been deployed
in the selected texts.
4.2 Castrated Masculinity in Buchi Emecheta’s Joys Of Motherhood and
Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn
As earlier explained in chapter two of this work, castration has symbolical or
metaphoric reference which other literary writers term as “emasculation”, a concept
that signifies “[…] any practice that diminishes the potency of men in family or
society more generally: “to deprive of masculine strength or vigor; to weaken; to
make effeminate” (Ross, 2002:311). Thus, castrated masculinity is seen as the
presentation of male as less than the female characters in a literary text. It is in this
regard that Eustace Palmer submits that, Emecheta, in Joys of Motherhood,
determines:
[…] to show up the males as irresponsible and unreasonable interferes
somewhat with her characterization of them. Their irresponsibility is
exaggerated to the point of unrealism. [….] It must be admitted that
while her portrayal of the women is excellent, Emecheta's success with
the men is something less than total.
25
This is an indictment of the literature written by men for its depiction of
women as marginal, docile, and subservient to men’s interests and emotional needs
and fears. It is in this vein that men like Nnaife in The Joys of Motherhood are
castrated by their jobs, doing white women’s laundry or white men’s cooking.
Emecheta's point apparently is that the traditional arrangements lead to chauvinism
and irresponsibility in the male. In The Stillborn, Alkali uses the episode of the son
of Audu who turns to be a cook in the city: “Like a woman, he [Audu’s son] cooks
for the big men in the city [17:49]”. This is a strategy employed by Alkali to castrate
men in her work and to place women on a superior pedestal than men.
In The Joys of Motherhood, the heroine Nnu Ego and her creator Emecheta
strongly reject the traditional consignment of women to the lowest pedestal which
considers her fit only to fetch and carry, to cook and feed, to be a farm-hand and a
bed-mate, a bearer of children who could, with impunity and at will, be beaten and
scolded and cast aside by man. Thus, by way of male castration or castrated
masculinity, Nnaife is presented as positively disgusting in his looks and in the
menial work he does in washing even woman’s underwear with such loving care.
Emecheta’s description of Nnaife is a portrait of such ugliness evoking nausea.
A man with a belly like a pregnant cow, wobbling first to this side and
then to that. The belly, coupled with the fact that he was short, made
him look like a barrel. His hair, unlike that of men at home in Ibuza,
was not closely shaved; he left a lot of it on his head, like that of a
26
woman mourning for her husband. His skin was pale, the skin of
someone who had for a long time worked in the shade and not in the
open air. His cheeks were puffy and looked as if he had pieces of hot
yam inside them, and they seemed to have pushed his rnouth into a
smaller size above his weak jaw. And his clothes Nnu Ego had never
seen men dressed like that. Khaki shorts with holes and an old, loose,
white singlet. If her husband - to - be was like this, she thought, she
would go back to her father. Why, marrying such a jelly of a man would
be like living with a middle-aged woman!
The above kind of presentation, according to Ross (2002:305) suppresses the
man and put him in the feminine position. It is a metaphoric psychic threat of a
sexual wounding that signifies the universal jeopardy of being fully masculine. Thus,
Ross is of the view that castrated masculinity presents “a more throttling spectacle
of […] manhood dismembered, embarrassed, and dishonored” (p. 313).
It is in the light of this that Alkali’s The Stillborn presents its men as having
no choice because most of them have grown too stiff in the waist to till their ancestral
lands, so they were content to sweep the offices and run errands; jobs their women
and small children do at home (Alkali, 1984:87). Thus, The Stillborn presents men
as weaklings without the strength of character, most of which are negatively swayed
by the vices of the city life. This is demonstrated in the life of Li’s Habu. When Li
goes to town to meet her husband, after four years of being abandoned in the village,
she meets a totally different Habu: She bent her head and hot tears trickled down her
cheeks. “Where is my man?” she wailed, silently, “That boyish man with an
incredible smile and a mischievous twinkle in the eye? Where is that proud, self27
confident, half-naked lover that defied the laughter of the villagers and walked the
length and breadth of the village just to see me?” (Alkali 1984: 70).
Although at this time Li does not understand the changes that have come over
her man, she is later to discover that Habu Adams is equally a victim of city life
which according to her “[…] destroys dreams” (Alkali 1984: 94). She learns how
her then innocent man had been trapped by a more experienced “woman from the
south” (Alkali 1984: 91) who took advantage of his ignorance on his arrival in the
city. “They worked in the same office. It was when Habu was new in the city and
was a bit awkward, but she showed him round, cooked for him and was generally
helpful. The friendship went too far and she found herself with child […]” (Alkali
1984: 91).
Women experiences of men (fathers, husbands, and sons) in The Joys of
Motherhood and The Stillborn show that the patriarchal nature of African culture
has only succeeded in portraying man as having all the rights and privileges and no
duties, and woman has responsibilities, cares and no rights whatsoever. Nnu Ego in
The Joys of Motherhood is an embodiment of how patriarch keeps women relatively
powerless. When Nnaife gives his wives too little money, Nnu Ego is afraid to anger
him by protesting too much for fear that she may lose what little money he does give
her. She feels the injustice of it most acutely. As a senior wife, she is not expected
to demand more money for her family: that was considered below the standard
28
expected of woman in her position. In this way, Nnu Ego feels the way men cleverly
use a woman’s sense of responsibility to actually enslave her. They know that a
traditional wife like herself will never dream of leaving her children.
Nnu Ego is terribly disappointed by her male children. She strains to educate
them and after receiving good education in Lagos, the two older boys go abroad for
studies and never bother even to write to their mother. A woman can never disown
her sons. As she explains it to another son of hers who protests against his callous
elder brother: Some fathers, especially those with many children from different
wives, can reject a bad son, a master can reject his evil servant, a wife can even leave
a bad husband, but a mother can never, never reject her son. If he is damned, she is
damned with him [….] The husband had exploited her; the children exploit her and
in the end betray her. She is left with none to care for or to look after her. The pathos
of Nnu Ego's plight is that she has chosen to remain faithful to traditional principles
and ideals that have no currency in the urban world of modem Nigeria, a typical
African country. In her predicament, she wonders: How was she to know, when she
was still young, that by the time her children grew up the values of her country, her
people and her tribe would have changed so drastically, to the extent where a woman
with many children could face a lonely old age, and may be a miserable death alone,
just like a barren woman.
29
The argument of Emecheta and Alkali in their texts is that “Men are presented
as the first in everything even when they are not, and the best also when they are not.
They are the king and they are the head. They lead in every matter whether they can
take decisions that would be of importance to the society or not. They are made more
important than women [1:280].” Thus, Emecheta depicts the negative picture of the
male character in a traditional society through several characters like the chief
Anbadi, Amatowu and finally Nnaife as selfish and irresponsible.
An immediate instance is Nnu Ego pleading with her first husband Amatokwu
when he ill-treats her on the farm, “What happened to us, Amatokwu? Is it my fault
that I did not have a child for you? Do you think I don't suffer too?” (p.25). We can
be sure that she speaks for the author and for all the women. It is the author making
Nnu Ego as a propagandist to explain the fate of mothers and the evils of men in a
polygamous climes, and she is meant to express the views of all wives in similar
circumstances.
Emecheta's chosen method of narration is ideally suited to her theme. She tells
the story almost exclusively from the heroine's point of view. Through her Emecheta
presents an African woman's reaction to a universal problem that children often fail
to honour their parents. In voicing this idea through Nnu Ego, the author emphasizes
the fact that women have the social responsibility to criticize and participate in the
social order.
30
Also, within patriarchal societies, Alkali’s The Stillborn shows that it is
common to hear men and ironically women themselves saying: “How can you listen
to this and take it as serious? It is all women’s talk!” It follows that not only gossips
are considered to be affairs of women, alone, but also that women’s arguments are
not worthy in a social gathering, no matter how desirable a woman’s wisdom may
be. However, since masculinity is not a biological category as much as a social
construct subject to change, revision and multiple representations, Alkali, in The
Stillborn, involves men within a gossip to mainly show that gossip is not an affair of
women, alone. For instance, in The Stillborn, Mariama, Manu, Hauwa and Audu are
all involved in a gossip as they find out about other people’s activities and
background to the extent that everything that happens in the village and the city are
in their hands: “In the village whatever remains secret has not yet happened [17:50].”
Moreover, the general belief is that the role of women starts and ends with
running of the home and nothing more. Activities such as cooking, cleaning,
washing the dishes, fetching wood and water are attributed to women. Consequently,
a person who is conscious of his gender identity would always insist that cooking,
for instance, should be done by a woman. However, in The Stillborn, Alkali uses
the episode of the son of Audu who turns to be a cook in the city: “Like a woman,
he [Audu’s son] cooks for the big men in the city [17:49]” to remind both men and
women that women, too, are individuals with feelings and emotions and that women
31
can do men’s work and vice versa. This is a strategy employed by Alkali to bring
both men and women to equal consideration and to free women from partial
judgment.
It is worthy to note that The Joys of Motherhood unfolds events in the period
of time that Nigeria was colonized and moves forward to the time of decolonization.
By this, Emecheta, indeed, attempts to show how women’s position has changed
since the time of independence. Considering Nnaife as a representation of the
colonial patriarchal regime and Oshia and Adim as the representations of the post
independent generation, it is clear that Emecheta is disclosing how the post
independent patriarchal generation is indifferent from the disempowered subaltern
women: “the postcolonial state continued the oppression by the colonial regime
rather than bring any improvement” (Lionnet, 1995:66).
4.3 Conclusion
So far, this chapter has been able to apply the feminist literary theory to explore the
concept of castrated masculinity in Buchi Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and
Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn to determine the extent to which and to what purpose
it has been used in the selected texts. The work has shown how characters such as
Nnaife in The Joys of Motherhood and Audu in The Stillborn are castrated by their
jobs and roles; cooking for people in the city like women, doing white women’s
laundry or white men’s cooking. In other instances male characters are presented as
32
weaklings without the strength of character. Thus, castrated masculinity is deployed
in selected text not only to suppress male characters and put them in the feminine
position but it is also applied as a metaphoric psychic threat of a sexual wounding
that signifies the universal jeopardy of being fully masculine. The research,
therefore, concludes that the basic argument of the two texts understudy is that, in
traditional male literatures, men are presented as the first in everything even when
they are not, and the best also when they are not.
33
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
5.1 Summary
As it can be seen from the title, this chapter consists of the summary and conclusion
of the present research. The chapter aims to capture, briefly, the major issues
examined in the work and therefore emphasizes on project’s contribution to existing
knowledge. In this regard, the chapter is subdivided into two broad parts which are
summary and conclusion. The summary gives the chapter breakdown of the entire
project. Thus, the summary gives a brief highlight of each individual chapter of the
entire work. While the conclusion is the rundown of the the research work by
revisiting parts of the study that justify the statement of the research problem, aim
and objectives, findings and conclusions.
Generally, this project is made up of five chapters. Chapter one constitutes the
background to the study, statement of the research problem, aim and objectives of
the study, significance of the study, scope and delimitation of the study, and
methodology. Chapter two conceptualizes castrated masculinity and reviews the
relevant literatures to the study to capture critical views that are of interest to this
project. In this way, the chapter establishes the gaps that the research is set to fill.
Chapter three discusses qualitative research approach as the research method of the
project and expounds on the feminist literary theory as the theoretical framework of
the research. Chapter four applies the feminist literary theory to explore the concept
34
of castrated masculinity in Buchi Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab
Alkali’s The Stillborn to determine the extent to which and to what purpose it has
been deployed in the selected texts.
5.2 Conclusion
The present research has examined feminist literary theory to explore the concept of
castrated masculinity in Buchi Emechita’s Joys of Motherhood and Zaynab Alkali’s
The Stillborn to determine the extent to which and to what ends it has been used in
the selected texts. The work has demonstrated how the male characters in both The
Joys of Motherhood and The Stillborn are castrated by their jobs and roles; cooking
for people in the city like women, doing white women’s laundry or white men’s
cooking. The texts have also demonstrated that some male characters in the selected
texts are presented as weaklings without the strength of character. Thus, castrated
masculinity is employed and deployed in the selected texts not only to suppress male
characters and put them in the feminine position but it is also applied as a metaphoric
psychic threat of a sexual wounding that signifies the universal jeopardy of being
fully masculine. The research, therefore, concludes that the basic argument of the
two texts understudy is that, in traditional male literatures, men are presented as the
first in everything even when they are not, and the best also when they are not.
35
The research is recommending that women writers, in depicting the patriarchal
hegemony of men and the plight of women, should be objective thereby not vilifying
male characters in their texts.
36
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