Contrasting Women in Patriarchal Tradition: Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter, and Scarlet Song

Abstract

This article aims to demonstrate Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood and Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter and Scarlet Song, through examining the relationship between victims and victimizers. One common thread binding Emecheta and Bâ is that they illuminate not only one group of women trying to do their duty as women in a patriarchal tradition but also another group independently shaping their own life outside the tradition. In this sense, the main purpose of this essay is to understand the complexity of women’s lives in social contexts. Emecheta and Bâ’s textual parallels are signalled through echoed forms. First, both writers commonly investigate women’s two ways of living by showing not only one choice to stand within the social boundaries but also the other choice of breaking with convention. Secondly, they significantly exhale the female character’s repressed anger as a means of madness and silence, and they seem to criticize tradition as system of oppression. Finally, both writers are deliberately engaged in envisioning a radical change through younger generation. The mental anguish of African women by the inequity of patriarchal traditions constitutes a part of themes in the writing of Buch Emecheta and Mariama Bâ. Consequently, intertwined with their portrayals of tragic or triumphant women in a delicate balance, both writers offer a variety of choices.