The Meaning of Marriage in Buchi Emecheta’s Works: Metaphor for Servitude

Abstract

This paper examines Buchi Emecheta’s biographical novel The Slave Girl, arguing that in traditional Igbo society, a girl’s life is teeming with lots of bondage that reduces her life to servitude. With this is mind, I will be placing an emphasis on “slave girl burial” episode that can bridge The Slave Girl and The Joys of Motherhood. The latter treats the plight of Nnu Ego, the protagonist, whose tragic life stems from marriage itself burdened with polygamy, bride price, son-preference, resulting from the cursed concept of patriarchal society and slave-like position in a traditional society. Meanwhile Ojebeta in The Slave Girl, who was sold for 8 pounds of ransom by her brother, spent 28 years as a slave at Ma Palagada’s; and although returns home free, she becomes once again a slave to her husband. It is because she considers Jacob, her husband, her ‘master’ and ‘new owner.’ Within Ojebeta the slave mentality has not been completely eradicated. She has experienced change, but not enough of it to make her absolutely free. That is what Emechta tries to point out in the novel. By paralleling Nigeria’s colonization by Britain with that of Ojebeata’s slavery both mentally as well as physically, Emecheta might have told Nigerian women’s ineluctable destiny using a slave-metaphor to dramatize women’s servitude through inhumane oppression.