Mumbi Character Analysis

Mumbi is a connecting link in A Grain of wheat. She is a town’s beauty and an image of an ideal or pure woman. Her purity is deconstructed by Karanja who is the rival of Gikonyo in the race of winning Mumbi. Mumbi is the mother of Karanja’s child. The child carries the mark of Mumbi’s exploitation and can be taken as the sign of Mumbi’s betrayal to her husband. She has been called a whore by her husband. Childbearing and motherhood was a curse for Mumbi but she accepts that curse and takes the responsibility of her child. The presence of the child in Mumbi’s lap makes Gikonyo weak as he feels that he is a coward. Karanja owns the position of Head in the village so Gikonyo is in subordinate position before Karanja. Karanja has the power and

So to prove the power of the phallus women have to become pregnant and a woman is a woman simply because she lacks the phallus. This ‘lack’ puts woman in a negative situation and associates her with the passive body. So women are presented as an object of men’s desire but they are denied from becoming autonomous individuals. Marriage has become an oppressive and exploitative system and marriage reinforces sexual inequality which binds women to domesticity. From this perspective in the select work of Emecheta the masculine strength is shown by making women pregnant for many times. Aku-nna is an innocent girl but her death is caused by child birth. Adah is a very strong girl from her childhood. She manages for her education and gets married. Before twenty-one she becomes the mother of three children. She is forced to be pregnant for her husband. She learns to use birth control equipments but she is caught by her husband and Adah becomes the victim of domestic violence. At the end of the novel her husband, Francis, denies to take the responsibility of children by saying that he is not their father. Men think that they possess power but it is a mere illusion. In The Joys of Motherhood, Nnu-Ego’s first marriage fails because she couldn’t produce children for her husband. After her

Not only these two protagonists but Adah and Aku-nna also fail. Even with the feminist tone of voice Emecheta has not shown the victory of her female protagonist and that is the appropriate example of patriarchal structure. Being a woman writer she has to work within the codes of masculine society. In her history-based fictions Emecheta tries to create feminist characters to carry her ideals. She has also woven the affairs of nation in her female characters’ voice. Emecheta’s narratives are full of tension and her female characters speak through opposing forces. In Emecheta’s works tension is caused by the African woman’s struggle to come to the tern with the world. Emecheta successfully gives voice to the tension as an African and as a woman. In writing back Emecheta has promoted the voice of African women through her fictions. Women characters of Emecheta are pathetically aware about the traditional and western way of life as both the world is beyond their reach because they cost high for