The Joys of Motherhood

Content Warning: The source text and this guide depict racism, sexism, enslavement, murder, child loss, domestic violence, and death by suicide.

According to the Ibo religion Odinala, a person’s chi is their personal spiritual guardian or divinity, appointed at birth and assigned for life. Early on, Nnu Ego’s chi is identified by a priest as the spirit of an enslaved woman who worked for Agbadi’s first wife; the enslaved woman was killed and buried, according to tradition, following the death of the woman who enslaved her. As a child, Nnu Ego develops a lump on her head, along with severe headaches, and her mother, Ona, interprets this as a sign that Nnu Ego’s chi must be placated. Ona attempts to do this by moving to Agbadi’s household, where Nnu Ego’s chi lived her life, and by offering an honorary reburial to the enslaved woman’s remains. However, Nnu Ego’s chi seems bent on revenge against Agbadi’s household—and Nnu Ego in particular—by sending her a host of problems.

From the start, Nnu Ego’s interactions with her chi center on Nnu Ego’s desire to bear children. At first, her chi apparently refuses, as Nnu Ego fails to conceive in her marriage to Amatokwu.