A Study of Single Motherhood in Without Mercy, The Mirror of My Life, and Night Dancers.
No Thumbnail Available
Date
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Description
Single motherhood is becoming ubiquitous today, unlike in the past, when it was almost
a sacrilege. This portends serious implications for society. This paper examines the tragic
conditions that a single mother and her child find themselves in while trying to navigate
the difficulties imposed on them by society. Three novels on the theme of single
motherhood were purposively selected from Nigeria; Abubakar's Without Mercy,
Asogwa's The Mirror of My Life, and Unigwe's Night Dancers. The study adopted the
content analytical method in interrogating the selected novels. A purposive sampling
technique was used to select three novels a total of twelve films comprising six
Nollywood and six Hollywood films. The novels were subjected to content and
qualitative analysis to explore the issues of single motherhood. The study adopted
Attachment Theory as the framework for analysis. Findings revealed that children raised
by both parents exhibit a wholesome attitude towards life and suffer little or no rejection
from people. Whereas, a child brought up by a single parent faces social rejection, and
psychological depression, and becomes behaviorally dysfunctional. Every inherent
character defect or otherwise displayed by a child raised by a single mother is a factor of
societal attitude towards the peculiar challenge of the parent. Moreover, the tragic
conditions experienced by single mothers/their children are compounded by
stigmatisation, psychological pressure, victimisation, rejection, taunting, and mockery.
The paper recommends that the society should reappraise its value system by accepting
single motherhood as a socio-reality to save the society from violence and suicide.
Keywords: Attachment theory, contemporary Nigerian novels, parenthood, single
motherhood, sensitive parenting.
Keywords
HQ The family. Marriage. Woman, PE English, PN Literature (General)