The Women and the Sons of the House
By: Toyosi Fashola
A Review of Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia’s The Son of the House.
The Son of the House is a nicely crafted book that leaves the reader with no doubt that the writer does know her onions; an adept, superb and swift storytelling.
Imagine going on a journey that included a lot of traveling between the present and the past without any confusion or loss of interest at any point. Yes, this is it.
Indeed, the story was interesting from the very opening of it, but it still took it a while to reel me in. One can however not help but appreciate the entirety of it. How thoroughly the characters were explored, how well it dealt with the issues it talked about and how solid the plot was.
I particularly like how Cheluchi made us see the ‘’Sons of the House’’ through the eyes of its women. And somehow managed to talk about important African cultures, practices and beliefs, especially ones that need changing, without outrightly stating them. That is some good storytelling.
She spins a powerful narrative of womanhood, motherhood, patriarchy and family. She tells a story of love, loss, sadness and pain. But there’s also joy and hope.
We are introduced to the story when Nwabulu and Julie are kidnapped and kept together in the dank confines of the kidnapper’s den. Left with nothing else to do but talk, they share their individual stories which somehow manage to intertwine in the most unimaginable way.
Through Nwabulu’s eyes, we are able to understand her life from the very beginning of it. She takes us through how, when her mother died at the time of her birth, her father afterward named her Nwabulu which means ‘A child is a gain’, with the hope of consoling himself that he had something left, at least, of the woman he loved. He thereafter marries another woman so he can have children to ‘carry on his lineage’.
We learn of the sickness that eventually takes his life and begins her tragic journey, firstly to Lagos where she was to work as a maid at such young age of 11.
We hear about her ‘Oga’ who found pleasure in ravishing the body of a child that was barely over ten years and her ‘Madam’ who, deciding it was Nwabulu’s fault that her own husband was a beast, beat her up too and injured her for it.
She goes back to her village and is afterwards sent to work for yet another boss, this time in Enugu. Here, she arrives expecting to find another ‘Oga’ whose hands would muffle her mouth and seek out what is underneath her wrapper at nights. Instead, she finds safety and acceptance. Instead, she falls in love with and subsequently gets pregnant for Urenna, the son of her friend’s boss, who promptly denies anything that had to do with it—not before he had suggested an abortion.
So again, Nwabulu heads back to her village where her anxious stepmother and family hurriedly marry her off to Mama Nathan’s dead son, Nathan. She is lucky, they tell her, it’s a win-win. Mama Nathan gets a grandchild to keep her son’s name going, her son is born with a father’s name.
After she births her son and Mama Nathan snatches the boy from her and disappears with him, she runs away from the village and back to Enugu in search of her child. There is no help in Enugu though, definitely not in her mistress’s house. But anywhere is better than staying with her stepmother in the village. So she appeals to Chidinma who agrees to send her off to her sister’s house.
Julie’s story starts as a young woman who completely loved her status as a ‘single lady’ even though she had a lover. When her brother dies and her mother ‘orders’ her to get married, she hatches a plan to ‘get pregnant’ for her married lover and stay on with him as a second wife. The plans go well, but for the pregnancy part.
Seeing how her inability to conceive a child was quick turning her marriage sour, she proceeds to hatch yet another plan which involved her friend ‘giving’ her a baby that her own aunt had brought with her from the village before the said aunty died.
The baby, Tata, is renamed Afamefuna, meaning ‘May my name not be lost’, as only sons could carry the family name and make sure that the name of the family did not get lost. Tata was named after Julie’s brother, Afam whom prior to his death was an irredeemable drunk dealt a huge blow by the Biafran war.
Mama Nathan, who stole Nwabulu’s child to continue her dead son’s name would never have imagined the amusing turn of events that would trail her actions. But here we are. Tata would still be continuing a man’s name, just not her son’s.
Nwabulu definitely passes as my favourite character in this story because her resilience and strength were almost unmatched. She surged through life with a strength that even she herself didn’t know she possessed, showing us yet again that we never know how strong we truly are until we actually need to be strong. She was a survivor.
I really want to like Julie. I want to try to understand her choices and decisions and see things from her points of view, that sometimes we have to do what we have to do. But I cannot. She was a pathological liar because, what? What are these lies? She is both cunning and manipulative. Hatching schemes here and there, that woman played a whole lot of people. Must be tiring to play so much games with so much people at the same time.
Chidinma’s character is the friend we all need to have. She was nice, caring and firm when she needed to be. Even when she could have turned Nwabulu away, she helped her and sent her to her sister’s place where Nwabulu’s life, obviously, took a turn for the better.
Urenna’s character was that of the selfish, spoilt ‘son of the house’. At first, hopeless romantic that I am, I went against all of my Nollywood script prediction senses and hoped that he would be Nwabulu’s knight in shining armour. I couldn’t be more wrong.
Mummy, her boss, was also a victim of circumstances. She was constantly under the pressure of her husband’s (another Son of the house) need for perfection and would usually vent her anger through the only means possible for her, Nwabulu. Not that it makes it okay, but it just is what it is.
Eugene, yet another Son of the House, Julie’s lover and later, husband, was a typical traditional Nigerian man who has been taught that the only true measure of affluence and success is the number of sons he has, as if one has any control over that. So despite his wealth and children, he still wasn’t fulfilled. Sad, really.
It is brilliant how Cheluchi presents the relationship between the women in the story and the various men (sons) they’re affiliated with.
Without forcing it, we see how she does a subtle representation of Africa’s patriarchal society by making the women characters in story have the most of their lives tied to the men (sons) in the story.
The title of the novel is one indication, The Son of the House. One would expect that the story would be that of a man, but what we have are stories of two women told by themselves, sharing their experiences, but still boil down to a man, the Son of the house.
The shared experiences of the both women, Julie and Nwabulu, are more visible in what they experience in the hands of men (the Sons), or incidents influenced by men.
The former, Julie is by an average standard, a wealthy and comfortable woman, she caters for her family, yet she is not respected in the society, because she is unmarried. They would only see her worth when she tricks her married lover into marrying her. Her brother on the other hand, Afam, after being broken by his war experience turns into an irredeemable drunk yet still enjoys society’s respect and to his very death, was regarded higher than the more ‘upright’ Julie. This is because Afam was not just any man, but the first son of the house. The decisions Julie would eventually make for herself would still be determined by by the Sons of the house. Her decision to take Tata as her own was partially influenced by her husband’s (another Son of the house) constant query of her childlessness. She then names Tata after Afam, her brother (another son of the house) to keep his memory and continue the name of another Son of the house, her husband.
The case isn’t different for Nwabulu. Nwabulu endures sexual abuse from 'Oga’, a Son of the house and when her Madam finds out, she blames her for it and sends her away. Nwabulu encounters another Son of the house, Urenna whom she thought loved her. He doesn’t only break her heart but forces her into early single parenthood by denying her pregnancy. Her single parenthood is cut short by another Son of the house, Nathan, even though dead, he is still made to marry Nwabulu and claim her son. A cultural practice that allowed for families without an 'heir' to marry women for their late sons with the hope of them birthing a son. Even after losing her son and starting a new family, Nwabulu’s life would still be characterised by her constant wonder of what eventually happened to him.
Summarily, Cheluchi successfully tells a story that is so common that it is automatically relatable to any Nigerian. It is very probable that while reading this story, you’ll relate with numerous incidents and persons you may have seen around you or heard of. Yet, she brings forth stereotypes and narratives that need changing, the story is didactic and the telling is superb.
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Omotoyosi Kafilah Fashola, a graduate of Agriculture from the University of Ibadan is a writer and a farmer. She enjoys reading a lot and believes not reading is the root of ignorance. She reads everything she comes in contact with. When she’s not reading, she’s looking for what to eat.
