i
TITLE PAGE
A Psychoanalytic Study of Disappointment in Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood,
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Naguib Mahfouz’s MidaqAlley
By
Nebolisa, Carolyn Ifeyinwa
PG/MA/08/48803
A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of English and Literary Studies
Faculty of Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in partial fulfillment of the Requirement for
the Award of Master of Arts Degree in English and Literary Studies
December 2011
ii
Approval Page
It is certified that this Dissertation is an original Research by Nebolisa, Carolyn Ifeyinwa for the
Award of the Degree of Master of Arts (M.A) in the Department of English and Literary Studies,
Faculty of Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
_________________
Dr. M.A. Ezugu
Supervisor
________________________
Prof. Rev.Fr. A.N. Akwanya
Head of Department
________________________
External Examiner
iii
Dedication
To God Almighty who has made this journey possible irrespective of all odds
To my husband who has always been my courage and strength
To my children Adaobi, Ogom, Odk, Onyi and Emelie who whenever I am off to Nsukka feel
my absence and bridge the gap while I am away
iv
Acknowledgements
My deep appreciation goes to my supervisor Dr. M.A. Ezugu for the grinding, the threshing and
the winnowing out processes which he has caringly carried out on my work. I also acknowledge
his kindness making his texts accessible to me. I remain grateful.
I remain indebted to Prof. D.U. Opata, who in fact suggested the title of this dissertation when I
was almost in a dilemma and from whose fountain of knowledge I have drawn in order to whet
my literary appetite. For providing mentorship at different times and in various ways during the
course of my studies, I remain grateful to these distinguished lecturer; Rev. Fr. (Prof.) A.N.
Akwanya the Head of Department, Prof. Sam Onuigbo, Prof. N.F.Inyama, Dr. P.A.Ezema, Dr.
(Mrs.) Orabueze, Mr. Chidi Nwankwo, Mr. Chibuzor Onunkwo and others too numerous to
mention.
For the successful production of this Dissertation, I wish to thank my husband and children
whose love, confidence and determination have continued to be my strength
v
Abstract
This dissertation examines disappointment in the novels of Buchi Emecheta, Chimamanda Adichie and
Naguib Mahfouz as responses to psychological reactions to outcomes that do not match up with
expectations of the individual. Because of its close link with hope, desire, and promise we expect
disappointment to be emotion caused by a situation which is appraised as an absence of a positive
outcome. Emotional disappointment captures two different emotional experiences – Outcome-Related
Disappointment and Person-Related Disappointment while Outcome-Related Disappointment has
implications in a more individual context such as motivational, decision making and achievement.
Person-Related Disappointment has implications in a more social context. These experiences occur in
different situations that are phenomenologically different and have different behavioural consequences as
exhibited by the characters concerned. Disappointment could be seen as not getting what one wants or
getting what one does not want and it could be also absence of a positive outcome or the presence of a
negative outcome. This study is to throw more light on the questions of whether disappointment can occur
without expectation or more precisely whether expectation is indeed a prerequisite for the use of the term
disappointment. The above mentioned perspectives are what this research analyses as they relate to
characters in Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie’s
Purple
Hibsicus, and Naguib Mahfouz Midaq Alley .To achieve this objective, this work is organized in five
chapters. Chapter one is the introduction which explores the meaning and origin of disappointment.
Chapter two is on Representation of Disappointment in The Joys of Motherhood, Purple Hibiscus and
Midaq Alley. Chapter three studies language of disappointment in The Joys of Motherhood, Purple
Hibiscus and Midaq Alley and how language and disappointments are the two sides of a coin. Chapter
four compares and contrasts the literary techniques of the three texts while Chapter five is the
conclusion.
vi
Table of Content
Title Page
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
i
Approval Page -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
ii
Dedication
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
iii
Acknowledgements
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
iv
Abstract
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
v
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
vi
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
-
-
Table of Content
Chapter One
1.1
Background of Study
1.2
Purpose of Study
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
1.3
Statement of Problem -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
1.4
Significance of Study -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
7
1.5
Definition of Disappointment -
-
-
-
-
-
-
8
-
-
-
-
-
-
15
Chapter Two: Review of Related Literature
2.1
Causes of Disappointment
-
2.2
Consequences of Disappointment
-
-
-
-
-
-
16
2.3
Avoidance of Disappointment
-
-
-
-
-
-
17
2.4
Psychoanalytic Criticism
-
-
-
-
-
-
19
-
Chapter Three
The Representation of Disappointment in The Joys of Motherhood,
Purple Hibiscus and Midaq Alley
3.1
The Dimension of Unexpectedness/Disappointment -
-
-
-
22
3.2
Motivational State
-
-
-
31
-
-
-
-
-
vii
3.3
Legitimacy
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
35
3.4
Problem Source
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
37
3.5
Disappointment of Agency
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
41
3.6
Effects of Disappointment
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
44
4.1
Literary Assessment of The Joys of Motherhood -
-
-
-
47
4.2
Literary Assessment of Midaq Alley -
-
-
-
-
-
48
4.3
Literary Assessment of Purple Hibiscus-
-
-
-
-
-
49
4.4
Comparison in their Literary Technique-
-
-
-
-
-
50
Chapter Four
Comparison and Contrast of The Joys of Motherhood,
Purple Hibiscus and Midaq Alley
Chapter Fives
Conclusion -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
67
Works Cited -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
73
1
CHAPTER ONE
1.1
BACKGROUND OF STUDY
Disappointment is traced to the Middle English by way of the old French word
disappointer. Literally, disappointment is to remove one from office. Its use in the sense of
general frustration goes back to the late fifteenth century, and it first appeared recorded in
English as an emotional state of dejection in the middle eighteenth century.
Disappointment is an emotional and psychological experience and can have the same
emotional effects with such powerful emotions such as love, hate, fear, sadness, grief, anger and
jealousy.
Human beings are fascinating creatures and readers can be said to take a psychological
approach to understand them and disappointment is a psychological stress. Freud has provided us
with “the perception of the hidden element of human nature and of the opposition between the
hidden and the visible” (Murtin 114).
Freud finds ways for an analyst to help a patient uncover the painful or threatening events
that have been repressed in the unconscious to make them inaccessible to the conscious mind. In
psychoanalytic criticism the same topics and techniques form the basis for analyzing literary
texts. And these theories he has applied to the interpretation of religion, mythology, arts and
literature. Sigmund Freud (1856-1938) advanced his startling theories about the working of the
human psyche to understand why people act as they do. Efforts to explain the growth,
development and structure of the human personality and all such questions and theories are
psychological. The Freudian theory has provided a framework for making more perceptive
characteristic analyses.
2
Another literary scholar of particular interest is Jung, who provided the concepts of the
collective unconscious, myths and archetypes which have helped readers see literature as an
expression of the experiences of the entire human species. Later, in 1950, Northrop Frye
developed Jung’s ideas in ways that were more directly applicable to literature. More recently,
Jacques Lacan has received serious attention for his efforts to build on Freud’s work, turning to
linguistics theories to assert that language shapes our unconscious and our conscious minds
thereby giving us our identity.
In view of the fact that Freud’s theory deals with perception, human psyche and
emotions, it is used as a framework for this dissertation which deals with disappointment as
emotion of perception, human psyche and it is elicited out of one’s failure of achieving his aims
or objectives.It is based on the premise that our actions are the result of forces we do not
recognize and therefore cannot control. There are many emotions like grief, love, hate, sadness,
anger etc. But this dissertation is on emotion disappointment. Emotion disappointment equally
has its own theory and based on this theory, we now discuss the concept of disappointment and
how it relates to the novels under review.
The word disappointment captures two different emotional experiences, namely:
Outcome-Related Disappointment [ORD] and Person-Related Disappointment [PRD]; these two
types of disappointments differ from each other and from anger, sadness and regret. They have
different idiosyncratic behavioral consequences. Outcome-Related Disappointment [ORD] has
implications in a more individual context such as, motivation, decision–making and
achievement, and it is also event-based emotion whereas Person-Related Disappointment (PRD)
has implications in a more social context such as negotiation and trust. It is agent -based
emotions. Events that elicit Outcome-Related Disappointments (ORD) are expected to be more
3
strongly appraised as (a) unexpected event (b) wanting to obtain something pleasurable (c)
circumstances beyond ones control whereas events that elicit Person-Related Disappointment
(PRD) are expected to be more strongly appraised as (a) caused by another person, (b) revealing
the basic nature of someone, (c) oneself being morally right. Disappointment involves high level
of these responses.
(a) feeling powerless
(b) a tendency to do nothing
(c) a tendency to get away from the situation
(d) actually turning away from the situation and
(e) wanting to do nothing
The substantial part of the disappointment experienced by people are Person-Related
Disappointment and disappointment is not an uncommon or trivial experience but the third most
experienced emotion (Schimmack and Diener 1997). Because of its link to (positive)
expectations Outcome-Related Disappointment is accompanied by feelings and thought of
dashed hopes and lost opportunity. It is also accompanied by trying harder and wanting a second
chance. Concerning Person-Related Disappointment because of its link to Problem-Source (that
is revealing the basic nature of someone) it will be accompanied by one keeping his distance and
by thoughts of disappointment about the person. With Person-Related Disappointment, people
feel the tendency not to be associated with the person, to ignore, avoid, and wanting to be far
away from the person. There is always a desired expectation involved when talking about
disappointments
One of the most influential current psychological approaches to emotion is appraisal
theory proposed by Scherer et al (1984). It states that each emotion can be related to specific
4
patterns of evaluations and interpretation. For a better understanding of disappointment this
study will work with the six dimensions of disappointment; Unexpectedness, Motivation State
,Control-Potential, Legitimate, Problem-Source and Disappointment of Agency as proposed by
Roseman et al (1996) in order to explore the various disappointed characters as seen in the three
texts under review.
Not getting an expected promotion, failing an examination, not having children as
in the case of Efuru in Flora Nwapa’s Efuru, one’s children dying as in the case of Ekwefi in
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, or when relationships do not work out as in the case of
Nnuego in Emecheta’s Joys of Motherhood, or Abbas in Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley who dies for the
love of Hamida are just some of the events that can lead to the experience of disappointment.
Authors like Chinua Achebe and Iyayi Festus have written about disappointment as a
discourse formative in literature particularly in African literary texts. It is not gainsaying that
majority of these African authors have depicted disappointment in their literary works although
for this study, we have concentrated on Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, Adichie’s Purple
Hibiscus and Naguib Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley.
The experience could also be when one’s husband marries another wife as found in
Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood where Nnaife marries Okpo, or one losing one’s child as in
the case of Nnuego when she loses Ngozi her first son after years of childlessness. Kambili in
Purple Hibiscus is disappointed in her mother who could not challenge their father after Papa
Nnukwu’s painting is destroyed or Okonkwo’s disappointment in Umuofia when they do not
stand up for him when he kills the Court Messenger. Other experiences of disappointment are in
Violence by Festus Iyayi where Idemudia’s cruel father expels his mother from his home and
stops paying his fees. In Wayward Father in Island of Tears by Grace Ogot, Anastasia give Mike
5
all her love and heart but Mike ignores her love. In Behind The Cloud by Ifeoma Okoye,
Ijeoma’s making of children and loving her husband was her desire but Dozie now marries
Virginia who becomes pregnant through dubious means and Dozie once a loving husband now
treats Ijeoma coldly and exposes her to co-wives quarrelsomeness. In Still Born Alkali Zaynab’s
Li has always dreamt of a family- the husband a qualified doctor and she a grade one teacher in a
big European house full of servants, smooth body, long silk hair --- there is no end to the luxuries
the city could offer but she is disappointed that Habu is not able to accomplish his promise rather
she is dumped in the village. The German writer Heinrich Boll uses the story Pala Anna to
illustrate the universal experience of disappointment, an experience his country men are very
familiar with, through both literature and history. Jane Austen explores this emotion in her Pride
and Prejudice where Mr. Bennet marries a beautiful young woman perhaps on a whim, out of
ignorance of what marriage is, and two decades later, he finds himself with a somewhat witless,
thoughtless partner certainly not his match intellectually or emotionally. But Out of
disappointment he retreats often into his study for solitary contemplation. In Concubine by
Elechi Amadi, Ihuoma is disappointed in the Sea-king who haunts down all the men who show
interest in her and she reciprocates like in the case of Emenike, who is killed when he openly
expresses his intention of marrying Ihuoma.
Disappointment is the result of expectations that was unfulfilled and was initially desired
or hoped for; when performance falls short of expectation we have disappointment
In considering the responses of disappointed, protagonist in African novels particularly the
novels of Tsi Tsi Damgarembaa, Chiemenam Ezeigbo, Shimmar Chinodya and the Biafrans
story in Chinua Achebe’s Girls At War we see the psychological trauma assigned to them by the
disappointments they pass through. Whereas Emecheta’s heroines acquiesce in or accept
6
traditional prescription on woman, Mahfouz’s and Nwapa’s heroine are often self assertive
while Adiche’s heroine is still in a developing state, and these differences are evident in their
handling and their depiction of disappointment. This is hoped to be proved in the studies of
disappointed characters in the three texts under review. From these studies, we discover the
distinction of disappointment and how the disappointed protagonists are not in control of the
situation they find themselves.
1.2
Purpose of Study
This study aims at a comparative analysis of disappointment as presented by these novelists;
Emecheta Buchi, Adichie Chimamanda and Mahfouz Naguib. It will establish the fact that
disappointment is hardly ever experienced in isolation and its experience is closely linked to
other negative emotions; for instance: it has been argued that sadness, anger and regret are
products of disappointments. The study will also establish that disappointment is primarily
experienced in a situation in which something positive is expected but does not occur.
Disappointment seems closely linked with hope, desire and promise and they are not
synonymous because one may hope for something without expecting it to happen very soon.
This study will also establish that the requirement of free choice and personal responsibility has
been judged as one of the major differences between regret and disappointment. While regret
increases as a function of personal responsibility it also focuses on forgone options whereas
disappointment shows a negative relation with responsibility and it focuses on a chosen option.
Since this study focuses on selected African fiction, effort will also be made to establish how
these authors have presented disappointments in view of the various techniques they have used.
7
1.3
Statement of Problem
The three texts (The Joys of Motherhood, Purple Hibiscus and Midaq Alley) will be
examined based on disappointment. Though previous effort have been made examining these
texts from post-colonial points of view and feminism points of view, available literatures reveal
that Psychoanalytical criticism of the Freudian school of thought is being used on these texts for
the first time by this study.
1.4
Significance of Study
This study is significant as much has been written on the theme of disappointment by
novelists. It will help to throw more light on the question of whether disappointment can occur
without expectations or more precisely whether expectation is indeed a prerequisite for the use of
the term disappointment. The study is also significant as it will clarify the fact that many
unpleasant feelings have nothing to do with disappointment and they are not called
disappointment. The basic truth is that when talking about disappointment, there is always a
desired expectation. In order to help carry out this task successfully, we intend to use the
following texts: The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta, Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda
Adichie and Naguib Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley.
1.5
Definition of Disappointment
The word ‘disappointment’ is defined in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary
as failure of expectation, hope, or frustration. The word disappointment refers to the unpleasant
feeling that arises when certain expectations are not realized. The pain after falling off a bicycle
or the shock of a snowball on one’s face is not called disappointment but they come
unexpectedly. This does not mean this sort of event is thought to be impossible, but that it is
8
expected that the event would happen at the moment it occurs. An emphatically unexpected
event that nevertheless takes place may cause disappointment.
Disappointment is not just about unfulfilled expectations but also about an expectation
not coming true that is of sufficient importance. Sufficient importance may be enclosed in the
term desired expectation. What counts as being of sufficient importance is measured by a general
standard, but it is nevertheless contextual. We then use the term disappointment to indicate the
unpleasant feeling that occurs when desired expectation of sufficient importance does not come
true. Disappointment is a feeling that follows the failure of expectations to manifest. Similar to
regret, it differs in that the individual feeling of regret focuses primarily on the personal
circumstances that contribute to a poor outcome, while the individual feeling disappointment
focuses on the outcome itself.
Obiechina (1975) says that writers take their themes from the social context in which they
live’. To this end, therefore it can be said that there is a relationship between literature,
psychology and society. It is not surprising that some of our novels depict disappointment as the
case under review. For this study, we shall examine disappointment as found in Emecheta’s The
Joys of Motherhood, Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley from different
dimensions as exposed in this study. From the study, we have been exposed not only to the
various definitions made by scholars but also able to distinguish between disappointment and
related negative emotions like regret, sadness, anger.
9
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Disappointment because of its close link with hope, desire and promise is more
associated with the absence of a positive outcome than with the presence of a negative outcome.
The experience of disappointment is not related to negative emotions such as sadness, anger,
frustration and regret. Disappointment, an emotion that is closely linked to desire is one of the
most frequently experienced emotions following failure.
Bell (1985) defines disappointment as, “a psychological reaction to an outcome that does
not match up against expectations and is typically experienced in response to unexpected
negative event that is caused by uncontrolled circumstances or by another person (85). It makes
people reluctant to take subsequent decision.
For Lawson (1989), ‘’Disappointment presupposes some expectations and he notes
‘’responses to experiences of disappointment will vary according to the social context in which
the person finds himself or herself and to the level of expectation (85).
Schmimmack and Diener (1997) study on the intensity and frequency of effective experiences
supports these observations. These researchers maintain that disappointment is the third most
frequently experienced negative emotion (after anxiety and anger). Disappointment is
omnipresent and clearly has some bearing on our day to day behavior. When reviewing these
and other efforts to understand the psychology of disappointment, one thing stands out; there
seems to be unusual understanding and agreement on what disappointment is.
Shand (1914) states that “Disappointment… implies that we have hitherto been hopeful
of the issue, if not confident” (45). So disappointment is the result of expectations that are
10
unfulfilled and are initially desired or hoped for when performance falls short of expectation we
have disappointment.
Bell (1985) also postulates that the more valuable or desirable the hope for outcome the greater
the disappointment would be.
Friyda (1986) refers to Disappointment as the “non-achievement of an expected
outcome” (35). Clore et al. (1994) also stress the importance of both desire and non-fulfillment
of an expected outcome in their definition of disappointment. In other words, theorists agree that
disappointment stems from outcomes that are worse than expected.
Stanley (cited in Shand 1914) states that “Disappointment turns life to false dreams” (35).
It prompts an investigation of causes and arouses cognition to a full understanding of the
situation. Hope thereby becomes more rational and realizable.
Lickel et al (1997) define Disappointment for others as the disappointment people feel
when they are not the proximal agent involved in the unexpected negative outcome.
Schimmack and Diener (1997) state that Disappointment is a prominent part of human
experience. In further describing the nature of disappointment, Van Dijk and Zeelenberg (1998)
report that disappointment is most likely to occur when people are pursuing something
pleasurable, while failure is caused by circumstances beyond their control.
Disappointment theory provides another perspective on the disappointment experienced
by the characters in the various texts. This theory was developed by an economist who studied
individuals trying to make decisions when faced with uncertain circumstances.
Loomes and Sugden (1986) state that “The central proposition of disappointment theory is when
an individual forms expectations about uncertain prospects, and if the actual consequence turns
out to be worse than that expectation, the individual experiences a sensation of disappointment”
11
(42). You can experience disappointments in three ways: firstly, when you feel disappointment
in another; secondly, in yourself; and thirdly, when another expresses disappointment in you.
Some people come to psychoanalysis because of repeated failures in work or in love,
brought about not by chance but by self-destructive patterns of behavior and this is where
disappointment comes in. Others need psychoanalysis because the way they are – their character
– substantially limits their choices and their pleasures.
Ortony et al (1998) also state that “The intensity of disappointment is affected by hope”
(32) that is, hope gives rise to more intense disappointment if that hope is dashed. Mower (1960)
also relates disappointment to hope “when a hope signal appears and then disappears, the relation
is one of disappointment” (43). Stalin (1994) states that “But the worse of hope is the waiting of
it to come true” (42).
Dr. Copper (2000) thinks of all Psychoanalytic theories as logic of hope, that is, theories
hold our hope. One of the most exciting things about psychoanalytic theories of all kinds is its
deep appreciation of how the most hopeful aspects of human growth frequently entail acceptance
of the destructive element of our inner lives; object of hope are often objects of envy,
disappointments, rivalry, and frustration. Psychoanalytic theory equips us with the ability to
understand how hopeful stances involve deep pockets of unconscious dread.
Friyda (1989) links Disappointment with promise, for “promises generally turn into
disappointment when not fulfilled” (57). Disappointment is hardly ever experienced in isolation.
Its experience is closely linked to other negative emotions, for instance, it has been argued that
both sadness and anger are products of disappointment.
Levine (1996) states that Sadness is associated with the belief that goal cannot be
reinstated whereas anger is associated with the belief that something can be done to reinstate a
12
goal. Regret is considered as related to choice and personal responsibility and it is an experience
when realizing or imagining that our present situation would have been better. Regret focuses
on the foregone action and increases as a function of personal responsibility. The experience of
regret could be differentiated from that of disappointment in that it involves feeling more
intensely that one should have known better, thinking about the possibility that one made a
mistake, feeling a tendency to hate oneself and to correct one’s mistake, and wanting to undo the
event, and get a second chance while the emotion disappointment, involves feeling powerless,
feeling a tendency to do nothing and to get away from the situation, actually turning away from
the event and wanting to do nothing.
The Emotion of Elation is when the overtures succeed and expectation is met. The
emotion of elation and disappointment serves as checks whenever there is a confrontation
between expectations and realities.
Anger has been included as an Emotion that can be elicited by restraint, frustration, and
stupid actions, which are aspects entailed in forced choice negative outcome, and sad choice
respectively.
Anger towards oneself ensues from the self-attribution of a poor result and
involves a self-blame component for having taken the perception of an obstacle preventing the
achievement of one’s goal and from a sad result. Frustration is also related to disappointment
and like anger, it is assumed to be caused by both types of negative outcomes (absence of a
positive outcome/presence of negative outcome).
Elation, when an overture succeeds or the lottery ticket turns out to be good elation may
occur. Several authors Bell, Loomes et al (1986) incorporate disappointment and elation into a
theory of choice, and these emotions are postulated to follow the verification or falsification of
an expectation. If a ticket turns out to be a win, elation may be overwhelming. After winning,
13
however, two emotions are likely to occur; the person may be happy about the real money won
and may also feel elated about having avoided the zero outcomes. Elation is accompanied by the
joy about having won real money.
Roseman et al (1996) propose the relations between Outcome-Related Disappointment
and Person-Related Disappointments and six appraisal dimensions of disappointment: as
Unexpectedness, Motivational State, Control -Potential, Legitimate, Problem- Source and
Disappointment of Agency. These appraisal dimensions are derived from several different
appraisal theories found to differentiate a large number of emotions.
Unexpectedness of Disappointment
It refers to whether the emotion elicited is expected or unexpected. Several authors like
Friyda (1989) and Shand (1914) stress the importance of unexpectedness in the emotion of
disappointment and that disappointment is aversion partly because people are not prepared for
the Outcome while others like Bell (1986), and Tandman (1993) stress the relationship between
prior probability and disappointment.
The relationship between unexpectedness and disappointment is strong for OutcomeRelated Disappointment and it is because people hold explicit expectations that something
positive would be obtained. This is the reason why when faced with uncertain outcomes, people
try to avoid Outcome-Related Disappointment by lowering their expectations.
Motivational State of Disappointment
It refers to appraising an event as relevant to appetitive motives that is wanting to get or
keep something pleasurable or as appraising an event as relevant to aversive motives that is
wanting to get rid of or avoid something painful. Van Dijk et al (1999) show that disappointment
(Outcome-Related) is more strongly associated with the motivation to obtain something positive
14
than sadness, anger, frustration and regret. It is also associated with wanting to get or keep
something pleasurable than Person-Related Disappointment, Sadness and Anger.
Control Potential of Disappointment
This refers to the perceived ability to control or do something about the event. Friyda et
a l (1986) state that disappointment has been associated with low control. Both OutcomeRelated Disappointment eliciting events and Person-Related Disappointment eliciting events are
appraised as low in Control-Potential, as both types of disappointment are expected to be caused
by another agent other than self. Moreover, it is expected that Person-Related Disappointment is
associated with even lower levels of Control-Potential than Outcome-Related Disappointment.
When a person disappoints you probably very little can be done about the situation because the
other person is the main agent in the situation.
Legitimacy of Disappointment
This refers to whether a person thinks of himself as being morally right in the event. We
expect that Person-Related Disappointment is more strongly appraised as a situation in which
one is morally right than Outcome-Related Disappointments. This expectation is based on the
work of Ortony et al (1988) who argue that some emotions are evaluated in relation to goals,
whereas others are evaluated according to standards. In line with this, Clove, Ortony and Brand
(cited in Clove, Schwartz, and Conway (1994) find that some instances of disappointment cluster
together with emotions like Shame and Embarrassment, which are argued to be standard-based.
By contrast, other instances of disappointment (Outcome-Related) cluster together with emotions
such as sadness and frustration, which are argued to be goal-based. Legitimacy also plays an
important role in anger; this emotion state by Roseman et al (1996), is usually associated with an
appraisal of being morally right.
The Problem Source of Disappointment
15
This refers to whether an event is attributed to characterlogical (thinking that the event
did reveal the basic nature of someone or something) or non-characterlogical factors. We expect
that Person-Related Disappointment is more strongly appraised as revealing the basic nature of
someone or something than Outcome-Related Disappointment. When someone disappoints you,
this is likely to be attributed to character (another example of the fundamental attribution error)
than when one gets for example, a low grade in an examination. Also in this dimension, we
expect that Person-Related Disappointment resembles more anger, whereas Outcome-Related
Disappointments resemble more sadness. Roseman et al (1996) show that anger is more strongly
appraised as revealing the basic nature of someone or something than sadness.
Disappointment of Agency
There are three different types of agency appraisals, that is, Self-Agency (evaluating an
event as caused by the self). The second type is Circumstance-Agency (evaluating an event as
caused by circumstances beyond anyone’s control) and is important in Outcome-Related
Disappointment. The third is other Person-Agency and Person-Related Disappointment is its
appraisal and it is also seen as event-based emotions.
2.1
Causes of Disappointment
The causes of disappointments are numerous and one could be when the victim sets his
expectations too high and he does not have what it takes to meet the high standard. Culturally
determined standard could equally lead to high expectation or even disappointment. There are
big intercultural differences between reasonable expectations in life. It is argued that
disappointment because of its close link with hope, desire and promise is caused by the absence
of a positive outcome (when the result is worse and not as expected).
16
Disappointment can occur when a decision appears to be wrong in retrospect, or when the
obtained decision outcome does not live up to expectations.
Another cause of disappointment is bad decision; when a chosen option ends up being
worse than the option expected and this is because we expect it to be the best but it turns out to
the contrary. The chosen option when worse, gives rise to disappointment.
Disappointment could occur when we do not get promotion, fail an examination or when
friends let us down by spreading rumors behind our back. The death of a loved one, (could be
husband or even children) leads to disappointment. When we feel or wish that events of the
world have turned out not better for us, disappointment sets in. Most people feel disappointed as
a result of a setback. A wife experiences disappointment when her career expectations are
directly affected by her termination from her teaching job. If one has invested more effort, to
attain a desired outcome but fails, it could lead to disappointment.
2.2
Consequences of Disappointment
The consequences of disappointment are numerous. Loomes et al (1986) focusing on
customer’s satisfaction show that disappointment influences dissatisfaction and related behaviors
such as complaining. Shepperd et al (1996) show that individuals tend to abandon their optimism
and may even become pessimistic in anticipation of self-relevant feedbacks. People reduce their
performance estimates to minimize the possibility of performing worse than expected.
Zeelenberg et al (2002) show that the experience of disappointment involves feeling
powerless, a tendency to do nothing but get away from the situation and do nothing, actually
turning away from the event. The psychological results of disappointment vary greatly among
individuals; while some recover quickly, others more in frustration or shame become depressed.
It should be noted that just like disappointment, regret involves feeling intensely that one should
17
have known better, thinking about the possibility that one had made a mistake, wanting to undo
the event and to get a second chance as in the study of consumer dissatisfaction with services by
Pieter et al (1999).
The experience of disappointment results in complaining to the service provider and
talking to others about the bad experience whereas the experience of regret results in switching
over to another service provider. The experience of disappointment will make people reluctant
in making subsequent decisions. Seligman (1975) states that the feeling of powerlessness might
lead people to think that making any decision at all, will not make a difference and could
therefore lead to inertia (57).
Furthermore, there is tendency for people who experience
disappointment to remove themselves from the situation other than those that they are concerned
with when making initial decision. Carver et al (1990) argue that disappointment signal the
relationship between progress towards a goal and expectations regarding one’s rate of progress
and that it could have implications for energy investments and ultimately for action termination
or the abandonment of current goals (85). We also expect disappointment to result in increased
risk aversion. Risky options carry higher potentials for disappointment.
Coleman (1978) lists several examples of shipwreck victims who lose hope and die after a few
days but physiologically would have survived many days longer if not for the loss of hope.
While hopelessness bred by poverty is apathy, values, meaning, and hope appear to act as
catalysts for mobilizing energy and finding satisfaction in life and without them Coleman reports
that life can seem futile.
18
2.3
Avoidance of Disappointments
Disappointment stems from disconfirmed expectancies, so in order to avoid
disappointment one’s expectancies concerning decision outcomes need to be in line with the
obtained outcomes of the decision. Avoiding risk is a simple way of avoiding disappointment.
Another way of avoiding disappointment is by trying to live up to one’s initial
expectations (Armor and Taylor 1998). Averill (1968) says that motivation to avoid
disappointment may prompt the individual to intensify outcome. In other words, people may try
harder to attain a desired outcome. Intensifying effort will generally increase the probability of
attaining a desired outcome, and thereby decrease the probability of getting disappointed.
Feather (1967) suggests that people perceive unexpected negative outcome as more
aversive than expected negative outcomes. Thus when an outcome is unfavourable, the lower
one’s initial expectations, the less one’s dissatisfaction with the actual outcome. When people
are faced with uncertainty regarding the occurrence of a desirable outcome, they may attempt to
avoid the disappointment that would occur if the outcomes are not obtained by underestimating
their chances of obtaining the outcomes in question. The lower one’s expectation, the less likely
it is that it will be higher than the obtained outcome, and the likelihood of disappointment is
correspondingly lower.
Pyszezynski (1986) argues that when a person fears that he will not obtain a highly
desired outcome, one way of preparing for this probability is to convince himself that the
outcome is really not so desirable after all. By derogating the desired but uncertain outcome, one
reduces the negative affect that would result if the outcome is not obtained.
Another way of avoiding disappointment as suggested by Armor and Taylor (1998) is
by setting less specific expectations. Friyda (1987) states that emotions are experienced when an
19
outcome has consequences that are relevant to a person’s concern or belief. Outcomes only
evoke disappointment when they have self-relevant consequences; therefore, the incentive to
lower expectation will be especially strong when an outcome with self-relevant consequences is
at stake.
Apart from self-relevance, another important determinant of whether people lower their
expectations in order to avoid disappointment seems to be the temporal proximity to feedback on
whether an outcome is obtained or not; the incentive of people to lower their expectation should
be strong when the threat to disappointment is immediate. Van Dijk (1999) states another
strategy for avoiding disappointment as investing (extra) effort in obtaining a desired Outcome.
Tykouriski (1998) states that people sometimes change the perceived probabilities of relevant
events post-facto so that the disappointment reality appears almost inevitable and the more
positive alternatives seem highly unlikely thereby avoiding or at least mitigating the experience
of disappointment.
2.4
Psychoanalytic Criticism
Psychoanalytic criticism has its origin in the work of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund
Freud, who pioneered the technique of psychoanalysis.
Freud develops a language that
describes, a model that explains, and a theory that encompasses human psychology. His theories
are directly and indirectly concerned with the nature of the unconscious mind. Through his
multiple case studies, Freud manages to find convincing evidence that most of our actions are
motivated by psychological forces over which we have very limited control Guerin (27). One of
Freud’s most important contributions to the study of the psyche are his theory of repression: the
unconscious mind is repository of repressed desires, feelings, memories, wishes and instructed
20
drives; many of which have to do with sexuality and violence. These unconscious wishes,
according to Freud can find expression in dreams because dreams distort the unconscious
material and make it appear different from itself and more acceptable to consciousness. They
may also appear in other disguised forms, like in language (sometimes called the Freudin slips),
in creative art and in neurotic behaviour. One unconscious desire Freud believes that all human
beings supposedly suppress is the childhood desire to displace the parent of the same sex and to
take over his or her place in the affections of the parent of the opposite sex. The so-called
“Oedipus complex”/”Electron complex” which all children experience as a rite of passage to
adult gender identity, lies at the core of Freud’s sexual theory (Murfin 114).
A principal element in Freud’s theory is the assignment of the mental process to three
psyche zones; the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the personal, irrational and unconscious
part of the psyche; it is the site of the energy of the mind, energy that Freud characterizes as a
combination of sexual libido and other instincts, such as aggression, that propel the human
organism through life. The ego is the term for the predominantly rational, logical, orderly,
conscious part. Another aspect of the psyche which he calls the superego is really a projection
of the ego. The superego must seem to be outside of the self, making moral judgments, telling us
to make sacrifices for good causes even though self-sacrifice may not be quite logical or rational.
And, in a sense, the superego is, ‘outside’ since much of what it tells us to do or think we have
learned from our parents, our schools or our religious institutions.
The deep-seated desires and repression of the unconscious activate the imagination in the
same way that dreams manifest themselves in the sleeping consciousness of the dreamer. Both
are illustrations of wish fulfillment and through Freud’s theories of unconscious one can deduce
21
similarity between dream-work and the creative process. It is the retelling of these desires that
dramas and narratives have their relationship.
It would follow that narrative is the gratification of an author’s desire to express himself.
And for the reader, Freud tells us that “The writer enables us to enjoy our own fantasies without
shame or self reproach (14). Literature speaks to us as though from a dream; it is in itself a
product of that great unknown, the unconscious.
In the light of simple common sense, psychoanalysis cannot be dismissed with a shrug of
the shoulders or a flat refusal to take it serious. However, glaring its exaggerations and faults, it
has come to stay. The modern mind has grown aware of an “other side” to our inner life; in
some form subconscious will play its part in the knowledge and the ethics of man. One glance
over the trend of thought since the renaissance will show us that the new and still newer layers of
our deeper beings have been gradually laid bare. Romanticism was the outstanding event in that
process of self-realization, but that irresistible surge of the long repressed emotion has not been
the only means of their late recognition by an over-intellectual world; even among the
intellectuals and through the rational centuries, men of stronger insight had been at work,
deciphering the hidden play of instincts.
This theory is not without its own shortcomings because a lot of critics like Lacan,
Derrida, Jung, Ricoeur criticize it. Some theoretical criticisms of psychoanalysis are based on
argument that it is over simplistic, subjective, and re -directive, because it reduces everything to
the idea that we are all driven by our sexuality and it does not take into consideration other
factors.
The French structuralist theorist Jacques Lacan focuses on language and language-related
issues. He views the dream not as Freud does but rather as a form of discourse. Thus we may
22
study dreams psychoanalytically in order to learn about literature, even as we may study
literature in order to learn about the unconscious.
According to Lacan the new psychoanalytic structural approach to literature employs analogies
from psychoanalysis to explain the workings of the text as distinct from the workings of a
particular author’s character’s or even reader’s mind.
he, however, did far more than extend Freud’s theory of dreams, literature and the Interpretation
of both. More significantly, he took Freud’s whole theory of psyche and gender and added to it a
crucial third term- that of language. His development of feud has had several important results.
This sexist-seaming association of maleness with the symbolic order, together with his claim that
women cannot therefore enter easily into the order, has prompted feminists not to reject his
theory out of hand but, rather, to look more closely at the relation between language and gender,
language and women’s inequality.
Lacan’s theory has proved of interest to deconstructions and other poststructuralists, in part
because it holds that the ego (which in Freud’s view is as necessary as it is natural) is a product
or construct. The ego-artifact, produced during the minor stage, seems at once unified consistent,
and organized around a determinate center. But the unified self, or ego, is a fiction according to
Lacan. The yoking together of fragments and destructively dissimilar elements takes its psychic
toll, and it is the Job of the Lacanian psychoanalyst to deconstruct as it was the ego to show its
continuities to be contradictions as well.
23
CHAPTER THREE
THE REPRESENTATION OF DISAPPOINTMENT IN THE JOYS OF
MOTHERHOOD, PURPLE HIBISCUS AND MIDAQ ALLEY
Disappointment, an emotion that can shred the heart and spirit, is a common theme in the
three texts under review. It is defeat or failure of expectations, hope, desire or intention;
disappointment’s chilling fingers can reach far into the recesses of one’s soul as it could be read
in Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley.
Depending on the characters or situations, disappointment is mildy or deeply felt by characters
concerned because of their nonachievements of expected outcomes or psychological reactions to
outcomes that do not match expectations.
We are to explore disappointment in the different texts using the six appraisal dimensions
proposed by Roseman, Antoniou and Jose (1996).
These dimensions are Unexpectedness,
Motivational state, Control potential, Legitimacy, Problem source and Disappointment of
agency.
3.1
The Dimension of Unexpectedness/Disappointment
(a)
In Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, we discover the emotional circumstances of the
protagonist Nnuego based on the knowledge of where she is coming from. When Agunwa
Agbadi’s senior wife died, all the things that she would need in her afterlife were gathered and
arranged in her coffin and her personal slave was also laid beside her in the grave. So Agbadi’s
eldest son gave her a sharp blow with the head of the cutlass and another relative gave her a final
blow. But before she gave up she said to Agbadi: “Thank you for this kindness, Nwokocha the
son of Agbadi. I shall come back to your household, but as a legitimate daughter. I shall come
back…” (23)
24
So Ona, Nnuego’s mother (though Agbadi’s mistress) conceives and gives birth to Nnuego, a
reincarnation of the slave girl on a revenge mission.
For the fact that Nnuego’s spirit is on revenge mission, there is no way she could have
had a smooth life; so she falls into the Unexpected/disappointed group. Going by Friyda’s (1986)
view of disappointment as non-achievement of an expected outcome, Nnuego does not achieve
an expected result and has been brought up to believe that children make a woman. That her old
age would be happy and when she dies, there will be somebody left behind to refer to her as
mother. She hopes for a fulfilled fruitful motherhood–to be remembered by her kids with a
befitting burial. She lives for her children almost to the point of fanaticism and even attempts
suicides when she loses her first son Ngozi.
She hopes that one of her children would be like Abby who has really made her mother
proud and as a result would not suffer in her old age as well as in her present life. Nnuego’s life
and duty for her children resemble a ‘chain of slavery’. She has to scrape and save to pay for her
son’s fees and for the twins they have to stay at home for the boys’ education to go ahead. She is
left with dying hopes and demanding children when money stops coming from her husband after
the war; out of hopelessness and self pity she breaks down. Oshia blames her for not having a
peaceful childhood (the selling of paraffin and carrying of firewood) and she says; “Oh, God,
please kill her with these babies she was carrying, rather than let the children she hoped for so
much pour sand into her eyes” (185).
Nnuego works herself to the “bones” to look after her children and even shies away from
friendship telling herself that she does not need any friend; she has enough in her family. She
says:
25
“If you don’t have children the longing for them will kill you and if you do, the
worry over them will kill you” (212).
Nnuego does not know how to be anything else but mother. “Taking the
children from me is like taking away the life I have always known, the life I am
used to” (222).
She soon discovers that there is no joy in motherhood as she has thought or made to
believe. Nnuego is like those not-so-well informed Christians, who, when promised the kingdom
of Heaven, believe that it is literally just round the corner and that Jesus Christ is coming on the
morrow. Her hopes are all dashed because by the time her children grow up the values of her
country, her people and her tribe have changed drastically, to the extent that a woman with many
children like her, could face a lonely old age, and miserable death all alone, just like a barren
woman and that parents get only reflected glory from their children. She knows that she has
missed the point but her consolation is being a mother whose sons would drive about in big cars,
with poor family background and might rub shoulders one day with the great men of Nigeria.
What actually breaks her down is her disappointment: failing to hear from her two sons that
travelled abroad. It is from rumors that she hears Oshia has gotten married to a white woman.
What a sad news for Nnuego!
(b)
Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus
In Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus Eugene Achike was brought up by a Catholic priest. He went to
a missionary school and he is a knight of St. John, a philanthropist who always donates to the
church and he is known for helping people. He is very religious, but in spite of all these, he is a
different man to his immediate family.
26
Papa Nnukwu is disappointed in Eugene Achike, his son, now a very rich man or the
richest in Abba who refuses to relate with him unless he becomes a Catholic Christian. He had
high hopes and great expectations for his son Eugene when he allowed him into the missionary
school. Papa Nnukwu still lives in a thatched house though Eugene offers to build a house, buy a
car and hire a driver for him if only he would convert to Catholicism and also throw away his
‘Chi.’ Eugene does not visit his father but only sends ‘slim wads of Naira’ through his driver or
any of his Umunna. He has no care or love for his father and would not want to associate with
him or his kind. This is why he sends Anikwenwa the worshipper of idol away from his
compound and Anikwenwa’s reply to Eugene is: “Ifukwa gi! You are like a fly blindly following
a corpse into the grave” (70).
Papa Nnukwu is disappointed in the white man because they teach that “the son and
father are equal” and that is why Eugene disrespects him for he thinks he is equal with his father.
Papa Nnukwu once tells Father Amadi not to lie to the poor ignorant souls he is converting by
misleading them instead of telling them the truth. He advises the missionary, “Never teach
children to disregard their fathers” (170).
Eugene calls his father a heathen and forbids his children from eating in their
grandfather’s house. Aunty Ifeoma is equally disappointed in Eugene because of the way he
relates with their father. With a very wealthy brother, Aunty Ifeoma expects her brother Eugene
to help her whenever the need arises. Aunty Ifeoma is also disappointed in Eugene’s handling of
his family like the beating of his children, punishing them unreasonably by pouring hot water on
their legs, and denying them freedom; they live in fear. She tells Eugene’s wife: “This cannot go
on, Nwuye m” when a house is on fire, you run out before the roof collapses on your head”
27
(209). Aunty Ifeoma promises taking Kambili from the hospital to Nsukka and even asks their
mother to equally pack her things and come with them to Nsukka for her safety.
Kambili, though she tries to please her father all her life, she could not help being
disappointed in him on several occasions. The children are not allowed to speak Igbo; their
grandfather lives in a thatched hut but Eugene has a modern three-story building in the village;
he wants his children to call their paternal father ‘grandfather’ and not “Papa Nnukwu or
Nnaochie”. They should visit Papa Nnukwu but not to touch his food, drink, and not stay longer
than fifteen minutes but could stay as much as they like with their maternal grandfather a
catechist. When his wife greets the Igwe the traditional way of bending low and offering her
back, Eugene says it is sinful and ungodly. On visiting the Bishop at Awka, because Kambili
does not kneel to kiss his ring, her father yanks her ear in the car and says; “She did not have the
spirit of discernment: the bishop was a man of God; the Igwe was merely a traditional ruler”
(94). Kambili is disappointed in the church because of what often happens there. Throughout the
Mass the priest does not talk about the gospel but talks only about zinc and cement; the front
pews of the church are reserved for important people like the Achikes, Chief Umeadi and the
Igwe. At the fund raising of the multi-purpose hall her father writes a “fat” cheque and the priest
starts dancing, jerking his behind, this way and that (90). Exhibiting the money-mindedness of
the priest.
Above all, Father Benedict tells Kambili it was wrong to take joy in pagan rituals when
she confesses of her looking at Muo - masquerades because it breaks the first commandment and
he says, “pagan rituals are misinformed superstition, and they are the gateway to Hell” (106).
Eugene will rather confess to Father Benedict a white priest and speak in English than
confess in Igbo to a black parish priest in Abba. Kambili feels very disappointed in her mother
28
who she expects to step in whenever they are in trouble with their father but to her utmost
dismay, she fails on such occasions like in the case of the pouring of hot water on their legs;
beating the three of them with his iron belt, the chopping of Jaja’s hand, and lastly beating them
when Papa Nnukwu’s paintings is found on them. To this, Kambili likens her father to the Fulani
Nomads “who herd their cows across the roads in Enugu with a switch, each smack of the switch
swift and precise” (102). When her mother says she is seriously ill, while in fact she is
recovering in hospital; “she wanted to push her away, to shake her so hard that she would topple
over the chair” (209).
Kambili’s final disappointment comes after her father’s death and the autopsy carried on
him reveals poison in his body and her mother confesses poisoning his tea with a concoction
gotten from Sisi’s powerful witch doctor (Uncle). In her wildest dream she could not believe her
mother could hurt a fly talk more of poisoning or killing her father because she has never heard
her talk nor act. With all the riches in Eugene’s house, there is no laughter as compared to Aunty
Ifeoma’s house where they barely have enough to eat but are very happy and are also as free as
the air.
The disappointment of Aunty Ifeoma’s children, especially Amaka over the Achike’s
children, not having the right exposure even with all their father’s wealth. This is even worse
with Kambili’s inability to answer question without stuttering and this compels Amaka to
observe: “they behave strange and funny as if something is not right with them” (141).
Disappointments could also be noted on the Government: the various roadblocks by the
police use in extorting money from the road users and equally causing accidents on the roads, the
oppression found in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, as in the case of the Sole Administrator
who wants Aunty Ifeoma either to shut-up or lose her job. The Standard Trust is the only
29
newspaper that dares tell the truth about the corruption of the politicians; the military men being
power drunk; stories about cabinet ministers who stock their foreign bank accounts with money
meant for paying teachers salaries and building of roads.
These attract the soldiers who
confiscate every copy of the entire publication, smash furniture and printers and lock-up the
office. The editor, Mr. Coker is arrested and is eventually killed by a letter bomb; solders are
found in the market maltreating poor women by demolishing their vegetable stalls all in the
name of illegal structures; the government that is meant to protect its citizens, but the reverse is
the case. These are all matters of disappointment.
(c)
Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley
Most characters in Midaq Alley fall into the emotion eliciting expected-event category.
The economic harshness found in Midaq Alley is great because during the British/German war it
is a ghetto housing a lot of poor people. Most of these characters who are helpless like Hamida,
Abbas, Hussain Kirsha, Radwin Hussan, Sheikh Darwish, and Salim Alwan. Hamida is over
optimistic in her dreams and this leads to her being disappointed in life and we could understand
her better when seen through the concepts of disappointment and unfulfilled desires.
We examine Hamida’s disappointment in relation to her desire to enjoy the finest things
in life full of gaiety, prosperity, dignity and happiness as promised by Ibrahim Faraj. She
abandons Abbas her fiancé for a more comfortable life. She dreams of a husband like the rich
contractor her neighbor has married, not Abbas, who is good looking but very poor. She has
always wanted to be a film star and Faraj knowing her dreams tells her, she does not belong to
the Alley. How can she live among these people? “You are a princess in a shabby cloak while
these peasants strut in their new finery” (143).
30
In his promise to her, Faraj expresses all her hopes, dreams and desires as if she had
stated them for him. His words reveal to her what has been obscured and hidden giving form to it
all. So that she could almost see every thing she desires before her eyes. With him by her side,
her yearning for release into the light, to dignity and power is assured. Her dreams for cloths,
jewelries, money, and men are now fulfilled with all the power authority gives her. After the
problem she has with Faraj who she thinks is in love with her, she even persuades him to marry
her. Though she has no desire for motherhood because it will confine her to the home with all the
duties of a wife but after Faraj’s rejection of her love she reminisces; “How had everything come
to an end so quickly?” (223). Henceforth Hamida sees Faraj as a sex merchant who only plays
the part of ardent lover in making her dependent upon him emotionally and financially. He has
always reminded her of Midaq Alley where she is brought up by criticising the flaw in her voice
and nails and this hurts and humiliates her. Hamida feels bad because she no longer has that
freedom for which she has risked her whole life. Now tortured by a sense of imprisonment and
humiliation, she sadly recalls so many days and nights when he only speaks of his love and
admiration for her; but now it is only the work and profit that matter to him. With this
disappointment she lures Abbas against the man who has been exploiting her so heartlessly and
he becomes the instrument of her revenge and unpleasant consequences.
Almost all the characters experience the emotion of disappointment in Midaq Alley.
Hamida’s image raises hopes and desires for Abbas who is no longer contented with the Alley
but now travels to Tel-el-Kebir to make the money that will change their lives. On the last day
of their meeting before he travels Abbas tells Hamida: “I’m sad that I’m going far away from
you, yet glad that this long path I’ve chosen is the only one leading to you. I leave my heart with
you, in the alley” (92).
31
By the time he comes back on his short holidays he is told Hamida has disappeared.
Abbas’s hopes and dreams are now shattered. He brings with him a box containing a gold
necklace with a small dangling heart as a wedding present and whenever he recalls his joy in the
goldsmith’s shop where he selects the gift he feels sad and helpless that Hamida has disappeared.
“To Abbas life without Hamida is an insupportable burden and completely without purpose”. His
enthusiasm has gone now leaving him with nothing but a
numbing
indifference.
“His
life
seems a bottomless void enclosed by a black despair” (204).
Through his love for her, he has discovered the only meaning of his life; now he sees no
reason for living. He loves Hamida deeply and he feels completely secure and confident in this
love and for the past two months at Tel-el-kebir he has dreams of happiness while disaster awaits
nearby to snatch it away from him. When eventually they meet at Sharif street while Hamida is
in a carriage, he tries to recover the girl he has once loved. The experience is shattering and he is
overcome with a sense of futility of life. On spotting Hamida in the midst of soldiers in a tavern,
he hurls a bottle at her with all the force of the anger and despair in him. Angry soldiers beat
him to death; even Hussain could not save him and he loses everything including his life. Yet
Hamida lives for she is taken to the hospital where she is treated and now lives with her mother,
in the Alley she once hated.
Hussain Kirsha is the son of the café owner. He has hopes and dreams and has always
wanted luxuries just like Hamida’s. He needs an exciting future and works with the British Army
to increase his standard of living and finances. He could now afford living the modern way of
having electricity, become a gentleman and marry a respectable girl-the daughter of a gentleman.
He enjoys partying and gambling a lot but it is all shattered when the army lay him off. He
32
crawls back to the Alley for shelter with a wife and no penny on him to look after his pregnant
wife and brother in-law.
Radwin Hussainy especially in his early stages feels disappointed and distressed. The
period he spends studying at the University of al-Azhar ends in failure.
He spends a
considerable portion of life within its cloisters without obtaining a degree. Besides, he has been
afflicted with the loss of his children and now none remains, although he had several. He has
tasted the bitterness of disappointment so much that his heart overflows with despair that nearly
chokes him.
Sheikh Darwish in his youth has been an English teacher in one of the religious schools.
When the religious foundation schools merge with the Ministry of Education his position
changes like that of many of his associates. This affects his salary for he becomes very
rebellious, and disappointed due to poverty and the large size of his family. He is among the last
persons always to leave the coffee shop very late at night and he always lets his feet lead him
where they wish for he has no home and no purpose in life.
Another disappointed character in Midaq Alley is Salim Alwan.
He is a wealthy
merchant, with hopes and dreams of getting a title and marrying a young lady like Hamida
because according to him, ‘his wife is now old’ but he is struck with stroke as he makes
preparation to marry Hamida. He becomes very hostile because he could not do things he would
love to do before and he is also afraid of dying; when Abbas dies, he is filled with sorrow, a fact
that death has forced its way into the alley. Dark thoughts, sick fancies of the throes of death,
and of the grave all come back to him. In his office he trembles with fear and panic for he is a
shattered man who is now helpless and hopeless.
3.2 Motivational State
33
Motivational state refers to appraising an event as relevant to appetitive motives (wanting
to get or keep something pleasurable or as appraising an event) as relevant to aversive motiveswanting to get rid of or avoid something painful. We also explore the motivational state as found
in the three texts.
(a)
Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood
In Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood most of the characters especially Nnuego, Nnaife,
Adaku, etc fall into this group because they want to get or keep something pleasurable. In line
with the above, Zeelenberg (2002) reports that disappointment is most likely to occur when the
people are pursuing something pleasurable, when they feel they have a moral right to their goal,
when the failure to obtain the goal is unexpected, or when the failure is caused by circumstances
beyond their control.
In the case of Nnuego, she gets married in order to bear children which is something
pleasurable. In the case of Nnaife, he invests in Oshia, his son, in order to help in the training of
others and Adaku agrees to be Nnaife’s wife because she wants a male child which will enhance
her chances of possession in Owulum’s compound. Nnuego’s expectations and hope are very
high after her marriage to Amatokwu but months pass with her not being pregnant. She now
goes from one dibia to another and is told the same thing – that the slave woman who is her
“Chi” would not give her a child because she had been dedicated to a river goddess before
Agbadi took her away in slavery.
Clore and Collins (1988) stress that the intensity of
disappointment is affected by hope; that is, high hopes give rise to more intense disappointments
if these hopes are dashed.
Nnuego is disappointed because she hopes like every other woman who gets betrothed to
be pregnant in the next two or three months after her marriage. She has always hoped to have a
34
child of her own and this leads her into breastfeeding her mate’s but she is caught and beaten by
her husband who sends her back to her father (Agbadi).
Nnuego later marries Nnaife, an ugly man who is far from what she expects but
fortunately for her, he gives her nine children; though two die she learns to accept him as her
husband. Another one of such disappointments is that Nnaife (Nnuego’s husband) invests in his
children especially Oshia on who he spends all the money he earns in the army for him to go to
college while the other children have to wait. Oshia is to help in the training of his brothers
Adim and Nnamdi with his parents later but he refuses instead travels to the United States for
further studies. Nnaife does not show up at the airport on the day Oshia travels to the United
States, because according to Nnaife, Oshia has “spat in my face so why give up my days work”
(202).
He is also disappointed in Nnuego who uses him as a tool to produce the children she
could not have with her first husband, for that is the only reason for accepting or tolerating him.
Nnaife thinks Nnuego’s children are a blessing to him but later he feels they are a curse because
none of them shows parental love and loyalty to him. For Kehinde, one of the twins says she
wants to marry and live with. Ladipo, the butcher’s son an abomination in Ibuza; she does not
want an Ibuza man. He, Nnaife is arrested by the police and jailed for attempting to murder the
Ladipos (butchers). He is already a broken man at the time of his release and he goes back
disappointed to Ibuza to live with his younger wife Okpo.
Adaku’s disappointment is her rejection by her husband Nnaife for having only daughters
and is “making a lot of money”. She also knows Nnaife comes to her as a second choice when
Nnuego is not around. Also disappointed in Nwakusor’s statement during her quarrel with
Nnuego. Nwakusor feels that since Adaku has no son for the family, she has no right to complain
35
about Nnuego’s misconduct; Nwakusor says: “Don’t you know that according to the custom of
our people you, Adaku the daughter of whoever you are, are committing an unforgivable sin?”
(166). Adaku’s disappointment for a husband forces her leaving Nnaife and giving education to
her two girls to make them independent of their men.
(b)
Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus
We also explore the motivational state in which Kambili’s mother has to put up with
whatever treatment given her by her husband Eugene Achike all in the name of still remaining
his wife. So that she wouldn’t give him the reason to marry from parents who are ready to give
up their daughters if only to enjoy part of Eugene’s wealth. Having endured for long the
continual battering of her children, herself, and worse still her loss of pregnancies because of
Eugene’s murderous temper, Beatrice Achike out of extreme disappointment, procures poison
through Bisi’s powerful witch doctor to eliminate her tyrannical husband. She is tired of his maltreatment of herself and her children. She feels poisoning Eugene to death would solve their
problems.
Kambili and Jaja fall into this group because they fail to understand why their fathet acts
the way he does and they become very wild. They refuse to take instruction from their father as
seen in the case of their visiting Aunty Ifeoma at Nsukka.
With all the riches found in the Achike’s big family house, the children prefer Nsukka where
there is laughter and barely enough food to eat.
Aunty Ifeoma wants to avoid something painful, therefore, she travels to America with
her children to escape the oppression and the high handedness found in the University of Nigeria,
Nsukka, under the Sole Administrator who wants her either to shut-up or lose her job.
36
(c)
Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley
The state of disappointment we discover in Mahfouz’s character falls into two groups:
wanting to keep something pleasurable and also wanting to get rid of something painful.
In Hamida’s case she gets into prostitution because of her desire to enjoy the finest things
like gaiety, prosperity, dignity, and happiness. She always wants to live like the independent
Jewish woman but not as a traditional Islamic woman bond by clutches of Islamic religion.
Abbas leaves the Alley for Tel-el-Kebir in order to make money that will change his life;
for the love of Hamida he has discovered the only meaning in his life. To Abbas life without
Hamida is an insupportable burden without purpose. Abbas abandoning the Alley he loves dearly
for Tel-el-Kebir, joining the army everyone knows he is thrown into panic at the sound of a siren
during air raid. All his efforts are geared towards getting something pleasurable.
Hussain Kirsha hates the Alley because of the poor life found there. He wants the
modern way of living with the basic amenities of life and this is why he prefers working in the
British army where he is paid a higher salary than working in his father’s café where he has
always known poverty.
Characters like Radwin Hussainy and Sheikh Darwish want to avoid painful
circumstances. And for Hussainy, his faith in God has rescued him from the sorrows of light, of
love, and his heart now no longer holds grief or anxiety. He is always filled with an all
embracing love, goodness, and wonderful patience. Hussainy once says while laying one of his
dead sons to mother-earth that “He gave and He takes back; all things are at His Command and
all things belong to Him. It would be blasphemous to sorrow”(8).
37
In order for Darwish Sheikh to avoid his pain after his demotion from sixth to eighth
grade and also the salary cut, he becomes a messenger of God. He deserts his family, friends and
acquaintances and wanders off into the world of God.
3.3
Legitimacy
This refers to whether a person thinks of him or herself as being morally right in a
situation/environment. In line with legitimacy, we discover that almost all the characters from
the three texts feel they have moral right in the situation or environment they find themselves.
(a)
Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood
In the case of Emecheta’s Nnuego and Nnaife from Ibuza their African traditional culture
dictates that children should cater and take over from parents in the event of old age, sickness, or
death. Oshia and his siblings are expected to do so for their parents. Nnuego hopes that her
children would take good care of her at old age and give her a befitting burial. Unfortunately,
none of the children does so. Nnuego dies disappointed and heartbroken without succor of any
kind.
(b)
Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus
In the case of Eugene and Beatrice Achike of Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, Eugene is
brought up by a Rev. Father who pours hot water on his legs as punishment for sins committed.
In like manners, Eugene punishes his children whenever they transgress his rules of behavior.
His momentary show of humane feelings when he injures members of his family, is hardly out
of love or compassion. To harm someone intentionally and take the person to the hospital is not a
sign of love.
Eugene as a result of his fanaticism, hates everything that goes against his narrow,
thoughtless Catholic views. Consequently his family members groan under severe deprivation
38
and oppression. It is not surprising that his wife Beatrice gradually poisons him as a form of
payback or revenge. For Beatrice, Eugene’s death is well deserved: a duty she owes herself and
her children.
(c)
Mahfouz’s Miday Alley
Miday Alley is not exceptional. Hamida calls off her engagement with Abbas after he
leaves for Tel-el-Kabir to follow Faraj the sex merchant. For her it is a moral right. When
eventually she meets Abbas she says she is not sorry for what she has done because “I wanted
one thing, and the fates wanted another” (227). Abbas’s presence no longer arouses feelings of
affection nor regret in her. She states it unequivocably: “This is my life”, “It’s over between us
and, that’s all there is to it, we’re complete strangers and I can’t go back and you can’t change
me.” (227).
Abbas feels bad when he finds Hamida sitting amidst a crowd of soldiers with legs
stretched on the lap of another soldier sitting opposite her. Incensed by jealousy and anger Abbas
charges madly into the tavern roaring with frenzy and with an empty beer glass he hurls at
Hamida; the glass strikes Hamida in the face. The enraged soldiers swoop on Abbas and beat
him to death.
Other characters Zaita and Dr. Booshy feel they also have moral right’s because Zaita is
connected in make-up art in beggar circles since his boyhood as a child of a beggar parents.
People come to him to be made beggars and with his extraordinary craft, and the tools piled on
the shelf he would cripple each customer in a manner appropriate to his body. “They come to
him whole and leave blind, rickety, hunch-backed, pigeon-breasted or with arms or legs cut off
short” (48). For Dr. Booshy the only friend Zaits has, they search graves of the dead at night
extracting golden teeth of dead people which Dr. Booshy uses as replacements of bad teeth on
39
living people until they are caught by the police and imprisoned. They feel morally right because
Zaita creates artificial cripples of a new type, helping people place food on their table while Dr.
Booshy was making it easy for the poor people to replace their bad teeth with stolen golden teeth
at reduced costs.
3.4
Problem Source
This refers to whether an event is attributed to characterlogical (thinking that the event
reveals the basic nature of someone or something or non characterlogical factors). We expect
that Person-Related Disappointment is more strongly appraised as revealing the basic nature of
someone or something.
(a)
Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood
With reference to problem source of disappointment we see in Emecheta’s The Joys of
Motherhood that events bring out their real characters. The disappointment found in Nnaife and
Oshia, is Person-Related because it reveals their basic nature. Nnaife gets angry quickly and
enjoys drinking palm wine to make himself happy. He becomes impatient with Oshia after his
schooling and having worked at the Technical Institute for sometime, his father expects him to
take responsibilities for educating his younger ones so that he could retire. Oshia’s response
angers him the more for he says:
“I don’t understand, Father. You mean I should feed them and you too.
But you are alive and well and, still working” (200). “I can’t take over,
Father, I am going to the states I have won scholarship, though I shall have
to pay for my board. I did even hope that you and mother might help me
out” (200).
40
Still out of anger, Nnaife tells Oshia that he cursed the day he was conceived and wishes he had
died instead of his first son Ngozi “He is no longer my son, Regard him as one of the lost ones”.
(201). Nnaife fails to see him off on the day he leaves for the United States because he finds it
hard to believe. Still out of anger, Nnaife rejects Kehinde’s choice of husband( Ladipo’s) – a
union he consider’s an abomination. To calm his emotional trauma, he gets drunk. But on
hearing that Kehinde is missing he almost kills somebody – an action that earns him a long jail
term for which he loses his mind by the time he was out of jail.
Oshia is insensitive and self-centred. He ignores the family’s financial predicament in
favour of his personal ambition for higher education. He tells his father: “I can do without seeing
your face, old man! (201) and actually does so for years. Oshia does not want to live like his
parents but would further his education. Adim is heart broken but resolved to working hard to
achieve his success with or without the help from his brother Oshia.
Nnuego’s trauma as a reincarnated spirit of the slave girl avails her nothing. On her return
to Ibuza from Lagos she is rejected by Nnaife’s people who brand her a bad woman. All the
pains and efforts she puts into training her children without the help of her husband, are not
appreciated. Her only joy is that those same children might rub shoulders one day with the great
men of Nigeria. Because none of her sons especially Oshia and Adim remembers or writes her,
her health and mind start deteriorating fast without anyone caring until she dies.
Adaku is known to be very ambitious and does not fail to take advantage of
circumstances as when Nnuego travels to Ibuza for her father’s burial and Nnaife comes to visit.
She collects the money from Nnaife and starts a big stall for herself, giving Nnuego only five
thousand Naira of the money given to her by Nnaife her husband.
41
The way she fights her way into Nnaife’s house when she comes from Ibuza to Lagos all
in the name of wanting him only for the fact that she needs a male child is a case in point. When
she is fed up she packs out of the marriage, and relocates to Zoba market. She sends her two
daughters to school to acquire education to better themselves and become independent women,
not minding whether she is called a prostitute or not. She is the antithesis of Nnuego who is still
tied to the old tradition of her people.
(b)
Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley
In Midaq Alley, the characters exhibit their true nature. Hamida’s greed for wealth leads
her into trouble and prostitution. She feels she is a shame and a waste in the alley where she does
not see any body fit to marry her except Hussain Kirsha . Hamida maintains that all who live in
the alley are nonentities. She hates her mother because she lives in the alley and says she cannot
differentiate between dust and gold dust but would want to be one of the Jewish girls who work
and go about with nice dresses and are very independent of religion and tradition.
Hussain Kirsha happens to be one of the cleverest people in the alley. He is known for
his energy, intelligence and courage and could be most aggressive at times. He begins by
working in his father’s café but because their personalities conflict he leaves to work in a bicycle
shop. He hates life in the alley, the scandals, disgrace his father causes, the fiery quarrels and
scenes at home. He dislikes his family and for that reason he throws himself into the arms of the
British army. His new life doubles his dissatisfaction with his home and he goes away but later
returns with no penny, his pregnant wife and brother to the alley to stay with his father. He says;
“I left the alley forever, but Satan pulled me back to it. I know, I’ll set fire to it. That’s the only
way to free myself from it” (217).
42
Abbas is gentle, good-natured and inclined towards peace, tolerance and kindness. He
continues to work as a barber for ten years and loves everything in the alley because he is
contented to fill his leisure time with card playing and idle gossip with his friends at the coffee
house. His spirit of satisfaction with his lot is reflected in his quiet eyes. The love for Hamida
takes him out of the alley for the first time. Because of his good nature he trusts Hamida, falls in
love with her and even travels to Tel-el Kebir all in a bid to satisfy her and make more money in
order to fit into what she wants.
On his short visit, he comes home with a ring but is
disappointed for Hamida has eloped with another man. He finds her in the midst of soldiers
drinking and he loses his life while fighting with the soldiers.
(c)
Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus
In Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, Jaja always assumes responsibilities like standing in for
Kambili and taking responsibilities for all her shortcomings before her father. And even standing
in for his mother by owning up that he kills his father with rat poison.
As for Kambili, she pleases her father even at her own detriment. When poison is
discovered during her father’s autopsy she almost chokes her mother to death while asking her
why she did it. She even offers masses for her father every Sunday without the knowledge of her
brother Jaja or mother for fear of rejection or betrayal of trust.
Aunty Ifeoma is strong willed; though she attended the same missionary school with her
brother Eugene. She could understand and accept her father (Papa Nnukwu) who has refused to
join the Christian faith. She refuses changing Amaka’s school, or join the knights even for a new
car from her brother Eugene. She could stand up to Eugene and tell him the truth most people
fear to tell him. Aunty Ifeoma exhibits love to everybody around her.
43
It is in her house that Kambili and Jaja learn what love is; sharing even when there is very
little and having a sense of freedom and belonging. They enjoy laughter in Aunty Ifeoma’s house
because she encourages her kids believing they would scale the rod and are not suppressed like
the Achikes, whose father does all the thinking and he is fanatically tyrannical. Kambili and Jaja
scale most hurdles because they are terrified they could not, they know the result of failing which
is punishment from their father.
Papa Nnukwu, manifests a better understanding of God than Eugene his son who prays
for his conversion so that he will be saved from hell. While Papa Nnukwu prays for Eugene with
the same earnestness that he prays for himself and aunty Ifeoma that God should protect all his
children and grand children. Though ignored by his son Eugene who does not give him enough
money or build a house for him, he is contented with the little he has. He keeps to his traditional
belief until his death.
Eugene a hypocrite until his death wills out half of his estate to St. Agnes Church and to
the fostering of missions in the church. He anonymously donates to the children’s hospitals,
motherless babies homes, and disabled veterans of the civil war. He insists that his kids should
not speak Igbo in public and would not receive Holy Communion or make confession to a black
priest. He calls his father a heathen and offers to build a house, buy a car and hire a driver for
him if only he could convert to Christianity and throw away his ‘Chi’. He lives a double life and
runs a newspaper that fights corruption but he is not philanthropic enough to his nuclear family
and non-Catholics. He sends Anikwenwa away from his house because he is an idol worshipper
like his father, Papa Nnukwu.
Another character whose disappointment reveals her basic nature is Beatrice, a woman
whose fear of losing her husband to other women and making more children haunt all through
44
and prevents her from speaking for either herself or her children. “She says to her children “the
members of our Umunna even sent people to your father to urge him to have children with
someone else. But your father stayed with me, with us” (20). She is also physically and
emotionally disturbed especially with her various miscarriages and during the autopsy saga, we
see her at her worst. She could not mourn nor attend the memorial service of her husband she
poisoned to death. She becomes a ghost of herself while rocking herself and looking into empty
space without communicating with anybody.
3.5
Disappointment of Agency
There are three different types of Agency appraisal, namely: Self-Agency (evaluating an
event as caused by the self); Other- Person Agency (evaluating an event as caused by someone
else); Circumstances -Agency (evaluating an event as caused by circumstances beyond anyone’s
control). We shall now explored the three texts based on Disappointment of Agency as
mentioned above seeing what actually causes the disappointment of the characters whether the
disappointments are due to Self – (themselves),
Other-Person or if the events of the
disappointment are circumstances beyond the characters’ controls.
(a)
Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood
We start with the characters found in Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood. It is
discovered that with these characters especially Nnuego, Nnaife and Adaku, the events that lead
to their various disappointments are based on circumstances beyond their controls. Nnuego
hopes for fruitful motherhood and to be remembered by her kids with a befitting burial; so, she
has to scrape and save for her children. She soon discovers that there is no joy in motherhood as
she believes because by the time the children grow up the values of her country, her people and
45
her tribe change drastically to the extent that a woman with many children like her, could face a
lonely old age, a miserable death all alone just like a barren woman.
In the case of Adaku she is a mother with two girls, she could not have a male child and
be recognized like Nnuego who has three male children. According to Ibuza tradition she would
not have honor in her husband’s home; at death her corpse will return to her father’s house.
For Nnaife his disappointment is immense. His son Oshia and the girls, especially
Kehinde, refuse to obey him in any way. And in the case of Oshia we see his disappointment as
Self-agency and this stems from his nature of being selfish. He wants to get the best and does not
want to be like his poor parents. He fails to help his old parents when they need it, especially as
his father’s responsibility has increased since he is now the head of Owulum’s family.
(b)
Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus
In Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus we find these characters moving from self -agency to
Other-Person agency. It is important to remember that Eugene Achike is not the only one who
attended the missionary school. Aunty Ifeoma the sister also did. So, it is not the Catholic priest
that makes him a monster; but it stems from his nature. So he is of self agency disappointment.
In the case of Beatrice, the event of her disappointment is attributable to self -agency and
Other-person agency. Her killing her husband is out of defense from the various tortures given to
her and her children by her callous husband who has never given them any freedom. Eugene’s
death is a payback: a revenge against man’s inhumanity to man.
(c)
Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley
With Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley we discover the use of the three disappointment agencies:
Self, Circumstances beyond oneself and Other-Person Disappointment.
46
In the case of Hamida, Hussain, and Darwish, we discover that their disappointment was
of Circumstance beyond their control because they hate being poor, and they are running away
from the ghetto called Midaq Alley and its inhabitants. They want the good things of life and the
beauty that goes with modern lives. They could not take the economic hardship they find
themselves in; so theirs is circumstance beyond their control. For Abbas, he is of other person
agency because his leaving the alley for Tel-el-Kebir is only to please Hamida. With the little
money he gets out of his barbing business he is contented but the love for Hamida destroys his
contentment of the alley.
For characters like Kirsha the café owner, Zaita and Dr. Booshy theirs are of Selfagency.
For Kirsha he prefers having sex with younger boys and Zaita takes delight in
disfiguring people to become beggars because it gives him much pleasure. And Dr. Booshy
enjoys exploiting the rich for the poor to enjoy the things of the affluent; so he digs up golden
teeth, fixing then for the poor until he is caught and sent to jail.
3.6
Effects of Disappointment
The various characters in the three texts are interesting; we discover that while some
could cope very well with disappointment, others do not. Emotions are the spices of our daily
lives. They evaluate our going actions, colour our choices, give us feedbacks on whether the
decisions we have taken turn out favourably or not. Emotions warn us when it is time to give up
unrealistic expectations, or enhance our belief that clinging to an illusion will bring desired
results, whenever there are confrontation between expectations and realities.
(a)
Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood
In Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood the main character Nnuego fails to cope very well
with disappointment because the dibia says “Nnuego’s painful lump on her head is from the
47
beating your men gave her before she fell into the grave as a slave in her former life. She will
always have trouble with that head. If she has a fortunate life, the head will not play up but if she
is unhappy, it will trouble her both physically and emotionally” (27). With the above knowledge,
we are not surprised when Nnuego discovers Ngozi dead on that fateful morning and dashes to
the Carter Bridge to commit suicide.
She is troubled both physically and emotionally and she is never in control of events in
her life or able to control her emotions. After her husband’s imprisonment and everybody blames
her for not bringing up her children properly even when she deprives herself of all the good
things of life to be able to provide for her children. She is blamed her for not playing her role as a
mother. At Ibusa she is rejected by her husband’s people and she goes to live with her father’s
people. And to worsen an already bad situation her two sons abandon her and it is at this point
that she comes to the realization that there is no joy in motherhood but regret and
disappointment. It was after wandering one night that she lies down by the roadside thinking
that she has arrived home and dies quietly with no child to hold her hand, no friend to talk to, but
just herself in her lonely world. In fact her type of disappointment is that of Circumstances
beyond her control.
Nnaife her husband also fails to manage his disappointment because according to him his
children are a disappointment especially Oshia and Kehinde. The last straw is his being jailed for
five years for the sake of his children and Nnuego’s revelation of his inability to cater for his
family during the cross examination by the lawyer in the court. By the time he is discharged
from prison he is no longer himself but a shell of his old-self.
(b)
Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus
48
In Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus Beatrice could not manage her disappointment due to the
‘wicked nature of her husband, who she poisons to death and eventually goes berserk – a case of
other person agency disappointment and circumstances beyond her control.
(c)
Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley
In Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley most of the characters could not manage their
disappointments. Hamida’s hopes, dreams, and desire for adventure and her obsession for
freedom and gaiety lead her into the hands of Faraj who fulfills her desire for clothes, jewelry,
money, power, dignity and men but could not satisfy her longing for emotional control over her
lover. On leaving Faraj she comes across Abbas, her ‘fiancé’ before she elopes with the other
man Faraj. Perplexed and not sure where to turn, her disappointment drives her into the hands of
soldiers who manhandle and beat Abbas, her jealous lover to death.
Another character who could not cope with disappointment is Abbas. After coming back
from Tel-el-Kebir to discover that Hamida his ‘fiancée’ has eloped with another man, he loses
hope of living because according to him, it is her love that gives him meaning in life. On seeing
Hamida in the midst of soldiers, Abbas loses his mind and rushes into the tavern to attack her
and consequently gets beaten to death by irate soldiers. He fails to manage his disappointment as
a result of Circumstances-beyond his control. He should have known better to leave Hamida who
has abandoned him early for a better life but because he wants to revenge on the man who
abducted his ‘fiance’. Hamida, he did not control himself but falls a victim of circumstance so
we see self agency of disappointment playing out here.
49
CHAPTER FOUR
COMPARISON AND CONTRAST OF THE JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD,
PURPLE HIBISCUS AND MIDAQ ALLEY
In this chapter we assess the representation of disappointment by the three authors using
their literary techniques in depicting it. We want to find out which author is most successful in
his usage of literary technique to depict disappointment.
It is important to note that a close link is established between a writer’s techniques and
the underlying message of his text. Accordingly, literary analysis handles various texts to shed
light on the features of a work. When we undertake the narrative techniques analysis of a work, it
refers to various techniques of literary creation. Its good use enhances the aesthetic quality of
literary work through its structure and expression. In fact language is the main resource writers
work with.
In discussing literary technique of a work, it is pertinent to examine areas like the style
which comprises the language, repetition, linguistic interference, comparison and symbols. And
these are actually the medium a writer uses to convey his message, a manner which reveals the
writer’s genius.
4.1
Literary Assessment of The Joys of Motherhood.
In the light of discussing the authors through their depiction of disappointment, we
discover that in Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, her depiction of disappointment is a
success because she starts with the title of the book The Joys of Motherhood that later is a
disappointment because the protagonist Nnuego fails to see changes as they affect her traditional
value and culture. In the language tone and mood, we find multiplicity of voices in The Joys of
Motherhood. The narrative voice is both nostalgic and the mood is unhappy, gloomy and very
50
disappointing because Nnuego is not a happy mother either from her first marriage or the second
one where she has nine children but loses two.
In Emecheta’s style, her use of oral tradition in the text comprises various African
narrative characteristics and she is noted for realistic characters, conversational prose style and
sociological interest. Her style conveys the sadness and disappointment experienced by the
protagonist Nnuego. Emecheta’s work is symbiosis where the western novelistic techniques
merge with African traditional work. She deals with grave issue and it is about gloom,
depression, despair, delusion depravity and disappointment. Emecheta’s novel remains near
African society realities in the sense that she uses style which is mingled with local expression.
The sentence structure comprises simple sentences than complex ones. Emecheta uses open and
close inverted commas, first and second personal pronouns, and possessive for dialogue. It is a
fact that African novels are rich in dialogue because oratory is highly praised in our community.
Emecheta’s use of dialogue enables readers to reveal the characters’ behavior. Through the
literary technique employed by Emecheta she is able to make the readers see her disappointed
characters and the state they are later found like in the case of Nnuego who gets married and dies
without any child holding her hand. Nnaife coming out of jail already a broken man; he has only
Okpo his last wife to take care of him. The story and event depict disappointment.
4.2
Literary Assessment of Midaq Alley
In the second text, Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley we find the author’s literary technique able to
depict disappointment. The tone is forceful and sarcastic because most times it is mocking the
situation while at other times, he has created moods of happiness and awesomeness. And in other
words it is of anger, sadness, gloom, grief, depravity and this is where disappointment comes in.
51
An impersonal narrator tells the stories of Midaq Alley as simple narrative events. This
narrator is privy to character’s thoughts and reveals them, particularly when they conflict with
what character is saying out aloud. A great deal of the novel is given over to dialogue. It has a
serious tone though mixed with humour. He has created a believable narrative world through his
adept transfer of real people’s action and feeling into his creative work. He has a good use of
chronological plot, cause, and its principle generally associated with realism; with these,
Mahfouz deals very well or depicts very well the theme of disappointment which is our main
emphasis, not forgetting that the text features the middle and lower classes of Cairo exhibiting
the lives of the city’s residents under tension.
4.3
Literary Assessment of Purple Hibiscus
In examining Adichie depiction of disappointment, we discover that unlike The Joys of
Motherhood and Midaq Alley whose technique is able to pull out our emotional feelings, we are
part of the disappointments found in these texts. Adichie’s techniques are different from the
others. Her story and event do not depict disappointment like the other two do. Her kind of
disappointment is different from these ones, Purple Hibiscus deals with grave issues. It is about
gloom, depression, disappointment, delusion, depravity, and meanness as exhibited by Eugene.
We see the purity and simplicity of Adichie in her direction coupled with her flawless depiction
of local colour; so effective is her use of language that her style has been compared with Chinua
Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
There are fear, beatings, the lifelessness and the brutality as witnessed in her novel. Her
style of innocence is a new voice that captures reality completely and is less distorted. Adichie
tries in the choice of a growing and silent child technique as a proper model for a serious
exposition of the traumatic experiences of her characters. Adichie tells the story through an
52
active first person narrator unlike a fringe first person narrative technique in works like Joseph
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The tones and mood in Adichie’s text is of multiple voices because
being an innocent girl, she has a mixture of subtle voice though sometimes confused and other
times disappointed. In all she does a beautiful work in her Purple Hibiscus.
The difference in their depiction of disappointment is in the language, tone, and mood.
Emecheta’s and Mahfouz’s tone and mood bring out disappointment, Adichie’s use of an
innocent child most times presents a confused scenario.
The movement of her characters from place to place counter-balances, the transition from
one section of the narratives to the other, giving the entire story the outlook of a pilgrimage. Just
as in the other texts, disappointment destroys these characters. Beatrice becomes insane; Jaja is
mentally and physically incarcerated and Kambili is still under her father’s shadow; so Eugene
still haunts his family long after he has gone.
4.4
Comparison in their literary techniques
Language is a key issue in literature because it is the medium through which
communication is established. It comes out that African writers have to express ideas, feelings
and emotions into European language though structured and organized differently as stated by
Ngugu Wa Thiong’o.
“As a writer who believes in the utilization of African ideas, philosophy,
folklore and imagery to the fullest extent possible, I am of the opinion the only
way to use them effectively is to translate them almost literally from the African
language native to the writer’s rite whatever European language he is using as
medium of expression. I have endeavored in my words to keep as close as
possible to the vernacular expressions. For from a word, a group of words, a
53
sentence and even a name in any African language one can gleam the social
norms, attitude and value of a people” (8).
In this light, the authors of the three texts before us have provided their characters with
the opportunity to express their feelings, emotions and ideas through the use of language.
The authors have made use linguistic interference, tone and mood, irony, metaphor,
comparison, emotive function and repetition- all these have contributed to the development of
disappointment in their respective works.
(a)
In Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, the language is readable and the diction
is simple. She uses simple style with everyday language rather than complex metaphors or
symbols and her language can just be powerful in evoking an emotional reaction. The oral
tradition has influenced her style with careful patterning of sentences intended to convoy
disappointment in the characters.
(b)
In Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus her language is simple and readable. The story is
factual and direct. It is famous for its high frequency of short sentence. It has a chain of many
short, simple sentences, loosely held together by commas and conjunction ‘and’. The frequency
of the short sentences is also high. Adichie’s stories of disappointment are everywhere in Purple
Hibiscus – a novel of conflicts, changes in moods and utter disappointment.
(c)
In Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley the language is concise and spare, form innovations
such as shifting narrative voices, long passages that focus inter monologue and flashbacks are
used. It is a collection of allusions, aphorisms, and disappointments.
The main characters are in constant state of change and transformation which takes place
through conflict interaction between internal and external forces. Although the narrative
54
techniques vary, the story telling method approximates a unified style internalized in conflicts
and disappointments.
Linguistic Interference
(a)
In Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood she mixes phrases and ideas to render
her language more realistic. She translates Igbo language into English and uses Nigerian English
to adapt her message to make the language of disappointment more vivid. These borrowed
words plunge into the local linguistic flavour characteristic of the native language. An example
is ‘Emelika’ for America, “soder” for soldier. Nnuego tells people at the sandy square called
Otimkpu where she lives that “her son was in ‘Emelika. She could never manage the name
Canada but calls it the land of the whitemen.
(b)
In Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus she is known for her innate use of vernacular and
transliterations like Achebe.
The aesthetics of vernacular, transliteration, translation and
combination of language is a deliberate attempt and technique by the author which enhances
disappointment values of the text, with these techniques the reader is carried along, “Mom, o
zugo’, Hei, chi m o! Nwunye m! Hei, Ke kwanu, ka o di”. There are uses of direct speeches
scattered all over the text with inverted commas to bring home the disappointment element. Your
father called this afternoon “she said in English”. He said he would come tomorrow to take you.
(179)
The use of mispronounced words like “Gudu morni, Have you woken up eh? Did you rise
well?. Adichie’s most recurrent punctuation marks and exclamation mark, the question mark,
commas and fullstop are used for both functionally and aesthetically. The punctuation marks are
used for utilitarian purpose to separate parts of the sentences – words, phrases and clause in order
to make her message more meaningful.
55
(c)
In Mahfouz Midaq Alley he also borrows Egyptian words and plunge into the
local linguistic flavour to meet characteristic of the disappointment language: ‘tarik’ for history;
‘dafaadi’ for frogs; and ‘alma’sah’ for tragedy.
Tone and Mood
(a)
In Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood there are multiplicity of voices and this has
created complexity. The novel offers multiple perceptions, contradictions and paradoxes. The
narrative voice is both nostalgic and the moods are unhappy, gloomy, disappointing because Nnu
ego is never a happy mother from her first marriage to the second one where she has nine
children but lost two. Nnuego says:
“Maybe a miserable death alone, just like a barren woman? She was not even
certain that worries over children would not send her to her grave before her chi
was ready for her” (219).
This situation conveyed in free indirect speech where the narrator’s voice mingles with
that of the character is a conjunction of perspectives. In such a collusion of voices one finds a
narrator more committed and enlightened than the character. In the novel The Joys of
Motherhood, Nnuego is mostly “seen from the outside visualized and objectified separately from
the reader and it diminishes as the narrative unfolds – she is gradually given a voice of her own
and this could be found as a crucial part in the narrative in which the pain of walking into
consciousness triggered by labour pain is given full expression. The rhetorical question that
punctuates the passage points to Nnuego’s new awareness which culminates in this statement of
her inner speech.
“God when will you create a woman who will be fulfilled? Afterall I was born
alone and I shall die alone. What have I gained from all this? Yes, I have many
56
children, but what do I have to feed them on? But we made the law that we
should not hope in our daughters? We women subscribe to that law more than
anyone until we change all thus, it is still a man’s world, which women will
always help to build” (186-87).
A slippage from the first person singular to the first-person plural occurs in the two final
sentences indicating a moment when two voices seem to converge. On closer scrutiny the
pronoun ‘we’ may signal the narrator’s voice merging with Nnuego’s both sounding like the
mouthpiece of their oppressed sisters.
(b)
In Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus the tones and mood in her text have multiple
voices because being an innocent girl she has a mixture of subtle voice, though sometimes
confused, another time disappointed after the visit to Nsukka, Kambili says:
“I wanted to tell mama that it did feel different to be back, that our living room
had too much empty space, too much wasted marble floor that gleamed from
Sisi’s polishing and housed nothing. Our ceilings were too high, our furniture was
lifeless: the glass tables did not shed twisted skin in the Harmattan, the leather
Sofa’s greeting was a clammy coldness, the Persian rugs were too lush to having
any feeling” (190).
Another tone of disappointment is when Papa Nnukwu scolds Jaja for asking in the
presence of women how people get inside the Mmuo. With Aunty Ifeoma asking him, “you did
not do the Ima mmuo did you? Jaja said No, I didn’t, “Jaja mumbled” (87).
Kambili says she looks at him wondering if the dimness in his eyes are shame; she
suddenly wishes for him that he had known the Ima mmuo, the initiation into the spirit world.
57
Kambili’s disappointment is seen in her choice of words: “Papa snatched the painting from Jaja.
The painting was gone, it already represented something lost, something I had never had,
and would never have” (205). Sometimes Adichie creates moods of happiness and awesomeness
in another angry tone and mood. The tone and mood in the text have also added to the
disappointment because it is of multiple type. The author makes ample use of punctuation marks
to create pause, tone, and mood with punctuation marks used for utilitarian purpose to separate
part of the sentences, words, phrases and clauses in order to make the message meaningful. The
most recurrent punctuation marks in the text are the exclamation mark, the question mark, the
comma, and the fullstop.
(c)
In Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley the tones are forceful and sarcastic because most
times they are mocking the situation while sometimes they create moods of happiness,
awesomeness, anger, sadness, and gloom; these are where disappointments come in.
“Hamida only felt a sense of powerful independence when she was soliciting on
the streets or in a tavern. The rest of the time she was tortured by a sense of
imprisonment and humiliation, if only she was sure of his affection” (221).
In this statement Kirsha’s wife is disappointed in her husband and wonders why he could not
grace her bed but prefers younger boys. This has a sad tone and mood that also adds to the
disappointment in question.
“The woman tossed her unhappy memories over in her mind and the pain which
so embittered her life returned. What could attract him to spend the night outside
his own house?” (91).
Abbas’s disappointment when he returns only to be told. “Harmida his love had
disappeared with another.” His sad tone reads: His enthusiasm for life was gone now, leaving
58
him with nothing but a numbing indifference. His life seems a bottomless void enclosed by a
black despair. Through his love for her he had discovered the only meaning of his life. Now he
saw no reason for living” (204). These authors use of tone and mood actually conveyed
disappointment of their characters.
Irony
(a)
The title of Emecheta’s, The Joys of Motherhood, is ironical because it does not
reflect the “reality in the story”. It marks the irony the writer employs throughout her work. The
events and action lay bare the dark side of motherhood and undermine the myth of motherhood
as a source of happiness. Emecheta’s Nnuego, has seldom known happiness in marriage or
motherhood apart from the satisfaction of being able to give birth to children. This substantiates
the bitter disappointment and Irony in its title and in the novel as a whole. Her children
especially the male ones for who she has sacrificed everything shirk their responsibilities when
they are in positions to fulfill her dreams, leaving her to die dejected and heartbroken. Before her
death, she reviews her experiences as a mother and concludes that she has been the victim of
father, husband and children. Her joy is that she had brought up her children when with nothing,
and that these same children “might rub shoulders one day with the great men of Nigeria. That
was the reward she expected” (202).
Emecheta’s story closes with Nnuego dying by the roadside “with no child to hold her
hand and no friend to talk to her; she had never really made many friends, so busy had she been
building up her joys as a mother. All she had is a shrine in her name for barren women to appeal
to her” (224). The sustained irony in the narrators voice concludes the story: “Nnuego had it all,
yet still did not answer prayers for children”(224).
59
(b)
In Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus Eugene, ironically is fondly known and called
‘Omelora’ outside the walls of his family. He is a man of unquestionable generosity but those
closest to him including his aged and ailing father have this to say of him: “Nekenem, look at
me. My son owns that house that can fit in every man in Abba, and yet many times I have
nothing to put on my plate” (83).
The use of irony is everywhere in the text because Kambili on their way to Ezi Icheke to
watch ‘Mmuo’ (masquerades) laughed and Papa Nnukwu wants to know why they are laughing
and says if it is his gold and many lands that they are conspiring to share. While everybody is
laughing Kambili says she wants to smile but they are driving, past their house just then: “The
sight of the looming black gates and white walls stiffened my lips” (83).
Eugene ironically alienates everybody including his father, his only sister Ifeoma who he
could only help on the condition that Amaka is sent to a convent school; Ifeoma and her husband
should become knights and of course, Ifeoma should stop wearing make-ups. Yet he sits at the
first pew in the church, the first for holy communion and what is inconceivable of him is how a
man whose life is so devoutly religious and altruistic would in private prove a monster by using
iron belt, and hot water on his wife and children, chopping Jaja’s figures; at the end he embraces
them, crying and kissing their tears. In the case of Papa Nnukwu’s paintings given to Kambili by
Amaka, Eugene tears the paper streaked with earth-tone colours. Kambili dashes on the pieces on
the floor to save them but she is given a beating of her life. Her father uses every weapon
available to him until she faints and is taken to the hospital. His wife is not left out, because
most times, she is beaten to the point of losing her pregnancies.
(c)
In Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley the title of the text Midaq Alley is the name of a place in Cairo
Egypt. It is ironical because according to one of its inhabitants, Abbas. It is a place that does not
60
treat its inhabitants fairly. “It did not reward them in proposition to their love for it. It tended to
smile on those who abuse it and abused those who smile on it”(32). After Abbas death Uncle
Kamil says of the Alley:
“The alley returned to its usual state of indifference and forgetfulness.
It
continued as was its custom to weep in the morning when there was material for
tears and resound with laughter in the evening” (244).
Another Irony is despite Salim Alwan statue and his religious background he still has lust
for Hamida a small girl who he has seen grown into an adult and his admiration has grown into
all consuming desire.
Monologue
In monologue, there is constant dialogue between a character and himself so as to reveal
his inner thoughts. It comprises of soliloque and interior monologue.
(a) In Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood her use of monologue is seen when Oshia tells his
mother, he is chosen to go and welcome the soldiers; Here she says inwardly to herself,
“I hope this man is not dead” (90) – She is referring to her husband who is to return with
the other soldiers from the British war. The two other novelists also employ the use of
monologue to convey disappointment.
In the use of interior monologue the reader is psychologically put in the character’s mind
and becomes finally the narrator. It is branded by the character’s disorganized and uncontrolled
thoughts that suddenly appears. In Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, Nnuego throughout the
whole nightmare period from the night Nnaife is taken into a cell to the morning of the day on
which he is finally convicted Nnuego allows herself to wonder where it is she has gone wrong.
61
“She had been brought up to believe that children made a women [ - ] how was
she to know that by the time her children grew up the values of her country, her
people and her tribe would have changed so drastically, to the extent a woman
with many children could face a lonely old age” (219).
(b) In Adichie’s Purple Hibsicus she makes use of dialogue to express her characters’
emotional states and African novels are rich in dialogues because oratory is highly praised in our
communities. Adichie also makes use of interior monologue to express the characters internal
viewpoint and in this, the reader is psychologically put in the characters and he becomes finally
the narrator. It plays an important role in the renewal of the twentieth century novel. The last
state of Kambili’s mother is an example. She becomes mentally disturbed and could stare into
space without talking to anyone.
(c)
In Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley he uses interior monologue where the reader is
psychologically put in the character’s mind and becomes finally the narrator. It is branded by the
characters disorganized and uncontrolled thoughts that suddenly appear. It is a literary technique
which consists of expressing the characters interior view point without putting out a word. It
describes the stream of thoughts that runs through our heads when we are alone. Hamida asking
herself this question, Says: “She asked herself which one of them would not consider herself
lucky to become engaged to café-waiter or blacksmith apprentice” (90).
This is Abbas making us see his inner thought. Abbas is busy telling himself:
“Hamida will never come back. She is gone forever. And what if she
does come back? If I ever see her again I’ll spit in her face. That would
hurt more than killing her. As for the man I’ll break his neck” (217).
62
We also find the use of soliloquy by the three authors. In most times, we find Nnuego,
soliloquizing in the text like in the case of her giving birth to a baby not bigger than a kitten, who
dies before she recovered from her shock. She says; “Oh, I am sorry you are not staying” (194).
Abbas also soliloquizes over the killing of Faraj says: “would he plunge knife in his
rival’s heart? Would he really be able to do it? Could his hand manage a murderous thrust? He
shook his head doubtfully” (237).
In Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus Kambili soliloquizes over her wanting to see her father and
offering masses for him every Sunday and she says: “Silence hangs over us, but it is a different
kind of silence, one that lets me breathe. I have nightmares about the other kind, the silence of
when Papa was alive” (297).
Use of Symbols
(a)
In Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood she uses the image of the child, egg for
fertility represent the destiny and common goal of the Igbo woman. The child is consistently and
idealistically portrayed as an image of completion and female self-fulfillment. Nnuego haunted
by visions including images of babies in peril or children being taken away by her’ Chi’ (64).
Nnaife’s refusal to confront reality and his failure to be active force in shaping and guiding his
family stand for the shirking of male responsibility and drunkenness becomes emblematic of
Nnaife’s detachment as a father. This also plays a key role in stealing his fate during his trail for
attempted murder.
Carter Bridge serves as ambiguous or double symbol on one hand, Nnuego sees it as
salvation, a gateway to freedom (through suicide). It also stands as an ‘emblem of shame’. The
edge of the bridge represents the precarious intersection of failure and freedom, life and death.
63
(b)
Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus also makes use of religious symbols like the cross,
palm fronds, holy communion, pew for mass, Papa Nnukwu’s shrine, white chalk, life size wood
for ‘Chi, ‘Virgin Mary, Credo, and Kyrie and Pope, Father and all these are images or symbols
for worshipping God for the christian and traditional belief which Papa Nnukwu represents. The
book Purple Hibiscus is divided into four sections and all stand for Christian religious symbols.
The beginning is Breaking Gods – Palm Sunday; Secondly is Speaking With Our Spirit – before
Palm Sunday; thirdly The Pieces of Gods-After Palm Sunday; and fourthly A Different Silence
The Present. We also have the apparition of the Virgin Mary at Aokpe where people go for
worship and pilgrimage.
(c)
In Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley he makes use of religious images or symbols like the
mosque, Koran, Islamic names, Holy pilgrimage to Holy Mecca and Islamic prayer and belief
scattered all over the text. Islamic women are not allowed to live like the Jewish women who are
free to make money and are very independent of their men.
Comparison
Comparison is defined as the act or process of examining two or more people or things in
order to discover similarities and differences between them. As far as stylistics is concerned, it is
a figure of speech which consists of comparing two elements in order to concretize an image. In
fact, these texts make interesting uses of comparisons. In this regard simile and metaphor are
used in the depiction of the theme of disappointment as shown by these authors.
(a)
In The Joys of Motherhood Emecheta uses comparisons stylishly as expressed in
similes and metaphors. She does not fail to use hyperboles for exaggerations in order to give a
big picture to her message. Her style conveys the sadness and disappointment as seen in her text.
64
Amatokwu, Nnuego’s first husband says in his disappointment of Nnuego leaving for
another husband to Lagos instead of crawling back to him. he says; “She is as barren as a desert”
(39). He says this when Agbadi returned Nnuego’s pride prize to him.
During Nnuego’s disappointed moment she wants to leap into Carter Bridge but she is
rescued by Nwakusor the man from Ibuza. Emecheta employs simile as thus: “Like an agile cat,
pouncing on an unsuspecting mouse, he rolled himself almost into a round shape and leapt
towards Nnuego” (61).
(b)
In Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus she makes use of simile when Jaja and Kambili
visit Papa Nnukwa and they say: “The shrine was a low, open shed, its mud roof and walls
covered with dried palm fronds. It looked like the grotto behind St. Agnes, the one dedicated to
our Lady of Lourdes” (65). If to Jaja and Kambili, Papa Nnukwu’s shrine is like that of Lady of
Lourdes then why called Papa Nnukwu a heathen and deny him food, shelter, love. And care
Another incident of the use of simile is when Kambili has cramps racking her belly and
has to take some cornflakes to hold the panadol in her stomach. The Eucharist mandates that the
faithful should not eat solid food an hour before Mass. To Eugene it is the devil that gets her into
the act and he has to beat out the devil in her. The disappointing thing is that the family has been
reduced to zombies without minds of their own.
During one of the times Kambili’s father Eugene has to beat his whole family with a iron
made of layers of brown leather with a sedate leather – covered buckle, Kambili likens her father
to a Fulani nomad flapping against their legs in the wind, making chucking sound as they herded
their cows across the roads in Enugu with a switch, each smack of the switch swift and precise
(102). She says, “Papa was like a Fulani Nomad although he did not have their spare, tall body
as he swung his belt at Mama, Jaja and me” (102).
65
Adichie also makes use of simile to send her messages home to her readers to show
comparison and how callous Eugene is; an example is when Chima notices the deformed finger
in Jaja he says: “gnarled finger, deformed like a dried stick”.(144). He is disappointed over the
issue as seen from the above description of the state of Jaja’s finger.
(c)
Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley also uses simile to depict disappointment. What man
would want to embrace a burning fire brand like you (78). Ulman Hamida says in
disappointment of her daughter whose anger makes her unfeminine and her mother wonders if
she can ever find a husband with such character.
We find the authors use of metaphor all over the text depicting the theme of
disappointment. In Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood her use of metaphor could be seen when
Nnuego is searching for Kehinde after her quarrel with her father over the Oladipo’s proposal of
marriage to her. Taiwo feels their mother should not be disturbed because she is in a bad mood;
“but the ghost of a smile passes across Okpo’s face” (207).
Taiwo for the first time sees Okpo his father’s wife for who she is; she is enjoying the
troubles her mother is facing because she stands to benefit from her husband’s pension when her
mother leaves which is very disappointing to the girl who feels bad about it.
(a)
In Adichie Purple Hibiscus the title ‘Purple Hibiscus’ is a metaphor. The missal
flung at the étagère, “the shattered figurines and brittle air – in time becomes reality and
represents a dissembled and shattered family and things start falling apart. It is also a metaphor
for an atrophied and suffocating society in which bad and evil overwhelm the good in the
society. The hibiscus which is usually red, by its transmutation to purple represents both
abnormality and unending hope. Eugene believes in conventions and prays incessantly for
Nigeria in distress. He uses his Standard Trust newspaper through his editor Coker to fight the
66
ills found in the society even at the expense of his wealth and family yet he is not better than
those he is fighting.
In Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus her use of allegory is seen in Jaja’s defiance, and “rare”,
undertones of freedom which he exhibits at all time. Nsukka started it all, for it is there Kambili
and Jaja notice what freedom means and that wealth is nothing as compared to the lives the
children of Aunty Ifeoma live. It is Aunty Ifeoma’s experimental purple hibiscus coloured a
deep shade of purple that gives him the urge for freedom which he is able to use at all times.
(b)
In Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley he uses metaphor in the discussion between Mrs.
Afify and Ulman Hamida over the issue of her still having the urge for another husband. Though
she has promised herself of not having another after her last experience with her last husband
who plunders her funds. And she says “he would squander in the twinkle of an eye the fruits of
long years of savings” (17). Here she opens up to Ulman Hamida on her matching up a younger
husband for her though it is disappointing she wants a man younger than herself. In another use
of metaphor she says “to broach the subject which has been simmering with her for long” (15).
Emotive Function
Emotive is an adjective derived from emotion in everyday language of feelings and
passion. In other terms, it is temporary trouble caused by intensive feeling of joy, fear, sadness
and disappointment. Emotive can be defined as the way characters, the narrator or the author,
express their thought, feelings in a given literary genre. Emotion refers to the inner state and
physical attitudes which are translated by interjections and exclamation. Interjections are lexical
items which express a feeling, a command, a state of thought, emotions, sympathy or
disappointment, sorrow, pity, despair and regret.
(a)
67
In The Joys of Motherhood Emecheta uses interjection to express
disappointment as shown here. “Oh, mother, stop, pleaded Okpo” (206). “Eh! So the boy still
remembers us.” (212). These are Nnuego’s word, the first is during her quarrel with Nnaife over
his maltreatment of her and her children because according to him, the children are no longer his
but Nnuego’s. The other is when Adim tells Nnuego that Oshia asks after her in his letter and
already she has concluded that the boy has forgotten her after all her pain and suffering to bring
him up.
(b)
In Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus has a lot of interjection scattered in her novel
which she has used to show disappointment. “Oh! Thank Eugene for me”, Papa-Nnukwu says
smiling “Thank him” (67). Here Papa Nnukwu is given a “slim wad” of cash by his son though
he knows he has more than this but refuses to accord him respect; he feels disappointed.
(c)
Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley equally uses a lot of interjection to show
disappointment. After Abbas discovers that Hamida has eloped with another man. He looks
worried and Hussain wants to know his problem but out of his disappointment he says, “Oh! It’s
nothing. Tell me about yourself. I’m listening” (216).
The three writers use exclamation marks to express their characters’ feelings, emotional
states and disappointments in various ways.
(a)
Adichie’s Purple Hibsicus uses a lot of exclamation marks to express her
characters’ feelings. As in the case of Papa Nnukwu while having his early morning devotion
show show contented he is during and after his prayer he says, “Chineke! I thank you for the
new morning” (165). Other exclamation marks showing disappointment and shock are when
Aunty Ifeoma hears about the death of his brother Eugene from Beatrice his wife. She says “Hei,
Chim o! Nwunye m! Hei” (280).
(b)
68
Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood equally makes excessive use of
exclamation marks like on the night Kehinde is missing after the quarrel she has with her father
over marrying the Oladipo’s – an abomination in Ibuza; her father Nnaife gets up with a cutlass
showing his disappointment over this issue saying Kehinde! My daughter! The butcher – I’ll
butcher him! (209).
(c)
Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley uses it also to show disappointment when Hussan loses
his job and comes back to the alley he has sworn not to come back to, not alone but with a
pregnant wife and brother to feed without a penny on him. He says; “Satan is so clever! I was
angry, rebellious and full of scorn… Everything is fate and chance” (180).
We also find the use of emotional as in the case of Nnuego when she loses her son Ngozi
she says: “But I am not a woman anymore!” (62). Another is at the end of their stay in Lagos
after the imprisonment of her husband Nnaife and Nnuego
goes back to Ibuza (Nnaife’s
compound) but is rejected by his people. She has to stay with her own people (Ogboli). She says
“only good children belonged to the father” (223) Later Nnuego is also disappointed with her
two sons who never write or send money. She bears this without reaction until her senses start to
give way and she becomes emotionally disturbed
Because this shows their emotional state, Kambili’s mother in Purple Hibiscus later goes
mad after the death of her husband and her son jailed for a crime she committed. She feels
disappointed.
We also find Darwish equally going mad because he rejects his family home and friends
and wanders around the alley sleeping wherever he feels there is space for him out of
disappointment.
69
Repetition
Repetition is a figure of speech in which words or phrases occur more than once. It gives
a particular intensification in a novel and is also used to bring precision about what has been said
with effect to the theme of disappointment as shown by the three authors being studied.
It is discovered that repetitions are used to depict disappointments and other feelings in
the work of Emecheta’ The Joys of motherhood. Her repetitions really show disappointments
because when Cordelia sees Nnuego’s dead son lying like a stone on the mat she says, ‘you are
dead, she said in a whisper “Mary Mother of God! “You are dead, Ngozi you are gone” (64).
Another is when Nnuego comes back from Lagos to visit her sick father and he says. Welcome
my daughter, welcome (152).
(b)
In Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, we also found repetition depicting disappointment
as in the case of the death of Papa Nnukwu when Aunty Ifeoma shouts: “Nna anyi! Nnanyi her
voice was desperately loud as if raising it would make Papa – Nnukwu hear better and respond
Nna anyi” (18). Still on Aunty Ifeoma she says; “Ewun he has fallen asleep. He has fallen asleep
“Aunty Ifeoma says finally” (18).
In Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley, still disappointed Hussain says to Abbas look at his dreary
clothes - - “ It’s a pity I wasn’t born rich.’ it’s a pity you weren’t born a girl if you were born a
girl’. you’d be one of Midaq Alley’s many old maids “(31).
70
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION
This work centers on the analysis of the meaning and representation of disappointment
with special emphasis on the novels of Buchi Emecheta, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and
Naguib Mahfouz.
Disappointment is typically experienced in response to unexpected negative events that
are caused by uncontrolled circumstances, or by another person. Regret and Disappointment
also differ in their phenomenology, and have distinctive behavioral consequences.
Disappointment is an emotion that results in feeling powerless and inactive.
It may be
paralyzing because it is often not clear how one could have avoided the disappointments or what
one could do about it when it is experienced. Regret is associated with a tendency to blame
oneself for having made the wrong decision, a focus on the regretted event with a view to
undoing it or preventing it from happening again in future. Moreover, regret often results in
reparative action. Because of self blame, regret is probably the more intense of the two emotions
but it is also the one that promotes learning from one’s mistakes and it may therefore be a more
“functional emotion”.
The requirement of free choice and consequent responsibility has been judged as one of
the major differences between regret and the related emotion disappointment. Regret increases
as a function of personal responsibility, whereas disappointment shows a negative relation with
responsibility and while regret focuses on the foregone option, disappointment focuses on the
chosen option. It is posited that choice is a discriminating element between regret and other
negative emotions, since regret is the only one which cannot be experienced without choice.
According to most scholars, choice implies the freedom to choose, and a precondition of regret is
71
free choice. Disappointment is more associated with the absence of a positive outcome than
several other related negative emotions, such as sadness, anger, frustration and regret.
Disappointment is also closely associated with wanting something pleasurable than sadness,
anger, frustration and regret. Although disappointment is the main emotion under study, the
study further x-rayed the relation between sadness, anger, frustration, regret and other types of
negative outcome. It has been established that sadness is more often associated with the absence
of a positive outcome like disappointment, whereas anger, frustration and regret are more often
associated with both types of negative outcomes (absence of positive outcome and the presence
of a negative outcome. Disappointment is also less affected by the process of psychological
“repackaging”.
Until recently very little emotional research has focused on disappointment. However, in
the field of decision-making, disappointment is considered to be an important emotion. Decision
researchers Bell, Loomes and Sugden have stressed the notion that decision makers anticipate
disappointment and take it into account when making decisions.
However, disappointment is not only an unpleasant emotion that is anticipated or
avoided. Thus experience of disappointment could also have a bright side. As Shand (1914)
stresses the useful function of disappointment in desire “disappointment, in its after-effect on
desire, always tends to counteract what is not well-founded, so far as it is checked and balanced
by hope itself” (85). Stanley (cited in Shand1914) states, “Disappointment turns life from false
dreams to stern realities. It prompts an investigation of causes and arouses cognition of a full
understanding of the situation. Hope thereby, becomes more rational and realisable” (35). From
our study, we discover that Disappointment responses are of two types: Outcome-Related
Disappointment (ORD) and Person-Related Disappointments (PRD). The Outcome-Related
72
Disappointment (ORD) are disappointments experienced in relation to Persons while the other
Person-Related Disappointment (PRD) are experiences of a friend letting you down.
These emotions have different experiences and have idiosyncratic behavioural
consequences.
These two types of disappointment differ in feelings, thoughts, tendencies,
actions, and emotional goals, -that accompany them. Because of the presumed link between
positive expectations and Outcome-Related Disappointment (ORD), ORD is accompanied by
feelings and thoughts of dashed hopes and lost opportunities.
Moreover, because of the
presumed higher Control Potential of ORD in comparison with PRD, it is expected that ORD
will be accompanied more than PRD by trying harder and wanting a second chance. Concerning
PRD the study expects that this type of disappointment, because of its presumed link with an
appraisal of Problem Source (revealing the basic nature of someone), will be more accompanied
by feelings of distance to a person, and by thoughts of disapproval about the person. In line with
this, it is also expected that with PRD people feel more the tendency to be not associated with a
person (who disappoints them), to ignore, avoid wanting to be far away from the person.
From the study of disappointment as reported in Zeelenberg, Van Dijik Manstead, and
Van der pligt (1981) their findings reveal that disappointment, elicits five responses and
involved higher levels of;
(a) feeling powerless
(b) a tendency to do nothing
(c) a tendency to get away from the situation
(d) actually turning away from the situation
(e) wanting to do nothing
73
These authors under review (Buchi Emecheta, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche and Naguib
Mahfouz) have dealt well with the theme of disappointment through their characters. The use of
literary techniques sends home the message of disappointment without much ado about nothing.
The authors through their use of Repetition, Dialogue, Monologues, Oral Tradition, Language
Functions, Linguistic Interferences, Comparison, and symbols, have portrayed the worst of
disappointments in their various texts to the understanding of their readers. The overall use of
Language, Tone, and Mood has really displayed disappointments as seen in the three texts under
study.
The Tone ranges from wonder to gravity, from exultation to solemnity, regret,
disappointments, nostalgia, sincerity, affection, sadness, anger frustration, disillusionment,
bitterness, sorrow and grief. All these negative Outcomes are synonymous with disappointment
and leaves the person affected with rejected feelings.
With reference to the part that highlights the disappointment phenomenon, we identify
the moods of awe, ironic incredibility, sadness, anger, disappointment, and regret on the side of
characters like Hamida, Kambili, Nnaife, Nnuego, Efuru, Okonkwo, Abbas, etc. who fail in their
attempts to actualize their hopes, dreams and aspirations in life and for these, they could not
participate actively in the society where they belong. In the case of Emecheta’s Nnuego who has
so much attachment to her traditional values and belief and does not know when modernity
changes these values, her children are swept into the momentum of the new reception of
production, and privilege of self-interest. Oshia is represented as insensitive to the tradition of
duty to parents and of collective responsibility in which Nnuego and Nnaife are born and bred so
her hope for a blissful future seems justified only along the lines of traditional thinking. It is
important to know that the theme of disappointment runs through these authors’ other literary
works like Emecheta’s Bride Price and The Second-Class Citizen, Adichie’s Half of a Yellow
74
Son and Things around Your Neck and Mahfouz’s Palace Walk and Palace of Desire have
disappointed characters. These authors have chilling fingers that can reach far into the recesses
of ones soul through disappointment.
Most of the disappointments are really circumstances beyond the characters controls. In
Nnuego’s case with her background at Ibuza that children make a woman she could not have
been better than what she later becomes. Hamida grows up in a ghetto and wants the good things
of life; Beatrice’s, husband tortures her and she is relegated to the status of a house girl. The
situations they find themselves are beyond their controls. In the three texts under study, we
discover the “explosive violence of the soul’s moment of escape” (86) which the authors have
articulated for themselves as the costly destructiveness of anger repressed until it can no longer
be contained. The use of double violence is the author’s way of mediating protest, anger and
disappointment. The unconventional double violence whether as madness or criminal act
functions as eccentric with respect to the symbolic order dwell on disappointment as experienced
by these characters involved. The protagonists of Emecheta and Adichie go mad while that of
Mahfouz goes into crime by plotting the death of Faraj, the sex merchant. The chilling effect of
disappointment is evident on them.
In examining the three protagonists, we discover that Hamida wanting the good things of life, the
tortures on Beatrice and children from Eugene Achike and the childless pain from Nnuego are
circumstances beyond their control. This dissertation proves that the characters under review use
the six appraisals of disappointment unexpectedness, legitimacy, control potential, motivational
state, problem source and disappointment of agency to give an insight into the study of
disappointment. In this study we see cases of other- person disappointment, self disappointment,
and circumstance beyond ones control. In other -person disappointment we see Abbas of
76
Mahfouz Midaq Alley who loses out to the love of a woman
(Hamida). We also have
disappointment revealing the basic nature of persons or characters as seen in Nnaife and Adaku
of Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhod. In Nnaife we see him drunk and lost in anger and could
not control the situation and in Adaku we see greed taking her into prostitution and out of
Nnaife’s house.
This study proves that hope and promise when not fulfilled turn into disappointment. And
disappointment is likely to occur when the people are pursuing something pleasurable. It is of
note here that all the disappointed characters are seeking something pleasurable. This study has
also thrown more light that expectation is indeed a prerequisite for the use of the term
disappointment. There is no doubt that the various characters explore the different aspects of
disappointment and also prove that disappointment is a different emotion from Regret, Anger
and Sadness. It is pertinent to say at this juncture that the characters under study exhibit the
different behavioral traits found in the six appraisal dimensions under study. Most of the
characters in the literary texts share some close relationship with disappointment and by means
of such literary devices as irony, tone and mood, symbol, personification and comparison, the
degree of attachment and human characters revealed. Symbols for instance convey chunks of
information and can paint a richer and more detailed picture of our subjective experience that
might be expressed by literal language.
Finally, we see in the various texts that disappointments do compound into depression or
despair which leads to serious consequences like what psychologist James, C. Coleman lists as
several examples of Shipwreck victims who lose hope that die after a few days but
physiologically would have survived many days longer if not for the loss of hope. He notes that
despair can contribute to suicide like in the case of Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall
77
Apart and even Nnuego in Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood. Hopelessness bred by poverty
might manifest as apathy as in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Mahfouz Midaq Alley. Values,
meaning, and hope appear to act as catalysts for mobilizing energy and finding satisfaction in life
and without them Coleman reports that life can seem futile as experienced by the various
disappointed characters.
Without mincing words, these characters under review lose values, meaning, hope, and
invariably became disappointed.
78
WORKS CITED
Achebe, Chinua. Arrow of God. London: Heinemann, 1964.
_____________ Girls at War. London: Heinemann, 1972.
_____________ Man of the People. London: Heinemann, 1968.
_____________ Things Fall Apart. London: Heinemann, 1965.
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Purple Hibiscus. Lagos: Farafina, 2006.
__________________ Half of a Yellow Sun. Lagos: Farafina, 2007.
__________________ Things around Your Neck. Lagos: Farafina, 2009.
Agbasiere, Julie. ‘Social Integration of the Child’ Emecheta Buchi’s novel
Children and
Literature in Africa, 1992.
Alkali, Zaynab. Stillborn. London: Longman, 1984.
Armor, D.A. and Taylor, S.E. ‘Situated Optimism: Specific Out Expectancies and SelfRegulation’ Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. New York: Academic Press,
1998.
Arnold, M.B. Emotion and Personality. New York: Columbia, 1960.
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. London: Heinemann, 2009.
Averill, J.R. ‘Grief: Its Nature and Significance’. Psychological Bulletin. New York: Academic
Press, 1968.
Bell, D.E. Regret in Decision Making under Uncertainty Operations Research. New York:
Oxford Press, 1982.
Bell, D.E. Disappointment in Decision Making under Uncertainty. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1985.
Carver, J.L. ‘The Psychology of Preferences’. Journal of Scientific American, 1982.
79
Clove, G.L. Mood and Social Cognition: Contrasting Theories. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1994.
Connolly, T. Ordonez, L.D. and Coughlan, R. ‘Regret and Responsibility in the Evaluation of
Decision Outcomes’. Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes,1997.
Cooper, Steven. Objects of Hope: Exploring Possibility and Limit in Psychoanalysis. NewYork:
Oxford University Press, 2000.
Elechi, Amadi. The Concubine. London: Heinemann, 1970.
Emecheta, Buchi. African in Transition in Presence Africane No.2 Paris, January, 1976.
_____ The Bride Price. London: Heinemann, 1979.
____ The Joys of Motherhood. London: Heinemann, 1976.
____ The Second- Class Citizen. London: Heinemann, 1977.
Ekman, R. ‘Expression and the Nature of Emotion’. New York: Guilford Press, 1984.
Ezeigbo, Chiemenam. Shattered Hope. Lagos: Pan Negro Continental, 2007.
Feather, N.T. ‘Valence of Outcome and Expectation of Success in Relation to Task Difficulty
and Perceived Locus of Control’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1967.
Friyda, N.H. ‘What is the Function of Emotions?’ Ekman, P. and Davidson R.J. The Nature of
Emotions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
______‘Emotion, Cognitive, Structure, and Action Tendency’. Cognition and Emotion, New
York: Oxford University Press,1987.
_____ The Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Friyda, N.H. Kuipers, P. and Schure, E. ‘Relations Among Emotion, Appraisal, and Emotional
Action Readiness’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1989.
Gallop, Jane, Reading Lacan Ithaca; Cornell Up, 1985.
80
Genevieve, T. Slomsky. ‘Dialogue in the Discourse: Study of Revolt in Selected Fiction by
African Women’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Indian University, 1986).
Gilovich, T. and Medec, V.H. ‘The Temporal Pattern to the Experience of Regret’. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 1994.
Glovich, T. and Medev, V.H. ‘The Experience of Regret: What, When, and Why’.
Psychological Review, 1995.
Iyayi, Festus. Violence. London: Longman, 1979.
Kahneman, D. and Miller, D.T. ‘Norm Theory: Comparing Reality to its Alternatives’.
Psychological Review, 1986.
Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. ‘Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk.
Econometrica,’ 1979.
Landman, J. ‘Regret and Elation Following Action and Inaction’. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 1987.
__________ Regret: The Persistence of the Possible. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Lazarus, R.S. ‘Progress on a Cognitive-Motivational-Relational Theory of Emotion’ American
Psychologist, 1991.
Levine L.J. The Anatomy of Disappointment: A Naturalistic Test of Appraisal Models of
Sadness, Anger and Hope. Psychological Review, 1996.
Loomes, G. and Sugden, R. ‘Disappointment and Dynamic Consistency in Choice Under
Uncertainty’. Review of Economic Studies, 1986.
________ ‘Regret Theory: An Alternative Theory of Rational Choice Under Uncertainty.
Economic Journal, 1982.
81
Mowrer, O.H. Learning Theory and Behaviour. New York: Wiley, 1960.
Naguib, Mahfouz. Midaq Alley. Washington: Three Continents Press Inc., 1987.
Nwapa, Flora. Efuru. London: Heinemann, 1966.
Obiechina, Emmanuel. An African Popular Literature: A Study of Onitsha Market Pamphlets.
London: Cambridge University Press, 1973.
Ogot,Grace. The Island of Tears. London: Heinemann 1980.
Okoye, Ifeoma. Behind the Cloud. London: Heinemann, 1982.
Ortony, A. and Turner, T.J. ‘What is Basic About Basic Emotion?’ Psychological Review,
1990.
Ortony, A. Clore, G.L. and Collins, A. The Cognitive Structure of Emotions. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Peter, R.S. Philosophy of Education. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973.
Phenomenology
online:
The
language
of
Disappointment:
htt://www.
phenomenologyonline.com.
Pieters, R and Zeelenberg, A. ‘A Theory of Regret Regulation’. Journal of Consumer
Psychology, 2007.
_____ On Bad Decisions and Deciding Badly. ‘When Intention-Behaviour Inconsistency is
Regretable. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision processes’. Psychological
Review, 2005
Plutchik, R. Emotion: A Psychoevolutionary Synthesis. New York: Harper and Row, 1986.
Pyszezynski, T. ‘Cognitive Stategies for Coping With Uncertainty Outcomes’. Journal of
Research in Personality, 1982.
82
Roseman, I.J.
‘Cognitive Determinants of Emotions: A Structural Theory’. Review of
Personality and Social Psychology, 1984.
Roseman, I.J. Antoniou, A.A.
‘Appraisal Determinants of Emotions: Constructing a More
Accurate and Comprehensive Theory. Cognition and Emotion, 1996.
Roseman, I.J. Wiest, C. and Swartz, T.S. ‘Phenomenology, Behaviors and Goals Differentiate
Discrete Emotions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1994.
Scherer, K.R. Appraisal Processes in Emotion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Schimmack, U. and Diener, E. ‘Affect intensity: Separating Intensity and Frequency in
Repeatedly Measured Affect’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1997.
Seligman, M.E.P. Helplessness: On Depression, Development, and Death. San Francisco, CA:
W.H. Freeman, 1975.
Shand, A.F. The Foundations of Character. London: Macmillan, 1914.
Shepperd, J.A., Ouellette, J.A. and Fernandez, J.K. ‘Abandoning Unrealistic Optimism:
Performance Estimates and the Temporal Proximity of Self-Relevant Feedback. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 1996.
Sigmud, F. Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis: Trans. Joan Riviere. London: Alien, 1922
Taylor, G. Pride, Shame and Guilt: The Emotion of Self-Assessment. NewYork: Oxford
University Press, 1985
Taylor, K.M. and Shepperd, J.A. ‘Bracing for the Wordst: Severity, Testing, and Feedback
Timing as Moderators of the Optimistic Bias’. Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, 1998.
Tsi Tsi, Damgarembga. Nervous Condition. London: Heinemann, 1985.
83
Tykocinski, O.E.
‘Never Had a Chance: Using Hindsight Techniques to Mitigate
Disappointment’. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2001.
Umeh, Maric. A. ‘The Joys of Motherhood: Myth or Reality?’. Colby Library Quarterly, 1982.
Van Dijik, W.W. Dashed Hopes and Shattered Dreams: On the Psychology of Disappointment.’
(Doctoral dissertation, University of Amsterdam) Amsterdam. The Netherlands, 1999.
Van Dijik, W.W., and Van Der Pligt J. ‘The Impact of Probability and Magnitude of Outcome
on Disappointment and Elation’.
Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision
Processes, 1996.
Van Dijik, W.W. Van Der Pligt, J. and Zeelenberg, M. ‘Effort Invested in Vain: The Impact of
Effort on the Intensity of Disappointment and Regret.’ Motivation and Emotion, 1999.
______‘Not Having What You Want Versus Having What You Don’t Want. The Impact of
Type of Negative Outcome on the
Experience of Disappointment and Related
Emotions.’ Cognition and Emotion, 1999.
_____ ‘Blessed Are Those Who Expect Nothing: Lowering Expectations As A Way Of Avoiding
Disappointment.’ Journal of Economic Psychology, 1998.
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary: Springfield Merriam-Webster, 1981.
Weiner, B. Russel, D. and Lerman, D. ‘The Cognition-Emotion Process in Achievement-Related
Contexts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,1979.
William, B. Ethics and the Limit of Philosophy. London: Fontana, 1985.
Zeelenberg, M. ‘Anticipated Regret, Expected Feedback and Behavioral Decision-Making’.
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 1999.