Inf(l)ecting mind/body dialectics: Self-emancipation through insubordiNation in Chika Unigwe’s Night Dancer

Abstract

As one of the most prominent voices of the so-called third generation of Nigerian authors, Chika Unigwe has engaged in the representation of female characters who embody alternative forms of feminism(s) in Nigeria and its diaspora. This article explores Unigwe’s novel Night Dancer (2012) as a distinctive third-generation novel advocating self-emancipation through the appropriation and reversal of patriarchal nationalist discourses which objectify and sexualize female bodies. The evolution of Ezi, Night Dancer’s main character, is examined in relation to Unigwe’s discussion of a lack of solidarity between women and the significance of intergenerational teaching. Against this background, I argue that the novel depicts Unigwe’s rejection of the mind/body dichotomy by relating it to Ezi’s commodification of her body, and to her engagement with and refusal of intergenerational discourses inscribing female bodies within epistemological nationalist discourses.

Introduction

After winning the Nigerian Prize for Literature in 2012, Chika Unigwe discussed her interest in depicting women’s striving in patriarchal societies, and their “struggle with subscribing to certain rules” (Mwesigire, 2014: n.p.). Indeed, the idea of women challenging traditional and hegemonic values in Nigeria has been prominent among female authors of the so-called “third generation” of Nigerian writers, a generation particularly defined as positing “tropes of nomadism, exile, displacement, and deracination which have become the emblematic features of global postmodernity and postcoloniality” (Adesanmi and Dunton, 2005: 16). Said to have brought about the revival of the Nigerian novel, this generation has expanded thematic boundaries and introduced new perspectives on homosexuality, migrancy, sexual abuse, and the Biafran War, to mention a few of the topics covered (Adesanmi and Dunton, 2008: viii).

Against this background, third-generation women writers have been acclaimed for the configuration of a rapidly expanding corpus of novels featuring third-generation female characters interrogating their identity and gaining control of their destiny in a multiplicity of contexts where the tropes of body and sexual exploration frequently feature (Adekoya, 2014: 336; Eze, 2015: 313; Nwokeabia, 2014: 366; Okuyade, 2009: 253; Zabus, 2008: 93). The Nigerian literary canon has been broadened and influenced not only by critically acclaimed authors from the diaspora such as Chimamanda Adichie, Sefi Atta, Helen Oyeyemi, and Chika Unigwe, but also by Nigerian residents such as Unoma Azuah, Akachi Ezeigbo, Promise Okekwe, Ayòbámi Adébáyò, and Yejide Kilanko, whose pluralistic feminist approaches complement their diasporic counterparts’ work. In this manner, the polyphonic articulation of the multifaceted ways of embodying womanhood in different Nigerian contexts allows this generation to interrogate a conception of feminism in Nigeria which at times nurtures and at times differs from transcultural and transnational approaches to feminism explored in the Nigerian diaspora. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note Unigwe’s remarks on writing Night Dancer (2012) in Belgium, and being able to write about Nigeria again only when she felt “comfortable” once her “confidence had come back” as a diasporic writer (qtd. in Bekers, 2015: 28).

The label “third generation” seems to have evolved, directing particular attention to Igbo women writers such as Unigwe, Ezeigbo, Adichie, Okekwe, Azuah, and Kilanko, who are said to have prompted “an important shift in the narrative of the nation […] as these female voices dare to explore once-tabooed regions of a once-patriarchal dimension of order and authority” (Nwakanma, 2008: 12). Their narratives unveil women’s entrapment and disempowerment in situations of polygyny, domestic violence, incest, and rape within marriages, but also configure spaces of negotiation, confrontation, and empowerment through the portrayal of extramarital relations, sexual awakenings, and same-sex attraction. Regardless of the branch of feminism or womanism chosen to articulate their beliefs — hope and individuality — achieved through escaping from and overcoming discursive patriarchal, Eurocentric, and tribal indoctrination — seem to be ingrained in the work of most contemporary third-generation women writers.

Contemporary female characters might arguably be defined as displaying values and cultural features of third-generation authors, thus embodying the Nigerian nation and contrasting with second-generation Nigerian female authors (such as Buchi Emecheta, Omolara Ogundipe-Leslie, Zaynab Alkali, or Helen Ovbiagele) who introduced women and womanhood “constrained by nationalist priorities that privileged masculinity” (Bryce, 2008: 49). Indeed, despite acknowledging their common focus on women’s social ordeals, Chika Unigwe subscribes to the idea that third-generation authors are breaking away from second-generation writing (Atta et al., 2008: 111). It has been posited that third-generation female authors steer clear of essentializing or mythologizing women’s role within the nation, building distinctively third-generation characters who not only advocate a “reconfiguration of national realities” but are also “unapologetically central to the realist representation of a recognizable social world” (Bryce, 2008: 50). Despite this common trait, as I will argue, female third-generation protagonists introduced by female novelists embody distinctly diverse attitudes concerning their conception of self and women’s role within the nation. In this context, I postulate Unigwe’s rebellious transnational approach to feminism not as a typical or prevailing perspective articulated by most third-generation female authors, but as one of the multiple and feasible approaches adopted.

Chika Unigwe stands as one of the most prominent voices of the generation and her more recent titles — On Black Sisters’ Street (2009) and Night Dancer (2012) — reveal her contribution to questions delving into black women’s identity and their challenge to traditional socio-cultural paradigms. As her PhD dissertation on Igbo women’s writing reveals, Unigwe’s (2004) interest in representing female characters fending for themselves in patriarchal environments, where their bodies are controlled and exploited, extends from her fiction to her academic work. Analysed as an author “not interested in presenting images of strong women, or necessarily in challenging the stereotypical images of women” (Eze, 2014: 100), Unigwe underlines that Night Dancer resists this description, as it situates itself as a novel about hope, and a novel about hope that contemplates a Nigeria in which women can seek and achieve self-fulfilment “on their own terms” (qtd. in Tunca et al., 2013: 59).

I shall introduce Night Dancer as a distinctive and pioneering text within an already well-established corpus of third-generation novels advocating female self-emancipation through the appropriation and reversal of androcentric discourses which have traditionally sought to objectify and sexualize female bodies, collectively viewed as destined to serve national purposes. Such a discussion first calls for a body politics approach in exploring Night Dancer’s representation of the utilitarian procreative role female bodies are assigned within the nation. In this context, I will explore the strategies deployed to inscribe female bodies within epistemological national(ist) discourses. I discuss Night Dancer’s depiction of Nigerian women’s contribution to the perpetuation of hegemonic practices of social control, and their effect on the collective conception of its protagonist, Ezi. The importance of her evolution with regard to her understanding and use of her body will be analysed as running parallel to what I argue is a process of mental decolonization, which leads Ezi to take control of her body as a tool of self-expression and agency. Concurrently, Ezi’s experiences and beliefs will be contrasted with the conservative perspective of her daughter, Mma.

Pushing borders: (Un)learning to embody the Nigerian nation

Set in Nigeria in 2002, and going back and forth in time to revisit the period between the 1960s and the 1980s, Night Dancer unfolds Ezi’s life journey as reflected in a series of letters which, upon her death, she leaves to her daughter, Mma. The narrative sequence starts in Enugu in 2001, when Mma finds her mother’s memoirs, and goes back to the 1960s, conveying the lives of Ezi, her husband Mike, and Mike’s lover (Rapu). Through this narrative strategy the reader learns about Mike and Ezi’s romance, their struggle to conceive, Ezi’s leaving Mike upon discovering his betrayal, and Mma’s blaming of Ezi for not having a father-figure by her side as a child. The end of the narrative goes forward to 2002, when Mma finally meets her father. The fragmented structure of the novel intertwines Mma’s conflicted identity in the 2000s with Ezi’s struggles in the 1980s, when she is rejected by her family after abandoning Mike and becoming a “night dancer”, a term which hints at a life of prostitution. By juxtaposing different times and narrative perspectives, Unigwe unveils the extent to which Ezi’s reputation as a “night dancer” takes its toll on her integration within an apparently timelessly judgemental Nigerian society governed by patriarchal traditions.

The narrative pace is pivotal in the reconstruction of Ezi’s evolution and setbacks. That events do not follow a chronological order offers, from the very beginning of the novel, a portrayal of Ezi as a strong-willed woman known to have suffered but finally triumphed. Chronological transitions in the novel leave room for recurrent depictions of Ezi as headstrong, impatient, decisive, frank, and generous. Her most accentuated traits are almost invariably described in relation to her mental disposition. Ezi’s revolutionary ideas, “first-class brains” (2012: 19) ¹ for business, entrepreneurial mentality, and strong-mindedness lead her to a life of wealth as a single mother. Taken together, these features position Ezi as the centre around which the other characters revolve, defining themselves against her, and otherizing her. Far from rejecting such an affiliation, Ezi consciously remarks in her memoirs that “when [her] mind is made up, there is no shifting it. It sits like a pillar of solid gold and it would take only the heat of a fire to melt it” (45).

In spite of her determination, Ezi’s situation must be placed in context, and inscribed within an Igbo tradition, as the ethnic group with most weight in the narrative. Ezi is supposed to learn to embody her role within the Igbo community and the Nigerian nation, and she proves to epitomize a revolutionary approach towards African feminism when refusing this role. As Nira Yuval-Davis’s (2000) seminal theory demonstrates, the equation of women and nation is not unique to the Igbo tradition. Delving into women’s role in processes of nation formation, Yuval-Davis underscores that socio-political regulations contribute to the collective construction of women as “biological reproducers of ‘the nation’” (2000: 37), ensuring purity and the transmission of ethnic and national heritage to future generations as “the so-called ‘natural’ role of women — to bear children — [remains essential] for both the constructions of nations and women’s social positioning” (2000: 26). The androcentric nationalist discourses spread by hegemonic institutional powers are paramount in processes of acculturation and identity shaping. In this respect, Chielozona Eze’s analysis of Night Dancer as a work which marks the rebirth of African feminism underlines the relevance of patriarchal cultures and the shared belief that women are not in control of their bodies (2014: 94).

In Night Dancer, the internalization of androcentric epistemological paradigms is evident in women’s intergenerational teaching, and more specifically in the figures of Ezi and her mother-in-law. Teaching is translated into shaping young women’s minds, pigeonholing their identity, and fostering quintessential notions on how to properly embody womanhood. The construction of subjugated identities in the novel is dependent upon punitive measures culturally inscribed through repetition and supervision. Within the framework of the novel, this construction is associated with Igbos, with different domestic settings articulated as metonymic representations of the Igbo nation. Yet, Unigwe does not merely illustrate the abovementioned patterns of subjugation, but rather engages in the representation of female characters as complex figures, offering a wide range of possibilities for female identity (re)configuration. In this line, following Ifi Amadiume’s theoretical approach in Male Daughters, Female Husbands (1987), Chantal Zabus underscores the potential of Unoma Azuah’s third-generation fiction to twist Western gender assignation by bringing to the forefront the potential flexibility of the Igbo gender system (2008: 97). Zabus unmasks the inherent power of the peculiar figure of the “female husband”, a widow without male offspring who is allowed to take wives to bear descendants (2008: 94). Focusing on lesbianism in Azuah’s work, Zabus argues that Azuah appeals to Igbo gender bending in introducing female characters (sex) being assigned what Western cultures would read as masculine (gender) roles of husband or son (2008: 95). Hence, even if not inherent in Igbo culture as a normalized practice, the revolutionary possibilities of gender bending are introduced in female characters sketched by third-generation authors. Albeit in different terms, Unigwe’s Night Dancer can also be read as contributing to a third-generation “shifting of the ground of identity-construction in Nigerian fiction away from the fully-constituted masculine self, to a notion of selfhood as split or multiple” (Bryce, 2008: 50). Even if Ezi is not a lesbian character nor can be considered a female husband, the shift which Bryce describes can be appreciated in her display of normative male attitudes and her forsaking her husband. Ezi’s gender-bending potential is underscored by her beloved friend Madam Gold in telling Mma that her mother “was meant to be a man. […] [Ezi] would have made a good man. She came in the wrong body. That’s all” (11).

The potential of gender bending hints at the possibility of third-generation female novelists altering expectations about women’s role within the nation through the introduction of insubordinate female characters. As will be subsequently developed, such insubordiNation (Butler, 1996) is present in Night Dancer, which appropriates and reverses the ideology of female bodies as sexualized metonymic representations of the nation. For this appropriation and reversal to take place, Unigwe takes as her point of departure a depiction of women (en)gendering themselves as reproductive bodies. After internalizing an objectifying perspective, they recognize their self-(ab)used bodies as doomed to be judged and to fulfil their role within the nation. Departing from this social scenario, Unigwe interrogates and transgresses the mind/body binary, rejecting its dichotomization. She suggests that the evolution of Ezi’s body and mind are interdependent inasmuch as Ezi’s physical and ideological evolution and decay run in parallel. Concurrently, the novel hints at Ezi’s feminist resilience and resolute mind as key elements in her transgressive deployment of her body.

As already hinted, Ezi’s mind is described as strong, and she is introduced as confident in aspects regarding education (mind) and even beauty (body). Naomi Wolf’s argument of women’s beauty and fertility having to correlate in order to be sexually eligible (2002: 12) becomes relevant here, for it is Ezi’s body that constitutes a source for social judgement when unable to conceive, a situation which escalates when she becomes a “night dancer”, and is perceived by her community as a prostitute. The reproductive side of women’s (en)gendered role within the nation is arguably the most effective mechanism for elder family members to control and question young members. The novel introduces (in)fertility as fundamental in subjugating and disciplining female bodies and a sense of womanhood. From this perspective, the family operates as a mechanism of control, a panopticon in the Foucauldian sense, whose major social function is to guarantee “surveillance and observation, security and knowledge, individualization and totalization, isolation and transparency” (Foucault, 1995/1978: 249).

Although Ezi is presented from the beginning of the novel as a rebel, when the narrative revisits the 1980s she is in transition, suffering setbacks in her evolution as a result of her apparent inability to conceive. Ezi falls victim to the fallacy of the cult of motherhood when her mother-in-law praises her motherly body and “child-bearing hips”, which “soon [will] be filling up the house with babies” (97). She lets herself be flattered into indoctrination upon hearing Mike’s mother’s remarks, a process of feminization ultimately leading Ezi to fantasize about “all the grandchildren [she] would gift to [Mike’s] mother” (98). In spite of Ezi’s inherent rebelliousness, she feels compelled to satisfy not her husband’s desire, but her mother-in-law’s, which can be read as part of an affiliative process of feminization which ultimately leads Ezi to desire to have children, not to please herself but her mother-in-law. However, Unigwe allows the reader to contrast Ezi’s temporary submissiveness with previous depictions of Ezi as an adolescent whose

ambitions her parents were convinced were not desirable in a girl. […] Ezi had no patience with her mother’s standpoint […] and was aiming for a first-class degree in Accounting […] “I am a pioneer”, she said. “[…] It is up to us to encourage other women by staying on and chasing our dreams. And no, those dreams do not include marriage”. (184)

Ezi dodges her mother’s demanding advice about embracing the feminine traditional role and posits herself as an independent career woman; yet, the assigned role of biological reproducer is too strong for her to resist in an environment which “privileges men over women, family over individuality, conformity over free will” (Evaristo, 2012:n.p.). It is worth noting that depictions of Ezi’s mother and mother-in-law reveal contradictions in the matrix of social hierarchies as they recall that “it would be a mistake to see women [just] as passive victims in such ‘national/biological warfare’” (Yuval-Davis, 2000: 630). Against this background, Deniz Kandiyoti’s notion of the “patriarchal bargain” (1988: 275) is relevant as it unravels “the existence of set rules and scripts regulating gender relations, to which both genders accommodate and acquiesce, yet which may nonetheless be contested, redefined, and renegotiated” (1988: 286). In Night Dancer, Ezi clearly accommodates to her mother-in-law’s gendered teaching, temporarily abandoning her own feminist beliefs and aspirations and engaging in the dynamics of a patriarchal bargain her mother-in-law is complicit with and which “exert[s] a powerful influence on the shaping of women’s gendered subjectivity” (Kandiyoti, 1988: 275). The impositions of Ezi’s mother-in-law surpass her son Mike’s volition and power, and the older woman is thus depicted as a figure who, far from being reduced to patriarchal indoctrination, has the inherent power of turning tables and undermining chauvinist authority. Yet, Unigwe underlines that Ezi’s mother-in-law actively chooses not to exercise such a power. Likewise, Ezi’s mother attempts to contribute to Ezi’s process of indoctrination by advising her daughter not to desert her husband (211). Against this background, it could be argued that Unigwe depicts elder women’s willing engagement in this process of indoctrination as a defence mechanism, and therefore establishes a contrast with Ezi’s recuperation of her subversive, insubordinate character.

Even before this recuperation, and paradoxically at a time when Ezi’s mind is feeble and indoctrinated by her society’s phallocratic gender system, her body refuses to abide by the dictates of patriarchy. This is illustrated when Unigwe positions Ezi’s body as unable to fulfil its procreative duty, first in not getting pregnant and afterwards in giving birth to a girl instead of the desired boy. Hence, objectified as it is, her body opposes social control even when her mind submits. The trope of bodies refusing to fulfil social burdens is recalled in third-generation Igbo narratives such as Unoma Azuah’s Sky-High Flames (2005), and Chinelo Okparanta’s “Wahala!” (2013) and Under the Udala Trees (2015). This trope also features in Yoruba narratives such as Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives (2010), Yejide Kilanko’s Daughters Who Walk This Path (2012), and Ayòbámi Adébáyò’s Stay with Me (2017). Hence, Igbo and Yoruba authors construct female protagonists who are questioning their own worth as they are blamed, denied compassion, and discouraged from thinking their husbands are to be blamed.

A further common trait of these Igbo and Yoruba narratives is the insertion of a moment at which female protagonists experience a feeling of lethargy when it comes to their bodies. In Night Dancer when Ezi is unable to fulfil expectations about producing a son, the third-person narrator focalizes Ezi’s point of view: “instead of disappearing, [her restlessness] transformed itself into lethargy of mind and body so debilitating that some mornings she had trouble getting out of bed. And now she had Rapu, she did not need to get out at all” (189). Soon after this episode, Ezi becomes a “night dancer”, and deliberately detaches herself from her body at an emotional level. Making a utilitarian and commodified use of her body, the fact that Ezi consciously takes this decision contrasts with the unconscious aloofness Ezi experiences when she cannot induce herself to become pregnant with a son.

Hired as a housemaid, Rapu progressively becomes Ezi’s substitute when the latter is unable to run the household. Contributing to Ezi’s lethargy, Rapu cooks and undertakes household chores, becomes Mike’s lover, provides him with an heir and eventually becomes his wife upon Ezi’s departure. Hence, Rapu’s body fulfils the duties Ezi is not able or willing to. While Ezi distances herself and eventually reunites herself with the agency and strongmindedness predominant in the earlier stages of her life, Rapu not only never abandons her submissive position, but also appears to experience a reversed process in becoming increasingly submissive, allowing Mike’s desires to become her priority.

Unigwe introduces Rapu as a device through which to denounce women’s submission to patriarchy as well as their lack of solidarity with one another — the latter being one of the main topics in the novel. This motif reaches its zenith when Ezi abandons Mike and becomes a “night dancer”, purposefully rebelling against social expectations. This thematic line has already been introduced when, unable to conceive a child, Ezi is harshly criticized by her mother-in-law, who advises Mike to “get a girlfriend, get her pregnant and raise the baby” (183). This dismissal proves Ezi’s mother-in-law to lack empathy, and nor is any compassion demonstrated towards Ezi by Rapu, for she mocks the other woman. In this context, social class issues arise, as Rapu resents her position of social inferiority, taking pleasure in fantasizing about “throw[ing Ezi’s] barrenness in her face” (171). Rapu prophesizes that what she calls Ezi’s laziness and indolence would “[leave] holes through which her husband could be snatched away from her” (165). Mike reveals himself as a conflicted and weak-minded character, a puppet in his mother’s hands. In juxtaposition with other Igbo male figures like Eugene in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus (2003) and Oko in Azuah’s Sky-High Flames (2005), Mike is blamed for his deception, but not entirely hated for most of his actions. Without overlooking men’s role in oppressing women, Unigwe is thus more critical of women’s (mis)treatment of each other than of Mike’s wrongs, both denouncing a patriarchal system in which women contribute to oppress each other, and bearing witness to a potential self-liberation on women’s behalf through fostering solidarity among themselves. These events mark Unigwe’s calling for what Eze refers to as “feminist empathy”, the capacity to identify with a woman afflicted by undeserved and socially imposed distress (2015: 311).

When pregnant, Ezi believes to have finally fulfilled her duty as a wife: “after years of waiting, of hoping, that was what she deserved. A girl would be nice as a second child. But first a son, to provide Mike with an heir, and then a daughter to mother, the way girls need to be” (193). Ezi does not reflect pride nor personal fulfilment, for she talks about “deserving” but not of “desiring”. In immediately hoping for a son her mind responds to patriarchal tribal demands, revealing her ideals and willpower now to be subjugated and modelled. Preparing herself to engage in the elder women’s role of intergenerational indoctrinators, she even plans to have a daughter after her first baby boy is born, and to pass on to her the very same gendered values she has received. Once again, Ezi’s body challenges her expectations. Nevertheless, when a baby girl is born, Ezi is not disappointed. This can be read as the beginning of a new stage in her evolution, for it is precisely having a baby girl that situates her in a vulnerable position in the household when Mike’s mother brings Rapu and Mike’s son back home. A further turning point is introduced when, upon discovering Mike’s betrayal, Ezi refuses not only polygyny but also to stay and raise Rapu’s son. When Ezi realizes that embracing such a fate is not in her daughter’s best interests, she breaks with tradition and abandons Mike. Ezi’s mother considers Ezi’s decision to desert Mike the result of an inherent flaw in her daughter, since that was “the problem with girls with too much book knowledge” (211). In spite of these words, Ezi cannot be deterred from striving for her daughter’s brightest future. Indeed, it is this epiphanic moment which prompts the awakening of her mind from its lethargic state. Ezi’s radical decision can be read through Kimberly J. Lau’s reflections on black women performing womanhood and “the complex interplay of constraint and freedom through which (en)gendered body-subjects both are constituted and constitute themselves” (2011: 79; emphasis in original).

Recalling Judith Butler’s influential notion of gender as the performance of bodily acts through which the essence of gender is manufactured (2010: xv–xvi), Ezi’s experience demonstrates that the voluntary challenge of gender expectations might provoke social rejection. Social mechanisms of control show no mercy to those willing and still failing to submit and perform their duty; performances and not intentions are valued. Before performing such actions a moment of revelation may arise if subjects discover fissures in the discourse urging them to continue performing. It is in that instant that liberating counteraction is triggered. It is precisely when Ezi must face a new stage of “performance” — namely, the acceptance of her husband’s infidelity for the sake of her family — that she decides not to perform anymore and rebels against figures of authority. A similar pattern of action can be found in Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees (2015), which introduces Ijeoma: a lesbian character coerced into heterosexual marriage, but who recovers her rebelliousness and refuses to perform normalized gender roles, just like Ezi. Okparanta and Unigwe set forth a scenario in which Nigerian women can find strategies to react against and counter their oppression, reinforcing the view of third-generation female characters empowering themselves as they interrogate and redefine pre-established hierarchical positions within the family (Eze, 2015: 321; Nadaswaran, 2011: 20; Zabus, 2008: 94). The development of a complex and ever-growing feminist approach regarding body politics allows Ezi’s agency to be re-established. At this point, the depatriarchalization of her mind brings the progressive (re)acquisition of Ezi’s feminist values in what concerns the ruling of her body.

Dancing on the razor’s edge: Discourse reversal and body commodification

Ezi’s abandonment of Mike prepares for the ultimate step in her evolution, namely her decision to commodify her body, which marks her and Mma as social outcasts. She finally achieves self-acceptance and control over her life when she irreversibly challenges Igbo tradition and conventional female behaviour. In this section I shall delve into the description of Ezi’s body as non-sexualized despite her commodification of it, which will be analysed in relation to the meaning of the term “night dancer”. I will introduce the process of taking control of her body as a metonymy for controlling her destiny, an appropriation and reversal of the objectification of female bodies as metonymically representing and contributing to the development of the nation. In turn, I will scrutinize Mma’s descriptions of her mother and her rejection of Ezi’s advice until the reading of the memoirs, and the implications of such actions in Mma’s upbringing and later her self-perception as an adult.

At this point, it is interesting to recall Unigwe’s articulation of Ezi succumbing to social pressures only after reassuring the reader of her final personal triumph. With this narrative strategy Unigwe draws attention to the perpetual process of identity renegotiation to which Nigerian women might see themselves subjected as they find themselves bombarded by gendered dictums they must consciously resist. This constant identity negotiation has led Unigwe to proclaim herself an advocate of nego-feminism, a neologism coined by Obioma Nnaemeka to refer to “the feminism of negotiation; [a kind of] no ego feminism […] that names African feminisms” (2004: 360–61). Unigwe posits that nego-feminism represents “a feminism which stays within the boundaries of social and cultural norms, but which also manipulates that space. […] Negofeminism is […] not confrontational, it recognises the strength of culture and the limitations of what you, as one person or as a woman, can do within that culture” (qtd. in Tunca et al., 2013: 56). This notwithstanding, Unigwe underscores that she wrote Night Dancer with the purpose of “figur[ing] out how a woman who chose to break out of social boundaries, who chose not to be a negofeminist in a society where negofeminism would work, would be able to survive” (qtd. in Tunca et al., 2013: 59; emphasis in original).

Ezi’s letters reflect an attitude distancing itself from nego-feminism, as she undergoes a gradual change towards increasing confrontational forms of feminism. Even as an adolescent, Ezi does not leave space for negotiation when it comes to her future plans, and nor does she later on when she decides to leave her husband. As a novel with a female protagonist whose agency leads her to desert her husband after being deceived by him, Night Dancer is an uncommon example in Nigerian literature. Even if third-generation Nigerian women writers introduce female characters who decide to disown their husbands, those protagonists are not mothers, and their decision to forsake a husband is only very infrequently the result of betrayal. Those female characters are almost invariably presented as having experienced either domestic violence or sexual abuse; such is the case of Ofunne in Azuah’s Sky-High Flames, and Bolanle in Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives. This is not to suggest that the abovementioned authors trivialize infidelity, but for them betrayal does not constitute a catalyst for emancipation in their works. Such a distinction makes Night Dancer stand out among third-generation texts, particularly in terms of Ezi’s willingness to become a single mother. Together with Night Dancer, Okparanta’s “On Ohaeto Street” (2013) introduces a case of disloyalty as the trigger for Chinwe to decide to abandon her husband (2013: 18). However, Chinwe is a childless woman, which once again marks a distance with Night Dancer, because the criticism Ezi is subjected to is not merely the result of her being a “night dancer” but of being so as a single mother. Here, Night Dancer echoes Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street, where Ama, Efe, and Sisi, three of its four protagonists, decide to leave Nigeria and head to Antwerp, becoming prostitutes as a means of emancipating themselves from their home environment.

The purposeful evocation of a woman whose ideology goes beyond nego-feminism allows Unigwe to highlight the hybrid nature of postcolonial Nigeria as a context where feminist enactments are not limited to precepts entailing negotiation. As such, she envisages Nigeria as leaving room for individual choice at the level of the confrontation involved in each feminist deed. In this respect, it can be argued that Unigwe’s confrontational feminism adds to the range of feminisms found in other third-generation novels, thus broadening the scope of feminist manifestations in Nigeria. This principle is echoed in works including Azuah’s Sky-High Flames (2005), Atta’s Swallow (2010), Kilanko’s Daughters Who Walk This Path (2012), Adichie’s Americanah (2013), and Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees (2015), as examples of novels which, if read in parallel, clearly display multiple articulations of Nigerian feminisms in relation to strategies of agency, negotiation, resistance, and emancipation.

Unigwe deviates from womanist models which advocate a “harmonious coexistence of both sexes” (Ogini, 1996: 18) and defend men and women’s “complementary roles of relationship” (1996: 16), somehow denying the possibility of an independent existence. Distancing herself from such a worldview, Unigwe presents a more rebellious or insurgent feminist perspective and envisages the possibility of a confrontational feminism to operate in Nigeria, although the adoption of such a feminism entails social rejection. For this reason, her novel underscores the relevance of dealing with personal relationships and with “seeking personal freedom even at the cost of communal displeasure” (Unigwe, qtd. in Musiitwa, 2012: n.p.).

Ezi is conceived as “find[ing] happiness on her own terms” (59), since she willingly faces the social consequences of abandoning her husband and becoming a “night dancer” and reasserting her personal pride. Here, the term “night dancer” gains significance, for Unigwe unfolds its meaning not only as a reference to prostitution but also a translation from an Acholi (Ugandan) term meaning “witch”, used to refer to “women who do not abide by the rules” (Mwesigire, 2014: n.p.). Unigwe further clarifies that the Acholi “night dancer” embodies the “anti-woman; that is, a woman who does not act like one” (qtd. in Tunca et al., 2013: 59). Such statements expand Unigwe’s configuration of Ezi as a “night dancer” who “breaks down social barriers and refuses to be what a woman ought to be in her culture” (2013: 59).

I contend that the term “night dancer” in the novel can be analysed in more positive terms and not merely in association with prostitution or gender non-conformism, for the motif of dancing is a constant in the novel, used to associate Ezi with freedom of movement, autonomy, and an uninhibited control of her body. Usually hinting at Ezi’s outspokenness, dancing is associated with liberty of movement as she shamelessly laughs out loud (33). The trope of dancing serves the purpose of contrasting Ezi’s attitude towards her situation as a social outcast with her daughter’s, whose evocations of Ezi’s dances reveal her progressive engagement with her mother’s feminist teachings, passed over in the form of memories. Thus, “night dancer” becomes a positive symbol of freedom of mind and body that both contrasts and intertwines with its negative undertones.

As an outcast, Ezi is not “invisibilized” but rather hyper-visibilized by the communities she encounters. After leaving Mike’s house, her female neighbours in Enugu whisper upon her arrival, “hiss[ing] loudly and held their noses as if [she] smelt” (84), marking her and little Mma as social pariahs. These same women rebuke Ezi, call her a Jezebel, and forbid their husbands from helping her (82) and their daughters from befriending little Mma, saying “loudly to each other that they had to protect their families” (82). Patricia H. Collins deconstructs the stereotype of the Jezebel as intending “to relegate all Black women to the category of sexually aggressive women” (2000: 83), and further reveals that the stereotype was conceived to control black women’s sexuality, since both fertility and sexuality were mechanisms of domination designed not to be controlled by black women (Collins, 2004: 56). Willingness to become a “night dancer” has an inherent transgressive sexual connotation, a point which establishes a contrast between Night Dancer and Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street, a novel which deals with the commodification of female bodies through female characters’ accounts, whereas Ezi’s account is more positive. Furthermore, while Ama, Efe, and Sisi, retell their involvement in prostitution in On Black Sisters’ Street, regularly offering a rather harsh view of their lives, Night Dancer does not have Ezi describing her experience as a “night dancer” but rather her emancipation. Ezi uses sex as a self-emancipatory weapon, distancing herself from other third-generation female characters, such as Joyce in On Black Sisters’ Street and Aunty Precious in Chibundu Onuzo’s The Spider King’s Daughter (2012), who are either trapped or tricked into prostitution. When Ezi and Mma seek a fresh start in a new neighbourhood, Ezi is expected to lie but she refuses to make up excuses for not having a husband and to seek the approval of the community by performing her gendered role (66). The two neighbourhoods to which Ezi moves after abandoning her husband function as microcosms of the nation. There the same social hierarchies and patterns of social control are present, rather than granting the opportunity of starting anew.

Another trait marking Night Dancer as a remarkable third-generation novel is the delineation of Ezi as a character whose financial independence in starting her own business is concomitant with and marks the emergence of freedom of choice. This freedom comes as result of deserting Mike and eventually leads Ezi to become more independent in terms of the use of her body. A range of choices is also present in Ezi’s refusal to conform to social expectations around keeping up appearances by having a male partner. Equally important is the fact that while other third-generation female characters are depicted as utilizing their bodies for self-emancipatory purposes, Ezi is unusual in triumphing in her action, as it is never hinted that her body is sexually abused or exploited beyond her wishes. A clear contrast can be established with Morayo’s apparent sexual freedom and experimentation in Kilanko’s Daughters Who Walk This Path, which can be read as an attempt to forget the trauma of past sexual abuse (2012: 205). Further contrast can be found in Sefi Atta’s Swallow, where Rose and Tolani’s decision to use their bodies to enrich themselves through drug trafficking is tinged with fear (2010: 206), as well as with threats and manipulation on behalf of male dealers (2010: 248).

Whereas hints of Ezi’s life as a “night dancer” are introduced from the very beginning of the novel, Unigwe carefully avoids descriptions and narrative passages in which Ezi’s body is sexualized and objectified. Ezi’s love affairs as a “night dancer” are surrounded by a mysterious aura. Only Mma and Madam Gold, Ezi’s beloved friend, directly refer to Ezi’s body, never sexualizing it, but rather intertwining such mentions with her strength of mind (11; 33; 74), and her role as a mother through allusions to her womb (11; 19). The closest thing to a sexualizing reference readers may encounter correlates with the already discussed objectification of her body in terms of her reproductive value and the episode of female neighbours calling Ezi a Jezebel. Yet, in this latter case, the attention is not on her sensual body but her eyes as “fire waiting to consume [her neighbour’s] husband” (82). These references reveal Unigwe not depriving female characters of agency or voice, even though such agency is at times used to commit gender offences against each other — the focus being on women not merely as victims but also as perpetrators.

Having Ezi as the single and not completely reliable narrator of her own story, through her memoirs or letters, means that her nocturnal activities are barely mentioned and are never explicitly described beyond men picking her up late at night. Unigwe has Ezi raising the subject in order to avoid sexualizing the character as, for instance, would have been the case had these descriptions been made by her lovers or other characters. In this respect, whereas readers frequently mention Ezi’s vague references to prostitution, Unigwe has pointed out that Ezi “doesn’t become a prostitute, but gets money from male lovers” (qtd. in Tunca et al., 2013: 59). With few exceptions, details about Ezi’s lovers are barely described in the novel, and her lovers’ points of view are never offered. Ezi’s mental processes and reflections on her social struggles are given priority above depictions revolving around her life as a “night dancer”.

Interestingly, nails, lips, and teeth are the parts of Ezi’s body most often depicted. Highlighting Ezi’s confidence, those descriptions are offered by Mma, and strictly relate to Ezi’s outspokenness as they convey the possible sexual connotations of being called a “night dancer”. The aforementioned connection between “night dancer” and the actual act of dancing is recalled in Ezi’s red nails, red lips, red shoes, and other multicoloured items, which bear witness to her refusing to restrain or hide herself, resisting invisibility or submissiveness. In Ezi’s case, red’s connotation with bodily passion and desire is associated with self-oriented passion since, rather than focalizing her desire on another person, it turns into self-confidence, self-determination, and strong-mindedness. Red also predominates in her instructive memoirs, written in red ink and suggesting liberation because red ink is described as “dancing on paper” (43).

Dance is deployed to raise awareness of Ezi attempting to teach Mma to be uninhibited, and Mma’s descriptions of Ezi’s dancing at different points in the narrative reveal her progressive engagement with feminist teachings:

the clearest childhood memory Mma had of her mother was of a not-so-tall, not-so-short woman in a multicoloured boubou, clapping and dancing to music […]. On her feet she had shoes of such glossy red that it seemed as if they sent out sparks every time she tapped them. […] “Ngwa, dance, dance”, her mother said to her. And Mma, already embarrassed by her mother’s flamboyance […] shook her head. (74)

Uncomfortable in her own house, little Mma estranges herself from her mother and sees her dancing in frenetic motion as a sign of “failing to grasp her daughter’s need” (77). Declining to dance, Mma refuses to take full control of her body and destiny, because she would rather fulfil traditional standards of womanhood as this would grant her acceptance within the Igbo community. Although Mma consciously tries to become the opposite of what her mother embodies, she progressively changes her mind as she reads the memoirs, especially after she finally meets her father and visits his house: “her mother would never have been able to dance [t]here. […] . This house would not have accepted her mother’s twirling in her red dancing shoes, laughing her loud laugh” (231). Finally relating the trope of dancing to unrestraint in the constraining place that Mike’s house represents, Mma embraces the idea of “night dancer” as someone who does not abide by the rules, thus overriding the negative connotations of the term.

If dancing is considered the epitome of independence, autonomy, and self-determination, not being able to dance stands for the inability to figure out one’s own identity, which would have been Ezi’s destiny had she stayed with Mike. As previously underlined, Ezi’s use of her body is part of Unigwe’s appropriation and reversal of how female bodies are sexualized for nationalistic purposes as they merge with the national imaginary. Ezi’s self-objectification and utilitarian use of her body parallels Yuval-Davis’s criticism of national discourses on female bodies as commodities, Ezi’s actions entailing an appropriation of such ideas and ideals inasmuch as she literally benefits from them. Ezi profits from those ideals, buying her emancipation and evading patriarchal dictums, ultimately passing this knowledge to Mma. However, Unigwe does not idealize this situation, for it is presented as clearly affecting Ezi’s reputation and relation with her daughter. Inasmuch as characters in third-generation novels such as Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) and Purple Hibiscus (2003) have been described as “betrayed by their bodies” (Simoes Da Silva, 2012: 465) in a context where suffering bodies stand for national trauma and fragmentation (2012: 465), Ezi’s taking control of her body can be read as a trope of success and hope for nation re-building through individual rebellions. In turn, Unigwe suggests that feminist empathy and Ezi’s insistence on self-determination leads to a less asymmetrical gender hierarchy.

Conclusion

Night Dancer presents a strong Nigerian woman whose body refuses to meet expectations around womanhood within the nation. In this article, I have analysed Ezi’s commodification of her body as an essential part of her evolution, as instrumental to her rejection of women’s traditional submissiveness. The fact that Ezi’s mind predominates over her body signals her strong character and bears witness to the fact that an active mind is essential to rejecting mechanisms of social control. In presenting a character who eventually breaks the cycle of elder women acculturating younger bodies into submission, Unigwe advocates for insubordiNation (Butler, 1996) in defending a less nego- and more radical feminist approach to body politics and the role of women within the family and the nation. In this sense, the novel can be understood as calling for a change of mind in a new generation of Nigerian women, for whom the body is a source of liberation, not of submission. Contrary to canonical representations of female bodies as metonymies of the nation, Unigwe envisages the possibility of a change in women’s perspective towards their bodies leading to self-emancipation.