goals or roles for themselves. In "Efuru", Flora Nwapa constantly refers to the proper upbringing of children; especially girls who are expected to become wives and mothers. Amede, Efuru's mother-in-law and her friend, Omirima, express their disappointment with Ogea when Amede complains:'It is that silly girl, Ogea. She washed my wrappersand all of them will have to be washed again becausethere is still black soap on all of them. How is it thata grown-up girl like that is not able to wash clothesproperly? How can she live in a man's house?'(181)Omirima replies:'That's what I keep on saying, children of these days are no good. How men of today marry them is what I can not understand.'(181)This part of the book makes someone ask themselves: If motherhood is so vital to the mental health of the African woman, why does Flora Nwapa punish the heroine, Efuru, with the malignant trauma of childlessness? The pain of infertility is inflicted in Efuru. As I have read as well, in some of the websites that I have visited dedicated to Flora Nwapa, this pain is inflicted in most of her independent and assertive women in four of her novels: Efuru and Idu, Amaka in One is Enough, and Rose in Women Are Different. When these women eventually conceive a child, it brings about a lot of difficulty to them and doesn't bring about total satisfaction. Perhaps the Lake Goddess is responsible for the fact that these women do not have children, the state that they eventually find themselves in. I say this because it is strange that the women who either worship her or share her attributes-long hair, beauty, wealth, and independent spirit are the women that do not have children or are not capable of being mothers.Omirima states in "Efuru" that Uhamiri's worshippers mostly are without children:'How many women in this town who worship Uhamiri have children?All right let's count them: Ogini Azogu,' she counted off one finger, 'she had a son before she became a worshi...
