The purpose of this research is to examine Buchi Emecheta's The Family with a view toward explaining what the author is trying to achieve. The plan of the research will be to set forth the pattern of ideas in the work and how these ideas emerge, and then to discuss what aim lies behind them.
To describe The Family as a coming-of-age story is to limit the scope of a story that includes the loss of innocence and the achievement of a rare self-understanding and self-respect, as well as the transformation of an individual from the status of victim to the self-possessed status of a life conducted in a self-aware manner. Left with her grandmother when her parents emigrate to England from the grinding poverty of Jamaica, Gwendolen (June-June) Brillianton is raped and repeatedly assaulted by an uncle and ridiculed and ostracized when she reveals the abuse to the family. What begins as help and support from her Granny Naomi ends as the uncle is welcomed back into the family and Gwendolen becomes the target of family abuse. Fearful of any confrontation, she retreats from the external world of confrontation into a world of secret thoughts and dreams. When her parents send for her, she believes that she will be able to reclaim herself, "happy, trusting, Gwendolen again" (39).
Gwendolen's arrival in England is not so much the arrival of a welcome child as of a maid for her younger siblings, called pikneys in the Jamaican vernacular. There is also culture shock to contend with--taking a bath, having a key, dealing with landlords. The question of identity arises as well, for Gwendolen becomes confused about her very name--June-June, Gwendolen, Grandalee, or Grandalew. Gwendolen's sense of alienation grows as she discovers everyone close to her except her parents speaks a different language, not the pidgin of Jamaica but more or less standard BBC English, and as she increasingly becomes aware of her status as family servant more than f...