Literary Stylistics of Mother-Daughter Trauma Transmission in Buchi Emecheta's Second Class Citizen and Eniola Lateefat's A Broken Bird

Female gender, whether young or adult, married or single experiences trauma in various facets of their lives; research has established that they even transmit it to unborn generations. In a bid to wade into the root cause and profer possible solutions on how to manage it, this study examines the representation of the intergenerational transmission of trauma through the mother-daughter dyad in two Nigerian novels: Buchi Emecheta's Second Class Citizen and Eniola Lateefat's A Broken Bird. Employing a qualitative content analysis approach informed by feminist trauma theory and African feminist criticism as pronounced by Herman (1992) and Brown (1995), the study analyses twenty purposively selected textual samples (ten from each novel) that represent emotional and mental traumatization. The trauma areas investigated include shame, grief, cognitive dissonance, and suicidal ideation. The analysis revealed that both texts represent the mother-daughter relationship as a primary vector for the transmission of trauma across generations, through mechanisms including maternal socialisation into gendered inferiority, the internalisation of maternal judgment, and the failure of substitute mother-figures. The study also identified moments of resistance and potential interruption of the intergenerational cycle. In conclusion, the experiences of protagonists Adah and Bola in the two novels are specimens of what thousands of women struggle with. From inherited maternal trauma and the absence of a mother figure, to the lack of a supportive male presence and the internalization of maternal judgment, the female subject is compelled to assume rigidity and resilience. Though culturally coded as masculine attributes, these qualities become necessary for her liberation from generational trauma.