Book Review Of Half Of A Yellow Sun

1928 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: An Essay on Nigeria

Half of a Yellow Sun – Book Review Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Half of a Yellow Sun explores the events that occur prior and during the Nigerian Civil War (Biafran War). In addition, the novel is directed to those of us outside of Nigeria that are unaware of how immensely the war has impacted its people. The author tells the story ingeniously, engaging the reader to the perspectives of the characters and their own specific plot, which is quite intriguing on its own. Moreover, she gently touches on the dark reality of the Biafran War in such a way that it educates the reader, but does not change the feel of the narrative. The impact of the war on her parents served as deep motivation for Adichie to bring forth this type of storytelling (cite this). Her perspective on the effect of the postcolonial identity of Nigeria, which leads into the war, is clearly reflected in one of the protagonists of the novel, Olanna. The trauma endured by her parents and family has led her to construct …show more content…

The culture and general nature of their society changes over the course of three stages: pre-war, war, and post-war. The British formed Nigeria, putting a variety of ethnic groups together, leaving the power of government with northern Nigeria (the Hausa) in efforts to exploit and rule from afar. The tension that arose from this between the Hausa and the Igbo were definitely causal factors to the war. The multiple viewpoints exhibited through the eyes of the three main characters: Ugwu, Odenigbo, and Olanna, demonstrated to me the various levels of impact the war had on the people of Biafra. The rate of both cultural change and change in social identity for the Igbo from pre- to post- Biafran war is most certainly evident through the character development over the course of the

Show More
Related

  • A Single Story Of African Culture In Things Fall Apart By Chinua Achebe

    1675 Words  | 4 Pages

    As wise John Berger once said,“Never again shall a single story be told as though it were the only one”. A “single story” is the story of a culture that we learn from stereotypes and conspiracies developed throughout time in our society. In “Things Fall Apart”, Chinua Achebe defies the single story of African culture while still tying their native language in to show the importance between a physical differentiation of culture, and the similarities with morals and values they have in common. Through gender roles and proverbs used in the language of this book, we have a cultural insight of Nigeria through a new set of eyes given to us by Achebe that detures us from the single stories that we were taught to by our society.

    Read More

  • The Hardships of African Men and Women in A Grain of Wheat by Nugugi

    493 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the novel a Grain of Wheat written by Nugugi we explore in-depth the hardships and courage of African men and women who were forced to fight for their independence in the War of Independence. This book reveals to us the life of a man named Gikonyo. As a reader we learn that Gikonyo was through into a detention camp a poor and confused man. When released, Gikonyo is a new man with motivational and leadership abilities. Finding his true self in the camp and proving to be a true leader among his people. Although he is a new man after the camps, Gikonyo finds himself falling further apart from his beloved wife then he had ever been before.

    Read More

  • culture collision

    642 Words  | 2 Pages

    When the Europeans arrived in Africa during the late eighteenth century the culture and the lives of the people of Africa are altered. Colonialism and Imperialism in Africa has adversely changed the way of life of the African people, and changed their culture, that had developed for so many years, unscathed by any distraction from the outside world. This dominant European influence has led to poverty in the African continent for the next 100 years, because of the institutions that were put into place by Europeans. In Things Fall Apart, it becomes clear that the Ibo culture responds in a distinct way to the European colonization; when compared to other villages and ethnic groups in Africa. These foreigners had such an enormous effect on the Ibo tribe that many of the clansmen decided to abandon the traditional ways or were too afraid to rise against the takeover of their tribe by the Europeans since the natives lacked the adequate technology to fight off the Europeans. The culture collision between Europe’s culture and the Ibo culture causes Nwoye’s sense of identity to be challenged and causes him to distance himself from his family and his tribe because of the introduction of Christianity and western ideals.

    Read More

  • Things Fall Apart

    1974 Words  | 4 Pages

    Chinua Achebe?s Things Fall Apart is a narrative story that follows the life of an African man called Okonkwo. The setting of the book is in eastern Nigeria, on the eve of British colonialism in Africa. The novel illustrates Okonkwo?s struggles, triumphs, and his eventual downfall, all of which basically coincide with the Igbo?s society?s struggle with the Christian religion and British government. In this essay I will give a biographical account of Okonwo, which will serve to help understand that social, political, and economic institutions of the Igbos.

    Read More

  • Why Is Aunty Kambili, Have You No Mother By Chmamanda Ngozi

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    Occurrences of different magnitudes can completely change how a person thinks, acts, or feels every second of the day. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illustrates the story of a girl’s life--a girl by the name of Kambili--and how corruption (figuratively and literally) changes her outlook on life. Domestic violence takes a toll on not only her, but her family also. As Kambili strives to find hope, she instead finds something bigger than that- change in herself. Adichie’s work is known to reflect the dynamic story of the Nigerian people during this era. Working to eliminate political strife, Adichie publishes this work, hoping to demonstrate the true meaning of how it truly feels to live under an oppressive state of both physical and mental capacity.

    Read More

  • Overview of Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Adichie

    1318 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout the centuries, the roles of Nigerian women have continuously evolved. During the pre- colonial era, women in Nigerian tribes were not only child bearers and wives, but also free adults. They played critical roles in food preparation, weaving, pottery, and the economy. However, the impact of British rule in Nigeria made a significant shift from the pre-colonial to the post- colonial era. The influence of the Catholic Church, Western style education, patriarchal government and modern ways of making money took a major toll in a woman’s role in society. In Chimamanda Adichie’s novel, Purple Hibiscus, Mama Beatrice and Aunty Ifeoma are dynamic female foils who represent opposite sides of spectrum in post- colonial feminism. Mama epitomizes the product of colonialism, while Aunty Ifeoma challenges the British influence and growing power of men.

    Read More

  • British Colonialism In Nigeria

    2692 Words  | 6 Pages

    To adapt one of Isichei's claims, Nigeria's “confrontation with an alien culture, its conquest, and the experience of an alien rule, created … [crises]” (180). There were many riots and conflicts between the Nigerians and the British, although most of the uprisings were eventually subdued by the military power of the British. Riots were common—from the culturally rooted Yoruba riots in the West and the religious skirmishes with the Muslims and Hausa in the North, to the confrontations with the naturally ‘rich,' yet stubborn Igbo and Delta states. Apart from encompassing all the major ethnic groupings and regions in Nigeria, amazingly these conflicts also covered the three most explicit British inculcations: cultural, religious, and economic.

    Read More

  • Colonialims and the Use of Narrative in Stories Helped Fight Colonialism

    1290 Words  | 3 Pages

    Chinua Achebe was an influential Nigerian author during the 1900’s who was credited with his three essays which have been fused together into the book “Home and Exile”. In his stories he discusses things such as his own Igbo people, the problems with colonialization, the strength that stories can have and many more topics. A big part of his essays are on his thoughts of colonialism, the impact it has had on his home of Nigeria, and how stories written by others either helped justify colonialism or rejected it. Chinua argues that stories have their own power to fight, and while stories themselves do not have the ability to directly fight colonialism; they do, however with their power of words, stories can motivate and encourage people to stand up against colonialism. In proving this thesis to be a true statement, I will be providing evidence of the how, why and the extent to which stories can fight colonialism.

    Read More

  • How Does Chinua Achebe Depict Ibo Culture In Things Fall Apart?

    1510 Words  | 4 Pages

    Chinua Achebe’s, Things Fall Apart, is a story of a traditional village in Nigeria from inside Umuofia around the late 1800s. This novel depicts late African history and shows how the British administrative structure, in the form of the European Anglican Church, imposed its religion and trappings on the cultures of Africa, which they believed was uncivilized. This missionary zeal subjugated large native populations. Consequently, the native traditions gradually disappeared and in time the whole local social structure within which the indigenous people had lived successfully for centuries was destroyed. Achebe spends the first half of the novel depicting the Ibo culture, by itself, in both a sophisticated and primitive light describing and discussing its grandeur, showing its strengths and weaknesses, etiquettes and incivilities, and even the beginning of cultural breakdown before the introduction of the missionaries. The collapse of the old culture is evident soon after the missionaries arrived, and here Achebe utilises two of the primary missionary figures, Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith, to once again depicts both sides of the Ibo culture between them, with Mr. Brown depicting the sophisticated and Mr. Smith depicting the primitive aspects.

    Read More

  • The Destruction of the Igbo Indigenous Culture in Things Fall Apart

    1683 Words  | 4 Pages

    The novel Things fall apart depicts the cultural battle between the Igbo and the British: one was trying to keep its tradition, and one wanted to change those traditions by replacing them with a new religion. Finally, the British won because of they could figure out the falsehood in the indigenous people’s degenerate customs and attack it. Nothing in this world is perfect, and it is hard for a culture to be perfect. However, if a culture wants to develop and thrive, it should respect the value of its entire people. That was the reason why the Igbo culture was destroyed, because of its conservativeness, gender differentiation and superstitiously killing of the innocent.

    Read More

  • Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    1327 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie attempts to use history in order to gain leverage on the present, to subvert the single story stereotypes that dominate many contemporary discourses on Africa. Written in the genre of historical fiction, Adichie’s novel transcends beyond mere historical narration and recreates the polyphonic experiences of varying groups of people in Nigeria before and after the Civil War. She employs temporal distortion in her narrative, distorting time in order to illustrate the intertwining effects of the past and present, immersing deep into the impact of western domination that not only catalyzed the war, but continues to affect contemporary Africa. In this paper, I will analyze her portrayal of the multifaceted culture produced by colonialism – one that coalesces elements from traditional African culture with notions of western modernity to varying degrees. I will argue that Adichie uses a range of characters, including Odenigbo’s mother, Ugwu, Olanna and Kainene, to each represent a point in a spectrum between tradition and modernity.

    Read More

  • Olanna And Ugwu In Adiche's Half Of A Yellow Sun

    2130 Words  | 5 Pages

    The characters of Olanna and Ugwu in Adiche’s Half of a Yellow Sun deal with the traumatic memories of the Biafran war in varying ways. The way each character copes with the trauma speaks to their character and illustrates the way they have understood culture through their personal experience of the Biafran war. Their ideologies that they were brought up with shape their experiences, clarifying their actions in dealing with traumatic experience. The interaction between these two characters, Olanna and Ugwu confront the ways in which one could deal with ‘burning’ memory and effects of the Biafran war. Their personal histories foreshadow the manner in which they attempt to move forward.

    Read More

  • British Colonial Policy And The Nigerian Civil War

    2828 Words  | 6 Pages

    While the outside world considered Nigeria to be a united and monolithic entity, even the British colonial administration was wary of the reality of Nigerian politics; the nation was not so much a “country” as it was more than three hundred different groups coalesced into one.4 5 These tribes were divided between three main spheres of influence: the Yoruba, the Igbo, and the Hausa. Historically, their interests were often opposed, and their cultures did not come into regular contact with one another until the British occupation. In spite of the differences British administration a...

    Read More

  • Girls at War, and Other Stories

    1042 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the book, Girls at War, and Other Stories, Chinua Achebe write several stories in which he portrays different examples of Nigerian customs, experiences and beliefs. He make a contrast between what are tradditional Nigerian customs and the view in modern Nigerian society. Also war is another topic that Achebe presents in the story “girls at war”.Without any doubt, the use of irony is widely use in all of his stories. The audience can clearly see the use of this theme in each of the characters actions and experiences. Making emphasis on good things happening to the ones that don’t deserve it and viceversa.

    Read More

  • Stench of Kerosene, by Amrita Pritam and Veronica, by Adewala Maja-Pearce

    1227 Words  | 3 Pages

    This essay will consist of a brief background of both the story and the authors and I will compare and contrast both Indian and Nigerian culture and tradition, specifically looking at the woman’s role and duty within their family and community. The short story ‘A stench of kerosene’ retells the story of a young woman called Gulleri, who lives with her husband Manak and his family. Gulleri is unable to bear a child and therefore unable to produce a son, because of this, Manak’s mother arranges him to marry another woman whilst Gulleri is at the yearly harvest fair in her home town of Chamba. When Gulleri hears of manak’s new wife she soaks her clothes in kerosene and sets herself on fire. Author of, a stench of kerosene, Amrita Pritam who was a citizen of India in 1947, was famously known to write about personal experiences and events that occurred in India, therefore it is quite possible she would have been an eyewitness to horrific scenes like the story of Gulleri, So It is quite fitting that she would write a story of this nature. The story Veronica is also about a young woman, who lives with her family in a small village in Nigeria and her friend Okeke who leaves Nigeria to gain an education in England, ten years later he returned to find Veronica was married, with a child and living in acute poverty. Okeke left Nigeria and returned three years later after the destruction of the civil war, where he met Veronica for the very last time, Veronica died in Okeke’s arms. The author Adewale Maja-Pearce was a citizen of Nigeria; in fact his personal life is reflected greatly in this story as he actually grew up in Lagos and attended universities in England.

    Read More

More about Book Review Of Half Of A Yellow Sun

Open Document