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

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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. The Biafran war had a devastating effect on the people of Nigeria, namely, the Igbo people as there was a “mutual distrust among the different ethnic nationalities in Nigeria.. following independence in 1960.” (Dickson & Preye. 2014:81) This became evident during the time around the time of the Biafran war post 1960 in which the context in which Half of a Yellow Sun is set. Adiche’s characters, Ugwu and Olanna are two victims that are greatly effected by the hardships of the war. …show more content…

Olanna refuses to “place her memory on things that strangers could barge in and take away” (Adiche, 2006:432) as she has, not only been stripped of all her material possesions that she cherished but has also been stripped of her dignity and hope for the country. The “strangers” that she refers to are the soldiers and people that she once respected that betrayed her, like Mohammed her ex boyfriend who became her enemy when he brutally murdered her family. Olanna keeps the memory inside her as a reminder that she survived and witnessed great suffering. How she responds to the memory of the war conveys her consistant, self-reliant

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