A Half-Ride toward the Radiant Sun in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun

Abstract

This paper is built on the argument that, in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, the Biafran resistance and its subsequent failure spring from a series of malfunctions in the administration of Nigeria during the first decade that follows its independence. Each ethnic group realises that its dream for social justice after British imperialism has been deferred by the neo-colonial regime in seat. Hence, this paper seeks to explore the three responsive phases of discovery, shock and disenchantment that undergird the postcolonial condition of Nigerians after independence as revealed in the novel. Relying on the postcolonial literary theory, this paper illustrates that post-independence struggles are rooted in ‘halfness’, the inability of the colonized to fully conceive and concretize their dreams and self-made promises. From the analysis, it is
realised that: the sun is a symbol of prosperity and freedom; the ‘halfness’ of the sun in this novel metaphorically indicates the unfinished march toward thatsun; both exogenous and endogenous factors jeopardise Nigeria’s ride toward prosperity; and national identity/prosperity constitute a perennial quest in postindependent African nations like Nigeria. At the end of this novel one identifies an ounce of hope which hangs on the spiritual strength of native culture, on its power to reconcile the fragments of the postcolonial being.