Protestation and the Search for Redress in Chimamanda. Adichie’s Purple Hisbiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun

Onyeka Ike[1] 

[1]  Department of English and Communication Studies, Federal University Otuoke, Nigeria, Email: onyeka_ike@yahoo.com, Orcid: 0000-0002-1920-8720

Abstract

This study evaluates Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun as vociferous protestations and call for redress concerning diverse forms of historical and contemporary misrule, inequalities and injustices in the Nigerian society and beyond. Thus Adichie is not just a feminist but also a humanist who is genuinely concerned with the predicaments of the subaltern in the hands of their powerful oppressors. Using New Historicism as a theoretical parameter, the study posits that several factors that resulted to conflict situations and discontent in the past in certain societies are still prevalent in contemporary times, hence the continuous agitations from various ethnic nationalities and sections of such domains, particularly in Nigeria, Adichie’s country of birth. This demonstrates that injustice and oppression perpetrated anywhere can only be laid to rest when they are sincerely redressed with nothing else but justice. The study, therefore, avers that several unresolved historical injustices and ills raised in the novels be resolutely redressed by the contemporary leaderships in those jurisdictions, and where necessary make appropriate reparations, restitution or tender decisive apologies. Doing so in the right manner will invariably contribute to global peace and stability. This implies that for lasting peace to reign in the concerned domains, several issues bordering on historical and modern-day injustices, misrule, human rights abuses, ethnic, racial and religious rivalry, etc., of which the novelist has consistently raised eloquent protestations through her fictions under study should be given serious positive attention and redress in the interest of all.

Keywords: Protest, Half of a Yellow Sun, Nigeria, Literature, Injustice

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