Nigeria Gender Roles

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What does the novel say about gender roles in Nigeria at the time ?

Through several love stories, Chimamada Ngozi Adichie portrays Nigeria before, during and after the Biafran War, also called the Nigeria Civil War. In her book, we learn about numerous aspects of the society such as racism, colonialism, politics and so on. But Adichie also tries to show us the role of men and women in Nigeria at the time. Therefore, by analyzing the place occupied by the male characters and by the female characters in Half of a Yellow Sun before, during and after the war, we will see how gender roles plays a major part all along the pages and how the traditions related to gender roles changed.

The book begins before the Biafran War (1967-70) and allows …show more content…

Indeed, it is through him that we can see how the war is perceived by Igbo people, he is our lens as his relation with Kainene allows us to closely observe the behavior of male and female characters in the Nigerian society during the war. Richard is an English man and is at the exact opposite of Odenigbo. He is more of a follower, falling in love with a strong and well-educated Igbo woman taking part to the war. We have the impression that Richard does not talk much and prefers being in the observer position and making comments about the situation. As an English man, he will always be an outsider to what happens before him and will never be in danger.

The book allows us to observe other male characters from different backgrounds, such as Mohammed, Olanna's ex-boyfriend and a Muslim, Madu Madu, a colonel of the army, friend of Kainene, Chief Ozobia, the father of Olanna and Kainene and so on but what we can see is that before the war, women seem to have no voice because the Nigerian male characters are so powerful and confident that they take the lead. This can be related to the patriarchal tradition : men are here to protect and feed their family, they express their opinion and take the role of leaders of the

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