Reflection Of Life In Adichie's Half Of A Yellow Sun

Literature is a reflection of life. Literary works of a country often serve to highlight the problems as well as trials and tribulations of people of a country. Africa had long been a colony of various European powers including the British. The misery of subjugated colonies is well portrayed in literary works of African countries. This article examines, Emergence of Post colonial states, the internal conflicts and social structural collapses, as visible in Adichie’s novel Half Of A Yellow Sun. This vividly written novel vouches for credibility of atrocities perpetrated against the colonized people of Nigeria. The central characters in the novel are Olanna and Kainene,who are twin sisters with contrasting character traits. Olanna joins Nsukka university as its staff and marries Odenigbo, another professor of the university. While Kainene is engaged to Richard ,a European doing research in Igbo-Ukwu art. The professor couple does their duty to society by educating Ugwu, their servant boy,who later writes a book on Nigerian history and culture.In this analysis focus has been kept on the moral decadence and infidelity caused during Biafran war.

1.Introduction

In the first two chapters the attitude of colonizers to the colonized is analyzed particularly by making use of ideas from Edward Said’s work Orientalism . Policies like ‘divide and rule’ which was aimed at creating a rift amongst the natives also is analysed by elaborating instances from the novel. Adichie, like all African writers, concentrate on the impact of colonization on the culture and mindset of people of the colonies. In Half of a Yellow Sun, several facets of the Nigeria-Biafra war, which had so far remained unveiled are brought to light. Adichie has given a faithful account of the crisis in her work Half of a