Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I wanted to write characters who are driven by impulses that they may not always be consciously

aware of, which I think is true for us human beings. Besides, I didn't want to bore my reader—and myself—to death, exploring the characters'

every thought.

Narrative Style

The pendular movement of the narrative is most

effective as it becomes a device

which draws parallels and creates contrasts,

which imply the physical, mental and

emotional changes the characters endure. 

The story is told through three different points of view: Ugwu, a young teenage boy who represents the

people of the outlying villages and whose tribe clings to a more traditional, tribal way of life;

Olanna, the daughter of well-to-do city-dwellers; and Richard, a white expatriate originally from England,

who falls in love with Olanna's twin sister Kainene. 

Narrative Purpose

Adichie unravels the realities of war beginning with the physical and literal before delving into

the psycho-logical and emotional facets. She frames the explosion of the North-South conflict as a pivotal moment that does not just offer historical context but functions as a stepping stone into the

psychological and emotional effects of war on individuals, relationships, ethnic groups and the

nation as a whole.

This novel is an expression of polyphony on the Nigerian Civil War. Adichie goes beyond historical research and travels deep into Nigeria’s memory,

going into the roots of the conflict, into the injustice, violence and pain of war and into the

irrelevance of humanity amidst these conditions.

As a result of this humanity, there is a rare emotional truth in the sexual scenes—from Ugwu's adolescent

forays and the mature couples' passions, to the ugliness of rape.

This tug of detachment and intimacy gives Half of a Yellow Sun an empathetic tone that never succumbs to simple impulses. Even her most honorable characters possess humanizing flaws. Adichie understands that novels, above all war novels, cannot easily survive a rush to judgment. Therefore, she takes us into the minds of both a gang-raped bar girl and the once-tender teenage soldier who eventually becomes her assailant. Reaching deep, she finds a “hard clot of fear inside him” at “the casual cruelty of this new world,” a cruelty in which he becomes incrementally complicit.

Conflict

Political TensionAn obvious political tension frames the beginning of the novel. We are introduced to the Igbo, Hausa, and Yoruba tribes and to ideas like Pan-Africanism and decolonizing.

The first chapter is told through Ugwu’s perspective who is Odenigbo’s 13 year-old houseboy. Odenigbo enrolls Ugwu in the staff primary school because “Education is a priority! How can we resist exploitation if we don’t have the tools to understand exploitation?” (13).

Who is doing the exploiting?

ExpositionUgwu has little

experience with English or politics, and his

experiences listening to his Master’s

conversations with houseguests gives

readers an introduction to the politics of Nigeria

around the 60’s.

The second narrator is introduced in the first chapter. Odenigbo calls Olanna “nkem” meaning “my own.” She is sexualized from the very beginning: “She should be in a glass case like the one in Master’s study, where people could admire her curvy, fleshy body, where she would be preserved untainted” (29).

The second chapter begins with her preparing to board a plane to return home before moving in with Odenigbo. Her description of him is much different than that of Ugwu’s. She repeatedly describes him as confident. Thus, we see a different side of him aside from just Ugwu’s “Master.”

A focus on class emerges in a flashback to when Olanna and Odenigbo first meet. He reprimands a ticket seller for being racist against his own people (35).

There is also a focus on class which is often shown through the accents and dialects of various characters (34).

Olanna is continually sexualized throughout her narrative; her parents even use her as “sex bait.”

Her previous boyfriend’s mother saw her as “the Igbo woman [Mohammed] wanted to marry who would taint the lineage with infidel blood.” After talking with Arize it becomes apparent that Mohammed is Hausa. This is an obvious reference to the tension between tribes. Mohammed calls her a “bush woman” for not wearing a wig.

She is distant with her immediate family but seems to feel more at home with her uncle and aunt. Olanna seems ashamed by her parents when in Kano with her uncle and aunt: “The artificiality of her parents’ relationship always seemed harder, more shaming, when she was here in Kano.” 

The chapter ends with Olanna trying to deal with Miss Adebayo who treats her as unintelligent despite her Master’s degree and stating that she does not want to marry Odenigbo for fear that it might ruin their relationship.

Discussion Questions1. Ugwu is only thirteen when he begins working as a

houseboy for Odenigbo, but he is one of the most intelligent

and observant characters in the novel. How well does Ugwu

manage the transition from village life to the intellectual and

privileged world of his employers? How does his presence

throughout affect the reader’s experience of the story?

2. About her attraction to Odenigbo, Olanna thinks, “The intensity had not abated after

two years, nor had her awe at his self-assured eccentricities and his fierce moralities.” What

is attractive about Odenigbo? How does Adichie poke fun at certain aspects of his

character? How does the war change him?  

3. Adichie touches very lightly on a connection between the Holocaust and the Biafran situation; why does she

not stress this parallel more strongly? Why are the Igbo massacred by the Hausa? What tribal resentments and rivalries are expressed in the Nigerian-Biafran war? In

what ways does the novel make clear that these rivalries have been intensified by British interference?

4. Consider the conversation between Olanna and Kainene on pp. 130-131. What are the

sources of the distance and distrust between the two sisters?

5. Discuss the ways in which Adichie reveals the differences in social class

among her characters. What are the different cultural

assumptions—about themselves and others—

made by educated Africans like Odenigbo, nouveau

riche Africans like Olanna’s parents, uneducated

Africans like Odenigbo’s mother, and British

expatriates like Richard’s ex-girlfriend Susan?