Ngozi Adichie Research Articles

Challenging the Status Quo in a Patriarchal World: A Critical Linguistic Appraisal of Masculine Framing in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun

The concern of this paper is to examine how masculinity is represented and resisted in Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun. In a patriarchal society, male dominance is more or less a law, while resistance by females becomes a duty. The female gender has been variously constructed and derogatorily represented in male writings, and Adichie in her novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, makes bold to challenge this status quo. She creates female characters who are embodiment of beauty, intelligence, industry and courage. On the contrary, the male characters and their roles in the novel cast aspersion on patriarchal hegemony. Therefore, the characters in the novel suggest that the superiority of one gender over the other is a figment of society. This paper has adopted critical discourse analysis, systemic functional linguistics, and feminist theory in the analysis of the text under study.

Post-colonialism: Corruption and representation in Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun

Nigerian military authority was marked by poor leadership and autocratic actions during the time. This work tries to examine and expose the corrupt practices used by politicians and military rulers. The work will also examine some symbols that represent political corruption and foreign leadership in Nigeria since the coming of the British. This work will adopt post-colonial and sociological theories in the analysis of the text. Finally, the arrival of the British in Nigeria brought civilization, but it also brought corruption and ethnic differences, which led to war. War kills people and things, so it should be avoided at all costs.

A Reformist-Feminist Approach to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s <i>Purple Hibiscus</i>

Feminism has not received unanimous acceptance in Africa and women that associate themselves with this movement are regarded as radicals and going against African norms and traditions. The study has closely examined the exploitation and suppression of women, revealing the subjugating conditions that sometimes reduce women to mental wrecks. The research has also created awareness on the need for the entrenchment of societal reforms in order to improve the lot of women in patriarchal societies. The outcome of this study implicitly encourages the necessity of cooperation between men and women in contemporary social and political transformations on the continent. Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus can be regarded as radical, considering the method used by the protagonist to liberate herself. A reformist feminist analysis has been adopted as a theoretical framework for this academic quest. While it is true that women are oppressed, dehumanized and face various forms of cruelty in the hands of men, this feminist frame of reference equally recognizes certain positive aspects of patriarchal societies which foster peaceful coexistence between men and women. Thus, reformist feminism uses positive male characters to challenge men with oppressive tendencies towards women to change and regard women as complementary partners in progress. The study concludes that oppression of women by the men-folk is to the detriment of the family and the society at large.