A NEW HISTORICIST STUDY OF THE PRESENTATION OF CIVIL WAR AND INSURGENCY IN ADICHIE’S HALF OF A YELLOW SUN, AMADI’S SUNSET IN BIAFRA, IYAYI’S HEROES, AND HABILA’S OIL ON WATER
A NEW HISTORICIST STUDY OF THE PRESENTATION OF CIVIL WAR AND INSURGENCY IN ADICHIE’S HALF OF A YELLOW SUN, AMADI’S SUNSET IN BIAFRA, IYAYI’S HEROES, AND HABILA’S OIL ON WATER
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2021-04
Authors
ISMAILA, Abdullahi Ahmad
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
This study deploys New Historicist Poetics to evaluate the Presentation of Civil War
and Insurgency in Adichie‘s Half Of A Yellow Sun, Amadi‘s Sunset, in Biafra, Iyayi‘s
Heroes and Habila‘s Oil on water. In this sense, the study is based on the argument that
the previous studies of the selected texts hardly evaluated the little narrative or subtexts
which add up to become Othering Practice in the discourse of the Nigerian Civil War
and Insurgency in the Niger Delta. As a point of departure, the study aims to examine
the othering narrative strategies in the selected texts by focusing on how they structure
the little narratives into encodements of the stereotyped, the undermined, the
stigmatised, and the discursively categorised as out-groups. Essentially, this study is
undertaken to draw attention to the little narratives in the selected texts in order to
provide a broad understanding of the discourses of Nigeria Civil War and Insurgency in
the Niger Delta. Using New Historicism as a theoretical framework, the study assesses
such concepts as narrative fashioning, power relations, historicity, othering practice, and
epistemic violence to determine how the discourses of civil war and insurgency in the
selected texts iterate stereotyped prejudices and stigma against the Other. In sharp
contrast to the earlier notions of textual value by the New Critics, the object of this
study is to demonstrate that literary texts are cultural not only because they refer to the
world outside their boundaries but also by virtue of the social or cultural values like
stereotypes, prejudices, stigmas, and other contexts which they embody. The study finds
that the discourse of the Nigerian Civil War and Insurgency has ignored the
embeddedness of the little narratives within the larger thematic formation which
presents conflict situation in order to project the thematic trend as political persecution
and victimisation of the Igbo and Niger Delta people and somewhat an ideological
construct. The study uses qualitative research methodology and concludes that the
conflict situations presented in the selected texts provide an occasion for the
perpetuation of othering practice and epistemic violence in mainstream Nigerian literature.
Description
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL OF
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA, IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF THE DOCTOR OF
PHILOSOPHY DEGREE (PhD) IN LITERATUREIN ENGLISH
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND LITERARY STUDIES,
FACULTY OF ARTS,
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY,
ZARIA
Keywords
NEW HISTORICIST STUDY,, PRESENTATION,, CIVIL WAR,, INSURGENCY,, ADICHIE’S HALF,, YELLOW SUN,, AMADI’S SUNSET,, BIAFRA,, IYAYI’S HEROES,, HABILA’S OIL,, WATER.