Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun: a symbolic presentation of the British failed mission in Biafra

Abstract

Language is communication: whether verbal (oral), sign, kinesics, proxemics. Understanding anything displayed induces reactions arising there from. Chimamanda, making use of the British citizen, Richard Churchill, demonstrates with language how this national is conquered, naturalized and finally demolished: Richard abandoned his British girl friend, Susan, for an Igbo no-nonsense girl, Kainene; Richard moved to Kainene’s apartment and subsequently affianced her in marriage to become a Biafran citizen; Richard at the end of the war lost everything: his writing, his fiancée and his physical energy as col. Madu punched him down. This paper therefore gleans these facts to tell Biafrans, the Igbo, Nigerians and the rest of the world about this sarcastic fiasco. Sir Winston Churchill, the onetime British Prime Minister, refused presiding over the liquidation of the British empire, Biafra included, but Biafra succeeded in making a mockery of British’s social sublimity and alienation in the person of Richard Churchill, the symbol of British fall.