International Journal of Humanitatis Theoreticus. Vol. 2, No. 1; May, 2019 Perceptions and Reflections of War in Flora Nwapa’s Never Again and Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun Onyeka IKE Department of English and Communication Studies, Federal University, Otuoke, Bayelsa State, Nigeria Email Addresses: [email protected]; [email protected] Abstract This study investigates the perceptions and reflections of war in Flora Nwapa’s Never Again and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun. The sensitive issue of the Nigerian Civil War which the two novels enunciate remains a monumental catastrophe in the history of the nation and continues to evoke tears in the eyes of many; particularly those who witnessed the ugly events. While examining the war, the injuries and deaths it inflicted on the citizenry using New Historicism as a critical template, its precursors will also be explored. Both Nwapa and Adichie have creatively deployed the veritable literary tools of plot, setting, language, character/characterisation as well as narrative point of view to unravel these harbingers, costs and consequences of the Civil War. In doing this, they have discharged their artistic burdens and conveyed some vital messages and warnings. The study posits that if these harbingers were resolutely and patriotically mitigated by a competent national leadership, the war and its associated traumatic experiences, costs and consequences would have been averted. No doubt, the intrigues and inclinations, actions and inactions of the characters created and represented in the novels are issues that still hold a thousand lessons in contemporary Nigeria where corruption, nepotism, ethnic prejudice, avarice and violence of multiple disheartening dimensions are still prevalent. The study considers that if the citizenry, especially those entrusted with the sacred duty of governance, will truly understand the trauma, costs and consequences of the war as artistically presented in the two historical novels under investigation, they will be more circumspect with their utterances, actions and political alignments. New Historicism as a critical theory evolved in the 1980s mainly through the dedicated efforts of the eminent critic Stephen Greenblatt. Keywords: War, Trauma, Perception, Reflection, Corruption Introduction War is the waging of armed struggle against an opposition. It is a determined fight between antagonistic and contending entities; it connotes the absence of peace and harmony in a nation. In the absence of peace and harmony, chaos, pandemonium and destruction are usually the order of the day. The irony of the Nigerian Civil War as enunciated in the two remarkable historical novels under study is that people who were hitherto neighbours, friends, course mates, colleagues and acquaintances suddenly became sworn enemies and went for one another’s jugular in a fratricidal bid to annihilate. Thus men, women, children and even the unborn grossly suffered and paid so dearly. The situation would have been averted if the leaders at the time were a bit sensitive to the sensibilities of others irrespective of ethnicity, religion or political affiliations, or if they were sincerely patriotic. Even from the time the war was still raging, various literary artists from both Biafran and Nigerian sides perceived and reflected the war in diverse forms and from diverse perspectives. Perception is the way one knows, senses or understands something. Such an understanding invariably forms the individual's opinion or ideology about the matter. The presentation or portrayal of such an opinion or ideology as already perceived is referred to as reflection. Flora Nwapa’s Never Again and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun are two outstanding historical novels that deal with the sad issue of the Nigerian Civil War in a very passionate manner. The two novels tell the same story in different ways. Indeed, no two creative writers or literary - 22 - International Journal of Humanitatis Theoreticus. Vol. 2, No. 1; May, 2019 critics have been found to have approached or attacked any literary subject in an identical manner. This is why there is diversity of creativities and interpretations. Although the discourse could be on the same subject as it is the case in Nwapa's Never Again and Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun, the approaches of the authors certainly differ. Of course, it is the extent of a writer's perception of a subject that he or she reflects or portrays. It is the perceptions and reflections of the Civil War by these two distinguished Nigerian authors in their aforementioned novels that constitute the thrust of this article. The anguish, losses, hunger, betrayals and deaths experienced at the time are not the things that any progressive nation would like to experience a second time. The bitter experiences of the war prompted Theodora Akachi-Ezeigbo to refer to it as “The taste of madness” (194), and further discusses the pathetic details of “… the colossal destruction engendered by the war in terms of loss of life and property, and the concomitant suffering and brutalization of human beings” (195). Theoretical Framework The theoretical template to be applied in this research is New Historicism. This is considered to be most appropriate for a study of this nature because it deals with the relationship between literature and history which has been widely studied in literary scholarship. Literature is intricately related to history as it is also related to society and culture. Indeed, New Historicism as a critical model has brought the two disciplines, Literature and History, closer to each other in that it situates a work of art in its historical context and at the same time breaks down the limits between artistic productions and other related forms of social production – that is, between art and other historical traces. African literature is replete with vivid historical events captured and presented in artistic manner as can be found in Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun and Flora Nwapa’s Never Again; the two main literary texts guiding this discourse. New Historicism is a critical theory that evolved in the 1980s mainly through the dedicated work of the eminent literary critic Stephen Greenblatt, and became so prominent and influential in the 1990s. The critical template was influenced by structuralism and post- structuralist models and operates by linking artistic work with the historical period in which it was produced and also reconnects it with the cultural and political organizations of the time. Greenblatt believes that a work of art is the outcome of a negotiation between an artist or group of artists who possessed a composite knowledge of events, institutions and functions of society. In A Glossary of Literary Terms, M.H. Abrams and Geoffrey Harpham explained that In place of dealing with a text in isolation from the historical and cultural conditions of its production, its meanings, its effects, and also of its later critical interpretations and evaluations…new historicists conceive of a literary text as “situated” within the totality of the institutions, social practices, and discourses that that constitute the culture of a particular time and place, and with which the literary text interacts as both a product and a producer of cultural energies and codes.(190-191) The theory focuses on gaining a broad understanding of cultural and intellectual history through the instrumentality of literature which records the novel field of the history of ideas. Again, Gregory Castle asserts that “… it is the task of the new historicist to map the various connections and relations between literary texts and the social and cultural contexts” (131). Castle’s assertion is in line with Oyeh Otu’s perception of the theory and its involvements. He states that: …New Historicism engages in historical, social and political questions concerning the position of men and women in relation to society and also the sense of order represented in a literary text. It - 23 - International Journal of Humanitatis Theoreticus. Vol. 2, No. 1; May, 2019 undermines formalism’s art-for-art’s sake or the belief that a work of art is a self-sufficient object whose unity derives from the formal interrelations of its parts. It was partly against this backdrop that New Historicism emerged to challenge the belief that a text is an autonomous entity which embodies in itself all the essential elements for its supposedly proper or accurate interpretation. (39) Michel Foucault, another prominent proponent of the model focused his approach both on “…the theory of the limits of collective cultural knowledge and on his technique of examining a broad array of documents in order to understand the episteme of a particular time.” In the Order of Things, he claims that language, like literature is also not independent of the world that creates and utilizes it: … real language is not a totally independent signs, a uniform and unbroken entity in which things could be reflected one by one, as in a mirror, and so express their particular truths. It is rather an opaque, mysterious thing, closed in upon itself, a fragmented mass, its enigma renewed in every interval, which combines here and there with the forms of the world and becomes interwoven with them… language is not an arbitrary system; it has been set down in the world and forms part of it. (34-35) Although New Historicism is a more impersonal approach to historical events and is responsive to a variety of cultures, its relationship with and evaluation of both history and culture is not necessarily linear or have a one-to-one correspondence. Steven Lynn captures this perspective when he explains that “… the new historicist assumes that history is a story, a construct, necessarily written and rewritten” (120). This implies that the new historicist does not actually see historical documentations as being objective and finite but as events subject to a multiplicity of interpretations and critical analysis which could yield a variety of meanings.