Tansian University Journal of Arts, Management & Social Sciences

Literature plays a vital role in conveying moral values and shaping ethical awareness. This study explores Nigerian novelists’ response to the concept of virtue, focusing on Chukwuemeka Ike’s The Chicken Chasers and Chris Egharevba’s Legacy of Thunder. Anchored in Virtue Ethics, the study employs qualitative content analysis to investigate how these works construct moral narratives within a society grappling with ethical decline. The analysis reveals a dual trajectory: Ike affirms classical Virtue Ethics through restraint, endurance, and moral integrity, while Egharevba radicalizes virtue into militant justice, presenting an ethical paradox in which violence is depicted as a path to societal renewal. By juxtaposing these models, the study demonstrates that Nigerian fiction not only upholds literature’s didactic function but also challenges and expands the practical limits of Virtue Ethics, thereby reaffirming both the possibility and complexity of moral integrity in contemporary Nigerian society

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