Moaning and Murmuring: An Exploration of Sexual Imagery in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun
Studies have explored the depiction of sex and sexuality in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun but the deployment of sexual imageries as instruments for the conveyance of thematic preoccupations in the text has not been explored. This study, therefore, attempted a critical analysis of Half of a Yellow Sun to unearth how topical are subsumed within eroticism and sexuality. A total of twelve (12) purposively extracted excerpts were analysed using the tenets of structuralism and stylistics. The analysis revealed the conveyance of four thematic concerns clothed in sexual imageries which are sexualising trauma, commodifying sex for socio-economic gain, depiction of nonconsensual marriage and uniformed rape and bodily violation. The analysis also showed binaries such as male hegemony and female complicity, the bourgeoisie-proletariat divide, the coloniser oppressor and the colonised oppressed, and the military-civilian asymmetrical relation. This study concludes that the preponderance of sexual imageries in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun is not merely a show of artistic craftsmanship but a veritable tool for the representation of the thematic preoccupations in the text.
Keywords: Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, sexual imageries, Nigerian literature