OPEN WOUND AND THE NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR: A METAPHORICAL READING OF KAINENE’S LOSS IN CHIMAMANDA ADICHIE’S HALF OF A YELLOW SUN

Notwithstanding the diverse motivations behind wars and the justifications given by their perpetrators, the magnitude of agony, suffering and trauma which culminate into loss as experienced by war victims are quite monumental. Hence, after wars, efforts are made towards reconciliation through which healing is predicted. In Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), therefore, Chimamanda Adichie through the character of Kainene metaphorically demonstrates the socio-political, cultural, economic and psychological loss the Igbos experienced collectively during and after the Biafran /Nigerian war. The notion of traumatized individuals has dominated the criticisms of the novel so far. However, in seeking to advance this opinion, this paper interrogates the collective wound/loss the Igbos experienced during the war and how this wound is still ongoing as an open wound that refuses to be healed, which the critics of the novel have paid little attention to. Therefore, focusing on Cathy Caruth’s trauma theory, which depicts trauma as an open wound, and through which this paper is analyzed, this article concludes that the disappearance of Kainene after the war symbolically embodies an open wound in the lives of the Igbos as a group that is yet to be healed indicating a denial of closure.