Authored by Nigeria’s Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the novel ‘Half a Yellow Sun’ gives the story of two main characters: Olanna who is a sister to Kainene. The setting of the story is based on the context of the war between Nigeria and Biafra. The novel fundamentally explores the effects that war can have on families.
With regard to the plot, an essay on Half a Yellow Sun would be simple to write. This is because the novel covers events that happened in the 1960s alone. Given that the novel centers on war, an essay on Half a Yellow Sun is bound to take the same direction. The student writing such a kind of literature essay could start by challenging or supporting the author’s stand that most of the war causes are still present in today’s society. The student doing the essay on Half a Yellow Sun could also challenge the author’s claim that the novel depicts nothing but emotional truth. To be in a position do this, the student must of course have read the book in detail and understood how the war impacted the Nigerians.
An essay on Half a Yellow Sun, like most other classes of literature essay, will require the student to examine the book’s reception. This is more so given that the author of the novel is a woman. Perhaps it is necessary to make it clear that by reception, it is meant both prizes and criticisms. For every literature essay, a student should mention how the literature was received, unless such information is not available. Half a Yellow Sun has received positive criticisms world-wide, and a student writing an essay on this book would be wrong to summarize this work as anything other than a good reception.
Half a Yellow Sun essay example
The book that was written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie called “Half of a Yellow Sun” is known to be the piece of literature that may truly provoke the minds of the readers. Though, the majority of people are too ignorant nowadays, the book is aimed to reveal and understand the truth what all we used to be once and touch the hearts of the readers deep within.“Half of a Yellow Sun” is the story that covers the period of the civil war. It narrates about the times when Biafrans that were the majority of Igbo were striving to set the independent nation. With the support of the USA troops and Great Britain, Northern Nigeria managed to win in the war and defeat the Biafrans. As a result, a lot of people were made to leave their homes and flee from the country, become refugees. The author of the book managed to reproduce the events vividly and colorfully so that the readers could easily see the brutality, fear and horror of the war, indeed. The story is told through the main heroes Olanna, Richard and Ugwu. They rendered the events they had to face themselves.
Ugwu is depicted being a thirteen year old boy in the house of professor Odenigbo, intellectual and interesting person. In fact, he turned out to be the most brilliant inquisitive hero of the story, ultimately enthusiastic and loyal. However, the most significant is the fact that that he is curious in terms of intellectual development. Ugwu is a boy that is eager to learn more, despite the war in full swing. The reader feels empathy with the boy from the very beginning. He is something that keeps desire to live and learn and hope even on the background of the terrible war events.