Assignment

Study Questions on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie'sHalf of a Yellow Sun

1. Ugwu is only thirteen when he begins working as a houseboy for Odenigbo, but he is one of the most intelligent and observant characters in the novel. How well does Ugwu manage the transition from village life to the intellectual and privileged world of his employers? How does his presence throughout affect the reader's experience of the story?

2. About her attraction to Odenigbo, Olanna thinks, "The intensity had not abated after two years, nor had her awe at his self-assured eccentricities and his fierce moralities" [p. 36]. What is attractive about Odenigbo? How does Adichie poke fun at certain aspects of his character? How does the war change him?

3. What are the inclusive dates for the Biafran war? Why are the Igbo massacred by the Hausa? What tribal and religious rivalries are expressed in the Nigerian-Biafran war? In what ways does the novel make clear that these rivalries have been intensified by British interference?

4. Consider the conversation between Olanna and Kainene on pp. 130-131. What are the sources of the distance and distrust between the two sisters, and how is the rift finally overcome? What is the effect of the disappearance of Kainene on the ending of the story?

5. Discuss the ways in which Adichie reveals the differences in social class among her characters. What are the different cultural assumptions-about themselves and others-made by educated Africans like Odenigbo, nouveau riche Africans like Olanna's parents, uneducated Africans like Odenigbo's mother, and British expatriates like Richard's ex-girlfriend Susan?

6. Excerpts from a book called The World Was Silent When We Died appear on pp. 103, 146, 195, 256, 296, 324, 470, and 541. Who is writing this book? What does it tell us? Why is it inserted into the story in parts?

7. WARNING--PLOT SPOILER:Adichie breaks the chronological sequence of her story so that she can delay the revelation that Baby is not Olanna's child and that Olanna had a brief liaison with Richard. What are the effects of this delay, and of these revelations, on your reading experience? Who is Amala and what role does she play in the novel? How does Adichie portray this young girl?

8. Susan Grenville-Pitts is a stereotype of the colonial occupier with her assertion that "It's quite extraordinary how these people can't control their hatred of each other. . . . Civilization teaches you control" [p. 194]. Richard, on the other hand, wants to be African, learns to speak Igbo, and says "we" when he speaks of Biafra. What sort of person is Richard? How do you explain his desires?

9. Adichie makes a point of displaying Olanna's middle-class frame of mind: she is disgusted at the cockroach eggs in her cousins' house reluctant to let Baby mix with village children because they have lice, and so on. How is her privileged outlook changed by the war?

10. The poet Okeoma, in praise of the new Biafra, wrote, "If the sun refuses to rise, we will make it rise" [p. 219]. Does Adichie seem to represent the Biafran secession as a doomed exercise in political naiveté or as a desperate bid for survival on the part of a besieged ethnic group? Given the history of Nigeria and Britain's support during the war, is the defeat of Biafra a foregone conclusion?

11. WARNING-PLOT SPOILER:The sisters' relationship is damaged further when Olanna seduces Richard [p. 293]. Why does Olanna do this? If she is taking revenge upon Odenigbo for his infidelity, why does she choose Richard? What does Kainene mean when she bitterly calls Olanna "the good one" [p. 318]?

12. How does being witnesses to violent death change people in the story-Olanna, Kainene, Odenigbo, Ugwu? How does Adichie handle descriptions of scenes of violence, death, and famine?

13. WARNING-PLOT SPOILER:What goes through Ugwu's mind as he participates in the rape of the bar girl [p. 457]? How does he feel about it later, when he learns that his sister was also gang-raped [pp. 497, 526]?

14. The novel is structured in part around two love stories, between Olanna and Odenigbo and between Kainene and Richard. It is "really a story of love," Adichie has said (Financial Times, September 9, 2006). How does Adichie handle romantic and sexual love? Why are these love plots so important to a novel about a war?

15. The story begins as Ugwu's aunty describes to Ugwu his new employer: "Master was a little crazy; he had spent too many years reading books overseas, talked to himself in his office, did not always return greetings, and had too much hair" [p. 3]. It ends with Ugwu's dedication: "For Master, my good man" [p. 541]. Consider how Ugwu's relation to his master has changed throughout the course of the story.

16. Why and how is it fitting that Richard is not the one chosen to write the story of the war, even though he is the one shown writing a book about the Igbo? Who, then, is the writer of the book that you are reading and how do you know?