African Intellectuals and Decolonization

Trauma and Narrativity in Aidichie's Half of a Yellow Sun

Trauma and Narrativity in Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun Privileging Indigenous Knowledge in Writing the Biafran War Marlene De La Cruz-Guzmán Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun highlights the relevance of trauma theory and the decline of postcolonial Nigerian nationalism that opens narrative space for formerly marginalized voices from the Biafran War.1 As Senan Murray noted, quoting fellow Nigerian writer Dulue Mbachu, “After a war is fought, the victors immediately write their history. But it takes a while for the victims to find their voice and tell their own side story.”2 Thus, trauma theory and the concept of witness or testimonio literature will be used to explore the paradigm of “double traumatization” of the character Ugwu and its consequences for Nigerian civil society, and these will authenticate and provide clinical support for Adichie’s representation of trauma in her second novel. In addition, this article will explore the novel’s three-part move toward indigenous knowledges by highlighting first the writing of the modernist grand narrative, then its flawed internal critique in terms of the postmodernist counternarrative, and, finally, by beginning to explore and open the possibility for privileging indigenous knowledges that are better suited to the Nigerian post– Biafran War conditions. The theoretical paradigm of double traumatization in relation to postcolonial texts allows this article to open a new space for the analysis of previously marginalized voices, which are now being acknowledged and validated in the process of clarifying that their experiences stem from two separate but intertwined assaults on their 38 / Trauma and Narrativity in Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun existence and that detraumatization can begin with writing. I assert that the indigenous Nigerian populations, to whom Adichie gives voice in her literary works, have experienced a double traumatization , which, including a postindependence decline in nationalism and outright civil war in Biafra’s attempt to secede, fosters an environment in which peoples who were first assaulted by European colonial forces suffer a second, even more difficult, betrayal trauma from the most unexpected source: fellow indigenous people working under the banner of Nigerian nationalism. While the first betrayal strengthened the various indigenous people’s reliance on one another both as members of the oppressed community and as potential partners in the fight for independence, the second betrayal seemed to alienate and obliterate their basic belief in and practice of community and solidarity among and within the groups. This psychic shift, an additional detrimental side effect of the assaults, is particularly relevant in an analysis of the character of Ugwu, arguably the least logical choice in the novel of an author who strives to provide a voice for marginalized women. But it is this very illogicality that renders this study able to draw a more thorough analysis of the double traumatization experienced by all the testimonio -providing characters in Half of a Yellow Sun. To analyze the components of double traumatization and the interconnectedness of these two traumas, I must first survey the field of trauma theory and then make clear the departures and new contributions of the double traumatization theoretical framework. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was officially included under its current name in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) published in 1980. This inclusion, along with its fourteen years of subsequent revisions and updates to create DSM-IV, published in 1994, has legitimated the diagnosis of this mental health disorder and has, even more important for this project, expanded its diagnosis beyond war-ravaged individuals. In fact, the Journal of Traumatic Stress and PTSD Research Quarterly were both created to provide a new space in which to consider broader PTSD research. In its post–DSM-IV form, PTSD’s definition has been expanded so that the qualifying trauma is no longer only war-related but can emerge from any “trauma inducing experiences such as rape, abuse, disasters, accidents, and torture.”3 This expanded definition, which still requires a traumatic trigger for the series of symptoms, has given way to a new critical trend in literature, namely trauma theory, which Marlene De La Cruz-Guzmán / 39 is often identified with Dominick LaCapra’s and Cathy Caruth’s work. While Caruth still relies heavily on a Freudian cosmology for her treatment of trauma in narratives and narrative trauma, she has opened an important space for scholars to build on trauma theory and...