Gender Performance, Trauma, and Orality in Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun and Purple Hibiscus

Rackley, Lauren Elizabeth (2015) Gender Performance, Trauma, and Orality in Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun and Purple Hibiscus. Undergraduate thesis, under the direction of Adetayo Alabi from English, University of Mississippi.

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Abstract

This thesis examines Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun and Purple Hibiscus in order to explore the implications of trauma on middleclass Igbo women’s gender performance. The traumas that the women encounter within the novels occur within the domestic sphere and are results of the Biafran War in Half of a Yellow Sun and domestic abuse in Purple Hibiscus. This thesis interrogates women’s experiences within the domestic sphere, ultimately reflecting a larger national trauma that Biafra and later Nigeria undergo as a result of colonial occupation. This thesis concludes with an exploration of the culturally specific practice of orality and storytelling that occurs within both novels that ultimately initiates the healing process for the individual, as well as the nation.

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