THE DISPOSSESSED AND DISPOSSED IN CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE’S PURPLE HIBISCUS AND NGUGI WA THIONGO’S PETALS OF BLOOD
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Ngugi Wa Thiongo are famous West and East African writers whose writings portrays, dramatic, displaced, dispossessed, violence, discrimination and disillusionment in the Nigeria, Kenya and Africa at large. For instance, the displaced and dispossessed in the two novels under investigation how Adichie recreates African history in the frictional word of Purple Hibiscus and Ngugi’s Petals of Blood. She revisits the like of Chinua Achebe, the bequest of colonization in the lives of her frictional characters in the two novels under investigation. Unlike in Chinua Achebe’s Thing Fall Apart and Arrow of God, which Achebe portrays colonization and its appendages as being planted by the white administrator who name missionaries and their black collaborators.
This statement make Homi Bhabha to say that, “if a reader want to find out the reasons for Eugene Achike in Purple Hibiscus of being a religious fanatic and home tyrant or the case of the Nigerian civil war in Ngugi’s Petals of Blood, one must go back to British colonization with its terrible vestiges on the psyche of the once colonized characters and group “(63).
The Dispossessed and Dispossed in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Ngugi WA Thiongo’s Petals of Blood
In order to present the displaced and dispossessed in these two novels, Adichie uses her characters Eugene Achike, Beatrice Achike, Zara, Kambili and Adecoker’s daughter in Purple Hibiscus, while and Ugwu, Olanna, Kaime, Richard, Odenigbo and Biafra in Half of the Yellow Sun, these characters experienced various ways of trauma, economic and political dispossession as their means of livelihood and leadership are taken from them.
Ngugi is no doubt primarily concerned with “restoring the African character to his history,” to enable him to find an “identity in an essentially colonial situation” and discover a source of pride in his people’s past accomplishments. They are other stories of a past…these stories are when the “African controlled its own destiny”, of “heroic resistance,” which Karega, in Petals of Blood, goes to such trouble to impart to his students: they are found only in legends passed from generation to generation.
Adichie and Ngugi make it clearly for the entire African societies to understand that, colonization is the major cause of displaced and dispossessed in the two novels in this research work.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Displaced and dispossessed do not occur in a vacuum and it effects are not vacuous, but tangible and real which is consequently seen in these two novel as portrayed by the author which also manifest in the lives of the characters in their fictional novels.
1.3 Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this research work brings to light the adverse effect of displacement and dispossession in the social and political lives style of the people in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Ngugi’s Petals of Blood.
1.4 Significance of the Study
The study will be significant to the Nigerian African societies in order to enable them to know more about the effects of war, how the citizens are during war, the psychological trauma, and disorders and how they pass through displacement and dispossession during the war in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Ngugi’s Petals of Blood. The study will also be of help to students of literature and other researchers who would want to research more on the consequences of displacement and dispossession in these two novels under study.
The Dispossessed and Dispossed in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Ngugi WA Thiongo’s Petals of Blood
1.5 Objectives of the Study
The study is set to bring out the following objectives:
i to investigate if there is indeed the displaced and dispossessed in the two selected novels under study
ii to examine the causes of displacement and dispossession in African society with references to Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Ngugi’s Petals of Blood..
iii to determine whether dispossession engenders the displaced and dispossessed life style of production or death during the Biafra war and post independent characters in the two novels.
1.6 Research Methodology
This research study will make use of primary and secondary research methods. The primary texts will focus on Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Ngugi’s Petals of Blood while the secondary sources will make use of library, critical works, and text books Internet for more information on this research work.
