The Research Of Half Of A Yellow Sun From The Perspective Of Post-colonial Feminism

Half of a Yellow Sun is a full-length novel written in 2006 by a Nigerian woman writer,Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.The novel takes the Nigerian Civil War as the background,focuses on the living conditions of ordinary people in the war,and attempts to explore the manifestation of such concepts as nation,country,family,love and so on in the war,which people have been adhering to.The issue of gender is one of the most important contents of the novel.Choosing the female characters in Half of a Yellow Sun as the study object,by probing into the details of the novel from the theoretical perspective of post-colonial feminism,this paper examines the dual or even multiple “marginalized” predicaments faced by female characters in the novel based on their identification and finds their completely different responses,so as to have a deeper understanding of the literary and aesthetic value of the novel.This paper is composed of five parts.In terms of the introduction,it firstly illustrates Adichie's personal life and main contents of Half of a Yellow Sun,and then sorts out the domestic and foreign research results about the novel.Secondly,based on the theory of post-colonial feminism itself,it clarifies the theoretical connotation of the theory which is compatible with several cultural elements of gender,race and class,generalizes its inclusive and developmental features,and expands on the theory's contribution to analyzing the novel as well as its drawbacks.Finally,it summarizes the research ideas,research methods and innovative points of this paper.The first chapter mainly confirms the “identity” of various female characters in the novel.In view of this,this paper,combining the content of the novel,mainly by class while integrating the elements of race and nationality,divides the female characters in Half of a Yellow Sun into elite women,family women and lower-class women.Among them,the elite women represented by Olanna and Kainene not only enjoy good material resources and social status,but also have the personal consciousness and social ability brought by education.Although family women represented by Olanna's mother and Odenigbo's mother are immersed in the material environment created by men,they have never received complete education,and their personal consciousness and social ability are very deficient.Women at the bottom,represented by Anulika and Amala,have neither material conditions to rely on nor an independent personal consciousness to be established from orthodox education.Under the common pressure brought by multiple discourses,their characteristics of the people at the bottom are more and more obvious.The second chapter mainly examines the “cultural dilemma” faced by various female characters in the novel.In specific analysis,this paper introduced the concept of cultural “others”.Based on the cultural elements such as race,gender,class and nationality,and from the perspective of western discourse,patriarchal discourse,upper class discourse and national discourse,this paper analyzes the fact that female characters in the novel are “others” under various power discourse that symbolize “self”,and analyzes the “cultural dilemma” faced by female characters in the antagonistic relationship between “self” and “others”.The third chapter mainly explores the "coping methods" adopted by various female characters in the novel when they are faced with difficulties.According to the specific coping strategies,this paper distinguishes elite women from non-elite women in the perspective of positive solving and negative facing.Among them,the elite women represented by Olanna and Kainene can speak out independently in a way of "dialogue" or "rebellion" and even fight against various power words that symbolize "self".However,due to the lack of self-consciousness and capacity,housewives and women from lower class are unable to speak out independently and can only be in a state of "silence".Just like Olanna's mother in the novel,thanks to their social status,housewives can find someone to speak for them,while opposite to them,women from lower class are in a state of complete silence because they are oppressed by multiple pressure such as gender,race,class and nationality.Conclusion part mainly concentrates on the sublimation of the former studies conducted by me.Following cultural paradox caused by the western-style education,the disappear of rebellious girl Kainene and a bar waitress' being raped by an akin soldier,the author further explores the implication rooted deeply in the text and more deeply dug into the situations of the female characters during a war,so as to help us better understand the connotation of the text.