Essay on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun
Topics for Section 1

Choose one of the topics below and prepare a 3-5 page, double-spaced essay in response.  This essay is worth 15% of your final grade.  Due in class on February 18, 2009.  Do not submit electronically; you must give me a printed copy.

A)      Review the list of reasons people study war (handed out in class on Monday, February 2).  Choose three or four (we’re talking here about the TOP portion of the list—what people hope to learn when they study war) and explain how a careful reading of Half of a Yellow Sun enables these different kinds of insights regarding war.  Choose reasons that are sufficiently distinct from one another so that you don’t simply repeat yourself.

B)      Trace the path of ONE of the main characters from the book (Odenigbo, Olanna, Ugwu, Richard, Kainene) from first appearance through each significant stage in his/her life over the book’s time-span.  Link the character’s changes to specific events in the history of Nigeria/Biafra from 1960 to 1970.  You will have to make some choices about what constitutes “significant” here, but I would suggest not trying to focus on more than five main shifts.

C)      Choose one of the art forms that Adichie incorporates in the story (Igbo-Ukwu pottery, music, various kinds of writing) and explain how she develops the story of the Biafran war using this art form.