Abstract
In the imagination of authorities like Nasidi, no conscious critic
could by any means pass up the aesthetic strength of theory in literary
and methodical science of interpreting a text, the unsaid of a
text, if he intends to make meaning by keeping the relations of signs
and codes of such text. This persuasion has led to the Choice of the
Bakhtinian theory of the novel to explain the system of dialogic
imagination and related codes of language and describe how these
parameters triggered off cognitions in differential relations in
Adichie’s texts. The Bakhtinian theory of the novel was developed by
Mikhtail Mikhailovich Bakhtin in the 1930s (predated by earlier work of
Gyorgy Luckas in 1916). There Bakhtin’s key argument is dialogism ─ a
polyphonic form of voices in dialogue. He maintained that the novel has a
narrative reputation of irregular distribution of the resources of
language to characters. In others words, the novel constitutes a
multi-layered system of interacting and intersecting languages within a language with
most reference to socio-ideological and conflicting values. Indeed,
characters are indulged in this kind of dialogic intercourse as a result
of the different versions of truth their individual minds are capable
of conceiving or constructing about the world. As a result such
contradiction of voices points to a mode of signification – the
signification of the perculiar nature of the novel - the very nature of
an insoluble ideology of the novel (save as it is in the aspect of
monologism – see p. 101) as Bakhtin argued. Consequently, the Study
follows the argument to show the unresolving tendency of the voices and
how it leads to social conflicts amongst groups of individuals in
Half Of A Yellow Sun and Purple Hibiscus; and The Thing Around Your Neck with
anotherversion of the argument – monologism, less thronged with
conflicting voices. The study is split into five chapters. Chapter One
gives a detailed Introduction to Bakhtin and looks at the Background to
the Study, Background to Adichie, Statement of the Problem, Scope and
Delimitation, Objectives of the Study, Review of Related literature and
Theoretical Framework. Chapter Two considers Half of a Yellow Sun, using
heteroglassia to explain the dialogic opposites between characters in
line with Adichie’s concern in representing the failure of the
intellectual elites in their role as nation builders. Chapter Three
presents the carnivalesque as a means of liberation, through which the
harsh ideology of Puritanism is questioned in Purple Hibiscus. In Chapter Four, an attempt is made at the interpretation of The Thing Around Your Neck, in
relation to monologism. At this point, the story shows monologism as
the signification of the stentorian voice of the ruling class which has
an element of finality in discourse, and Chapter Five is the Conclusion
of the Study.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Introduction, General
In this study, every chapter is thoughtfully and specifically
organized with a different introduction. With this arrangement, this
chapter discusses in detail the basic comments on the Background to the
Study as well as the Evolution and Growth of African prose fiction;
Statement of the Problem, Significance of the Study, Scope and
Delimitation and the Background to Adichie - author of the works I hope
to re-examine. I also review previous Literature of those works, present
Theoretical Framework and finally make Statements on the choice of the
model I have chosen.
Certainly, a study of this kind must begin with a clue to what the
reseacher intends to do. Having borne this in mind, it is necessary to
emphasize that the study adopts the Bakhtinian theory of the novel to
explain the dialogic imagination in the works of Adichie. Therefore, in
order to give a lucid explanation of what I intend to do, I shall indeed
begin with the Background.
1.1 Background to the Study
This study re-examines the prose fiction of Adichie in the light of Mikhail
Mikhailovich Bakhtin’s theory of the novel. Consequently, it traces
the power of “the dialogic imagination” as used by Adichie in Half of a Yellow Sun, Purple Hibiscus and The Thing Around Your Neck.
Indeed, the major concept of the Bakhtinian theory of the novelis
dialogism, which has three other aspects. Dialogism, according to
Bakhtin,is a multi-system of voices in dialogue.