Education in Half a Yellow Sun

The theme of education in Half a Yellow Sun is primarily presented to us through the character Ugwo’s experiences in “Half a Yellow Sun. I will now explain what I think the significance of Ugwo is in what he represents historically and how the author uses Ugwo’s experiences to represent the loss of education during the war. I will look at Ugwo’s relation to other characters how his views are different from there’s and why the Author decided to give Ugwo this particular outlook on the world. I will also look at the sub-themes of books and schools and their significance within the novel. Through these sub-themes, I will attempt to explain what I think the author’s view on the war was what impact it had on education and what her view was on Nigerian education in general.

 

Ugwo likely is meant to represent what the average poor uneducated Nigerian could achieve if they only were given the chance. A lot about the author's views on intelligence and education is shown to us through the Ugwo’s relation to other characters. At the start of the novel, when we are first introduced to Ugwo, we see him as being a very subservient and uneducated character. On the day of his arrival at Odenigbo’s house Ugwo even was amazed by the way water runs freely from the tap. This is something readers of the novel generally would see as being every day, but to Ugwo it is something magical. As soon as Odenigbo decides to educate Ugwo we can almost immediately see an increased understanding of the world around him within his thinking. Towards the end of the novel Ugwo begins to ask questions about the world and sees the world in an entirely different way than the rest of his people.

When they listened to Radio Biafra, Ugwo would get up and walk away. The shabby theatrics of the war reports, the voice that forced morsels of invented hope down people’s thoughts, did not interest him. One afternoon, Harrison came up to the flame tree carrying the radio turned on high to Radio Biafra.
‘Please turn that off,’ Ugwo said. He was watching some little boys playing on the grass. ‘I want to hear the birds.’
‘There are no birds singing’, Harrison said
‘Turn it off.’
‘His Excellency is about to give a speech’
‘Mba, No.”
Harrison watching him. ‘It will be a great speech.’
‘There is no such thing as greatness,’ Ugwo said.
Karrison walked away looking wounded and Ugwo did not bother to call him back; he went back to watching the children.

This extract tells us a lot about how Ugwo has grown as a character and what his relation is to the rest of his countrymen. Ugwo can see past the beautifully put words of the speech because of the education he has received. He Knows them to be nothing more than propaganda while Harrison who is uneducated fails to see this and refers to the speech as “great”. This shows us that Ugwo has lost his nativity while Harrison and the rest of the Biafran population have not. Ugwo even sometimes sees things that Olanna and Odenigbo fail to see despite the fact that they are more educated than he is by far. Ugwo predicts the incident where Odenigbo sleeps with Amala. He tried to warn him, but Odenigbo dismissed it as local superstition:

‘Quite odd,’. Master said; he took his glasses of and put them back on. ‘I’m sure Prof. Ezeka will be able to explain it, some sort of migratory behavior. Don’t shut the window so you don’t trap them in.’
‘But suh,’ Ugwo said, just as Mama came into the kitchen.
‘Flies do this sometimes,’ she said. ‘It is normal. They will go the same way they came.’ She was leaning by the door and her tone was ominously victorious.
‘Yes, yes.’ Master turned back to his study. ‘Tea my good man.’
‘Yes sah.’ Ugwo did not understand how Master could be so unperturbed, how he could not see that the flies were not normal at all. As he took the tea tray into the study, he said, ‘Sah, those flies are telling us something.’
Master gestured to the table. ‘Don’t poor. Leave it there.’
‘Those flies from the kitchen sha, they are a sign of bad medicine from the dibia. Somebody has done bad medicine.’ Ugwo wanted to add that he knew very well who it was, but he knew very well how Master would take that.
‘What?’ Master’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses.
‘The flies, sah. It means somebody has done bad medicine for this house.’
‘Shut the door and let me do some work, my good man.’

Admittedly Ugwo’s case is based on superstitions and this would be the reason why Odenigbo does not take this seriously, but Ugwo has discovered that Odenigbo’s mother was plotting something sinister and he turned out to be right: she made Odenigbo drunk before letting Amala sleep with him. Odenigbo on the other hand did not suspect a thing at all. This shows us that education can sometimes make you ignorant of some things. Education tends to let people think that they know more than they really know which causes them to dismiss certain things uneducated people might say. In this case, Odenigbo might have avoided making a very bad mistake if he had assumed that there was at least some truth in Ugwos word although somewhat misplaced. This piece extract shows us that although Ugwo is uneducated in the ways of the world his skills of perception still are astounding and that he and possibly other people like him would be able to achieve great things if they only were given a chance.

 

Books is a huge theme that links with the theme of education within the novel. When looking at the theme of books one must of course first consider the importance of the metatext, “The World Was Silent While We Died.” Throughout the novel, we assume the writer of the book to be Richard, but at the end of the novel, we are surprised to find that the writer is in fact Ugwo. When we read the metatext we see that it is very well written. This shows us what Ugwo could do with the little bit he had. Ugo has managed to accomplish so much more than Richard ever could even though he is far less educated than Richard. This shows us that education does not equal intelligence, but that it is the key to unlocking it. The only thing Richard attributes to the book is its title. This not only strengthens the point I was making above but also tells us something far deeper. Richard was a foreigner, although he would not like to admit it, and he could therefore never write the book with the same depth and passion that Ugwo can. Ugwo was born in Nigeria and he has suffered many things in the war (including being conscripted within the army) which Ridchard has not. We can therefore say that the author might feel that education should not be purely driven by foreign western ideas, but that the local people should be equipped with the necessary tools to allow them to come up with their own ideas.

Schools also are a big theme linking to the theme of education. Schools are mentioned throughout the second half of the book. There are three schools mentioned in the book. One is bombed during an air raid, on is being used as a refugee camp and one is used as an army base. Al three of these schools represent three ways in which education has been destroyed during the war. The school which had been boomed, unlike the other two schools had been destroyed physically and thus had been rendered useless. This represents the Nigerians destroying the young Biafran children’s chance at an education. Then there is the school which had been used as a refugee camp. This school would represent the fact that education has been put aside by the Biafran people because the state they are in is so terrible that they can think of nothing but survival. Then we came to the last school: the one which was used as a military camp. This school arguably is the most ironic thing in the entire novel. The Biafran army was conscripting children to fight in their army. When Ugwo was conscripted he was taken to a school used as a military base. Ironically a school is exactly the place children should be taken to, but not to fight in the army, but instead to be educated. This shows us that the Biafran military takes children away from an environment where they could be educated and instead forces them to fight in their army. Either way these schools signify the loss of education during the war. Olanna seems to be the only one who makes an effort to educate the children, but she had to resort to teaching them outside because there simply wasn’t any other place. Because there was no one else to teach them Ugwo taught a class as well. Ugwo himself would not under any other circumstances have been qualified to teach children at all under any other circumstances, but Because of the war, someone like Ugwo who had received only a minor form of education was the best form of education was the best form of education these children had.

 

Further analysis could be made on the subject of education during the war by looking at the book found at the army base. This book to could be a symbolic representation of what happens to education during wartime. When Ugwo found the book it was untouched. None of the soldiers had even given it a second glance, but Ugwo did see this book as an absolute treasure and he read this book over and over again because it was the only form of literature available to him. The most significant part of this book is the incident in which High-Tech tears out one of the book's pages and uses it for his cigarette:

‘What paper is that?’ He asked.
‘It is only the first page of your book.’ High-Tech smiled and offered Ugwo the joint.
Ugwo did not take it. ‘You tore my book?’
‘It is only the first page. My paper finished.’
Rage pumped through Ugwo. His slap was swift, powerful, furious, but High-Tech avoided the full impact because he moved back at the last second and Ugwo’s hand only scraped his cheek. Ugwo raised his hand again but the other soldier held him, dragged him away, said it was just a book after all, told him to drink some more gin.
‘Sorry,’ High-Tech mumbled.

Here we can clearly see what High-tech and the rest of the soldiers thought of education. High-Tech says “It is only the first page of your book” as though it does not make any difference whatsoever. Anyone who has ever read a book would know that a large part of a book's meaning would be lost if but a single page was missing. Especially the first page since this is the page which is proceeded by all the other pages. A book without a first page therefore is like a house without its foundation. This tells us a lot about High-Tech’s views on the usefulness of education. He fails to see that the rest of the book would not make any sense whatsoever without the first page. The burning of the page is of course symbolic as well. The missing burnt page can never be reclaimed because it has been reduced to ashes. This signifies the fact that education and knowledge which had been destroyed or taken away as a result of the war can never be reclaimed. The children who had not been educated because of the war will remain uneducated. This is something which can never be fully righted for just like the ashes of the burnt page could never again be turned back into a meaningful page these children can never be given back the time in which their right to education had been robed from them.

 

When looking back at what I had said, the novel Half of a Yellow Sun holds a far deeper meaning than I had initially realized. In this essay, I, of course, had only touched on the theme of education in the book. I had only mentioned those points which I felt were the most important. There are of course many more points to be made on this theme which I either did not mention or failed to see. Naturally, there is more than one theme in the novel, but I chose to write about this theme exclusively because I felt it to be one of the most important, because education definitely is one of the most valuable things which was lost during the war.

(2174 words)

References

Adichie, C.N. 2006. Half of a Yellow Sun. London: Forth Estate

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