Creating a New Multicultural Frame: The Cinematographic Suppression of Half of a Yellow Sun

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Date
2018-05-29Author
Adedipe, Ademolawa Michael 1986-
ORCID
0000-0001-9137-7820Type
ThesisDegree Level
MastersMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
In cinematic adaptations, the repression of most of the information in the source material can easily be misconstrued and quickly categorized as a result of the reductionist measures that cinematic adaptations of novels typically go through. I argue that in the case of the cinematic adaption of Chimamanda Adichie’s novel Half of a Yellow Sun, the suppression that pervades the production and the release of the film in Nigeria is more political than aesthetic. Not privileging literature over films, I reveal how the historical suppression of the Biafra story continues in the reduction of aspects of Adichie’s depiction of the Biafran War in the cinematic adaptation of Half of a Yellow Sun by the film’s producers, which perpetuates a tactical pattern of an incomplete representation that dates back to the Nigerian Civil War. The tenets and relevance of this project transcend Nigeria and its environs into a global landscape of discourses on war literature and its cinematic repression.
Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)Department
EnglishProgram
EnglishSupervisor
Wallace, CynthiaCommittee
Parkinson, Davi; Banco, Lind MCopyright Date
May 2018Subject
Cinematic adaptations
repression
Chiamanda Adichie
Nigeria
Biafra Story