Helon Habila and the Trauma of Disposable People in Oil on Water

Uchenna Ohagwam, Ndubuisi Ogbuagu — Fri, 14 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Trauma studies is no doubt a burgeoning area of discourse that has captured the literary imagination of academic scholars for a few decades running. This study examined the complex relationship between socio-cultural influences and intimate personal relations portrayed in a trauma fiction as Helon Habila’s Oil on Water. Specifically, how does these depictions in Habila’s fiction direct the awareness of the catastrophic effects of war, poverty, hostage taking, domestic abuse on the individual psyche? How do traumatised people respond? To what extent can one theorize trauma studies and ecocritical studies? How traumatized is the physical landscape portrayed in Habila’s fiction? The study concludes by insisting that government of nations and relevant international organisations, owe the people the responsibility of intentionally committing to rearticulating and rehabilitating the social conditions, voices; indeed, the lives of marginalized people.

Representation of Human Rights Violations by the Security Agents in Agyei-Agyiri’s Unexpected Joy at Dawn, Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Ellison’s Invisible Man

Eze Chidiebere Chukwuemeka — Mon, 16 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Purpose: Human rights violation is a universal phenomenon, a constant presence in the news and in daily lives. Such violations are occasioned by the powerful lording it over the powerless, infringing upon the victims’ unalienable rights. Human rights violations by the security agents seem to be pervasive in the recent time, resulting in the ubiquity of protests against the security agents for their wanton violations of human rights. Just recently, there were protest against police security bill in Paris, the protest against the killing of Eyad al-Hallaq by Israeli police, the protest against the jailing of Kremlin Foe of Russia, the protest against the murder of George Floyd of America and the recent EndSARS protest in Nigeria. The purpose of this study was to explore the civil and political rights in the selected novels and how such rights have been violated by the security agents.

Methodology: The research adopted literary analysis, deploying the Marxist critical discourse which concerns itself with the struggles between classes. The reason for this choice is that literature as a major part of the superstructure is determined by the forces that make up a society’s base.

Findings: Drawing from the selected texts and from the different reviews of literature, the research finds out, among other things, that the security agents are among the most active violators of human rights. The study also found that human rights violations are everywhere, and not an exclusive reserve of any nation, civilized or uncivilized.

Recommendations: Giving the importance of security agents in safeguarding lives and property of citizens, the governments should include courses on human rights issues in the curriculum/training of the security agents. Different governments of the world should strengthen the aspects of fundamental human rights entrenched in their constitutions and give that hallowed section its pride of place to avoid chaos, anarchy, violent protests or even war that could result from violating the citizens’ rights. Governments should set up independent and impartial judicial bodies to adjudicate on the cases of human rights violations by the security agents. The citizens need to be sufficiently sensitized on the operative mechanisms of the security agents to make them know when they are crossing their boundaries or initiating actions capable of compelling the security agents to violate their rights. Literature should be made a compulsory subject in schools and colleges.

American Journal of Literature Studies

Helon Habila and the Trauma of Disposable People in Oil on Water

Representation of Human Rights Violations by the Security Agents in Agyei-Agyiri’s Unexpected Joy at Dawn, Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Ellison’s Invisible Man