A SILENT SONG ESSAY QUESTION
Survivors of war live with painful memories and experiences. Write an essay to support this statement citing illustrations from Chimamanda Adichie’s Ghosts.
War, even for a perceived just cause, has many detrimental outcomes. There is nothing positive about war. Ordinary people suffer most in the event of war. Traumatic memories, loss of family members and loss of valuable property are some of the consequences of war that leave the survivors with painful memories.
Many ordinary people suffer when their family members, friends or colleagues lose their lives in war. For 37 years, professor Nwoye believed his former colleague, Ikenna died in the war. He is shaken to see him alive. He is tempted to throw sand at him, a customary practice to ascertain that one was not a ghost. Nwoye thought Ikenna died on July 6th, 1967 when they evacuated Nsukka amidst the boom boom boom shelling of the approaching federal soldiers. Nsukka fell that day and two lecturers were killed; one for arguing with the federal officers. Ebere consoles Zik who left her doll behind as they were fleeing in haste. Although Ikenna made it out alive, his whole family was in Orlu when it was bombed. When he says this, his laughter seems like harsh-sounding series of coughs. After the war, the man who was admired for his erudite asperity and peremptory style is a pale shadow of his former self. The uncertainty and diffidence about him is alien. His gray shirt sagged at the shoulders. His laughter was hollow and discoloured , devoid of the aggressive sound of yesteryears. Nwoye’s daughter Zik and their colleague Chris Okigbo also died in the war. Nwoye says, “The war took Zik” in Igbo, since speaking about death in English has a disquieting finality for him. He and Ikenna speak fondly and sadly about Okigbo: “our genius, our star, the man whose poetry moved us all. A colossus in the making.” Nwoye also remembers other horrors of war like crouching in muddy bunkers during air raids after which they buried corpses with bits of pink on their charred skins. Indeed, war affects people adversely when they lose their loved ones.
People are also affected when they are forced to leave their homes as a result of war. On July 6th, 1967, professor Nwoye and his family are forced to evacuate Nsukka in a hurry. This happens even as they hear the boom boom boom shelling of the advancing federal soldiers. The militia assures them that the vandals, federal soldiers, would be defeated in a matter of days and they could come back. This does not come to pass since the war does not end until 1970. Local villagers in their hundreds are also displaced from their homes. They walk along, women with boxes on their heads and babies tied to their backs, barefoot children carrying bundles and men dragging bicycles holding yams. Nwoye, oblivious of the intensity of the war, finds it foolhardy that his colleague, Ikenna, goes back to the campus with the shelling getting closer. He thought their troops would drive back the vandals in a week or two. He had faith in their collective invincibility and the justness of the Biafran cause. To his dismay, Nsukka fell and the campus was occupied that very day. Ikenna left Biafra the following month and went to Sweden on a Red Cross plane. Some children were airlifted to Gabon later in the war. When the war ended three years later in 1970, Nwoye and Ebere came back to Nsukka and they were shocked about the aftermath of the war. Their books, his graduation gown and their photographs were destroyed and Ebere’s piano was missing. They decide to leave for America where they live up to 1976. Their daughter Nkiru still lives in America with his son. People suffer when they are displaced from their homes as a result of war.
Thirdly, people are affected when they are separated from family members and some even become alienated. Because of the war, professor Ikenna is forced to fly to Sweden leaving his family behind in Orlu. He loses his entire family when Orlu is bombed. When he recounts this story, his laughter comes out like a series of harsh sounding coughs. He was believed to be dead. Men who had been thought dead, walked into their compounds months, even years after 1970. Nwoye wonders how much sand has been thrown on broken men by their family members split between disbelief and hope. His daughter Nkiru lives in America. She was born in America when Nwoye and Ebere went there after the war. Nwoye does not fancy the American life which is cushioned by so much convenience that it is sterile. It is littered with what they call ‘opportunities’. He is also worried about his grandson who cannot speak Igbo. The boy does not understand why he has to say ‘good afternoon’ to strangers. In his world, having been brought up in America, one has to justify simple courtesies. Nkiru is a doctor in Connecticut near Rhode Island. Her faint American accent is vaguely troubling for her father. War causes separation of family and alienation of family members.
Also, war causes dire lack of food and therefore people suffer hunger or starvation. At the onset of the war, the local villages are displaced in their droves. After the war, they are forced to pick through the lecturers’ bins for food. There was a blockade keeping supplies of victuals such as salt, meat and cold water from them. During the war, people had no option but to eat cassava peels. They watched in horror as their children’s bellies swelled from malnutrition. Organizations such as the Red Cross backed down when a plane was shot down in Eket. The World Council of Churches kept flying in relief through Uli at night. Individuals like Ikenna organised fundraising to help his starving community in Biafra. Professor Nwoye buys groundnut and a bunch of bananas for the tattered men clustered under the flame tree at the university. They had requested him to do so since “hunger was killing them”. Surely, war results in ravaging starvation and malnutrition.
War gives room for service providers to be corrupt. Professor Nwoye visits the university bursary and yet again the dried-uplooking Ugwoke clerk tells him that the money has not come in. They are used to this. Someone claims that the education minister stole the pension money. Yet another one posits that it was the vice chancellor who had deposited the money in high interest personal accounts. They curse him saying his children will not have children and he will die of diarrhoea. No one gets pension. From professors, to messengers, to drivers, to the other tattered men. Everyone is suffering. Vincent claims that people retire and die because of this delay. He has not received his money for three years. At the university, students buy grade with money or their bodies. Josephat, the vice chancellor, for six years, ran the university like his father’s chicken coop. He was once thought to be a man of integrity but now, under his watch, money disappears and they buy cars stamped with names of nonexistent foreign foundations. The impotent courts do nothing to salvage the situation. Nwoye has not been paid since he retired. Many lecturers bribe someone at the Personnel Service to change their official dates of birth and add five years. Nobody wants to retire. Corruption and bribery is all over the country. The situation seems ineluctable. To get his phone repaired, Nwoye has to bribe someone at NITEL. Ordinary people suffer because of runaway corruption occasioned by the war.
After the war, there is an influx of fake drugs. The latest plague in the country is selling of expired medicine. Ebere had lain in hospital getting weaker and weaker. Her doctor was puzzled since she was not recovering even after medication. Professor Nwoye was distraught. It was too late when they found out the drugs were fake. Nwoye says gravely that fake drugs are horrible. A man accused of importing fake drugs says that his drugs do not kill people but they don’t cure them either. Nwoye turns off the television since he cannot stand to see the man’s blubbery lips. He hopes the man would not be acquitted and allowed to go to India or China and bring more expired medicine which does not kill people but makes sure the illness does. Surely, war has many undesirable effects on the lives of ordinary people.
Many ordinary people wallow in poverty as a result of the war. When Professor Nwoye visits the university bursary for his pension, he sees a group of tattered men clustered under a flame tree waiting for their pension as well. Vincent, his former driver, has not received his pension for three years. He says this is why people retire and die. He remembers when Ebere used to give him old clothes for his children. The students do not pay him on time before mending their shoes. Although Vincent is younger than Nwoye, he looks older and has little hair left. The tattered man request professor Nwoye to buy them bananas since hunger was killing them. They lament about a myriad of problems such as money lender problems and how carpentry was not going well. Professor Nwoye is lucky compared to them since he has some money saved from his appointment in the Federal Office of Statistics and also receives some dollars from his daughter Nkiru who is a doctor in America. After the war is over, the poor locals are forced to pick through the lecturers’ bins for food. Surely, war has devastating effects on the lives of the people.
Lastly, war is a deeply distressing experience that leaves this people with traumatic memories. Ikenna lost his whole family in the war. Before, he was defiant and everybody forgave his peremptory style and admired his erudite asperity. His fearlessness convinced them. Now his laughter seemed discoloured and hollow and nothing like the aggressive sound that reverberated all over the Staff Club in those days. His gray shirt sagged at the shoulders. There was an uncertainty about him. A diffidence that seemed alien to professor Nwoye. When he tells the story about how his whole family was killed when Orlu was bombed, he lets out a harsh sound that is supposed to be a laughter but it sounded more like a series of coughs. Professor Nwoye and Ebere are traumatized by the aftermath of the war when they return to their former house at the university. The destruction of property was too much that they are forced to leave for America. When they come back they are given a different house but they avoid driving along Imoke street, for they did not want to see their old house. Nwoye cannot talk about death in English since it has always had a disquieting finality for him. So he says about his late daughter that they war took her in Igbo to which Ikenna simply replies “Ndo” to mean sorry. During the war, Nwoye and Ebere are traumatized when the Biafran soldiers shove a wounded soldier into their car and the stranger’s blood drips in the back seat and soaks into the stuffing. Nwoye also suffers recurring hallucinations when he imagines that his dead wife visits him from time to time. Professor Nwoye, Ikenna and many other people are left with lasting emotional shock and pain caused by the extremely disturbing experiences of war.
In conclusion, it is clear that war leaves the people with disturbing memories and many have lasting distressing experiences occasioned by the shocking and painful recollections.
