Bearing the Burden of Military Dictatorship in Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel and Okey Ndibe’s Arrows of Rain
Abstract
The effects of military dictatorship have been felt globally, and literary critical studies on the same are available. These studies highlight the various levels of suffering and cruelty that are meted out to the victims at the emotional, physical, and psychological levels. This study aims to analyse the different ways through which victims of military authoritarianism have defied all odds to cope with trauma. The study purposively singled out Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel and Okey Ndibe’s Arrows of Rain, and due to their textual nature, an analysis was done through close reading of the selected novels. The trauma literary theory, as propounded by Cathy Caruth (1996), Shoshana Felman (1992), and Judith Herman (1992), was used to assess the diverse ways trauma victims in militarised spaces cope with the dehumanising experiences. Both novels reveal that trauma, though a sudden human experience, can be coped with when victims either consciously or subconsciously employ strategies that help pacify the ordeal. Ultimately, the paper situates both texts as narratives of trauma, resistance, and testimony during the oppressive military regimes in Nigeria. This paper illustrates how victims can cultivate resilience and resistance against military repression and pressure, proving the lengths that the human spirit can go to for survival
Downloads
References
Beskova,K. (2024). Shades of silence in Yasmine El Rashidi’s Chronicle of a Last Summer: Socio-cultural dynamics, silencing and trauma. Asian and African Studies,33(2),147-174
Bruce, L.M. (2021). How to go Mad without Losing your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity. Duke University Press
Caruth, C. (1996). Unclaimed Experience. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Chi, C. (2024). Madness, psychiatry, and empire in postcolonial literature. In Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan.
Danielson, C.K., Hahn, A.M., Bountress, K.E. et al. (2024). Depressive symptoms, avoidant coping, and alcohol use: differences based on gender and posttraumatic stress disorder in emerging adults. Curr Psychol 43, 24518–24526.
Duursma, E., Hanley, N., Evans, J., & Wilson, M. (2025). Words within walls: A scoping review of prison-based creative writing. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology. 1-23
Edache, E.A. & Nwiyi, J.I. (2025). Articulating Trauma: Tropes and metaphors in Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. DUJEJ: Delta State University Journal of English and Literay Studies,10(1), 45-59
Eromosele, F. (2021). Madness and psychiatry in K. Sello Duiker’s The Quiet Violence of Dreams. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 57(4), 525–538.
Forna, A. (2010). The Memory of Love. London: Bloomsbury.
Habila, H. (2003). Waiting for an Angel. Penguin Books.
Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence—from domestic abuse to political terror. Basic Books.
LaCapra, D. (2001). Writing History, Writing Trauma. John Hopkins University Press.
Luciano, M.T., Acuff, S.F., McDevitt-Murphy, M.E., & Murphy, J.G. (2020). Behavioral economics and coping-related drinking motives in trauma-exposed drinkers: Implications for the self-medication hypothesis. Exp Clin Psychopharmacology. 28(3):265-270.
Mkandawire, C.W. (2020). Alienation and despair in Okey Ndibe’s Arrows of Rain. International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences, 5 (6), 2363-2377.
Ndibe, O. (2000). Arrows of Rain. Heinemann Educational Publishers.
Ngwaba, I.A., Gbadgesin, O.V., & Ibeku, C.I. (2024). Identity and silence: Rethinking the environmental and political space in Okey Ndibe’s Arrows of Rain. Ayhu: A journal of Language and Literature, 7,114-125
Randazzo, C., & Ammari, T. (2025). Fractured selves and digital repair: Identity reconstruction in online trauma communities. ArXiv preprint
Shahid, A., & Sayyid, A. (2024). Madness redefined: Political resistance in Fakhar Zaman’s Bandiwan/The Prisoner. Journal of Development and Social Sciences, 5(3), 312–317.
Tschoeke, S., Borbe, R., Steinert, T.& Bihescu-Burian, D. (2019). A systematic review of dissociation in female sex workers. Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, 20(2),242-257.
Vickroy, L. (2002). Trauma and Survival in Contemporary Fiction. Charlottesville VA: University of Virginia Press.
Wieberneit, M., Thal, S. B., Clare, J., Notebaert, L., & Tubex, H. (2024). Silenced survivors: A systematic review of the barriers to reporting, investigating, prosecuting, and sentencing of adult female rape and sexual assault. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 25(5), 3742–3757. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380241261404.
Yapp, E. (2025). From brain “scar” to “bat shit crazy”: Negotiating the madness of sexual violence discourse. BioSocieties, 20,199-222
Copyright (c) 2025 Masolia Mwaniga Daisy, Barasa Remmy Shiundu, Fredrick Nyambane Monanti
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
