Ghosts by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie summary overview - A SILENT SONG AND OTHER STORIES

-

          





             The Plot Summary


Watch here


Adichie’s short story ‘Ghost’ alludes to the 1967-1970 Biafra War in Nigeria which she deploys as a pivotal vantage point to scan the realities of postcolonial Nigerian state.


The plot of the story unfolds through the narrative voice of Professor James Nwoye, a retired 71-year-old Mathematics professor who was at Nsukka University at the time it fell to the federal forces during the civil war.


The protagonist in the story epitomizes the devastation of the war, having lost a child to it and suffered disruption and dislocation.


'Ghost’ focuses on the present but flashes back to the past to reveal the harsh realities of the fictional postcolonial spaces it recreates.


The story, "Ghosts," is set on a university campus in Nigeria and follows the character of James Nwoye, a retired professor, as he reflects on his past, current life, and encounters with the ghost of his late wife, Ebere.


The story opens with James running into his former colleague, Ikenna Okoro, who was thought to have died during the Nigerian civil war, known as the Biafran war, but it is revealed that he did not die.


James and Ikenna reminisce about the past, but their conversation also touches on the current state of the university, which is plagued by corruption and late pension payments.


Throughout the story, James reflects on the impact of the war on his life, and how he and his fellow survivors have chosen to move on from it with a sense of "implacable vagueness," focusing more on the fact that they have survived rather than the horrors they witnessed.


The theme of the war is closely intertwined with the theme of ghosts, as the trauma of the war is still very much present in James' mind and the ghost of his wife Ebere.


Ebere visits James regularly, and he is comforted by her visits as she brings a sense of peace and familiarity to him, as he's still grieving her death.


James also mentions that the fake drugs epidemic is a new problem in Nigeria and he fears that the man who produces these fake drugs might not be punished, making it easier for him to produce more fake drugs that can lead to more deaths.


As the story comes to a close, James reflects on the current state of his life.


He describes it as being neither good nor bad, but simply his.


Though nobody talks about the war, James suggests that everyone who experienced it lives with the memories of it just like he does. People ignore or sidestep the truth around other living people, but the war lingers like a ghost.


The title "Ghosts" is fitting as it encapsulates the multiple layers of the story, from the literal ghost of Ebere, to the metaphorical ghost of the war and its impact on James' life, and the ever-present threat of fake drugs, which are like a ghost, lingering in the background and cau

sing harm without being seen.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Silent Song by Leonard Kibera

-
              Plot summary  A Silent Song is a story about Mbane, a young paralyzed, blind city street beggar who has spent much of his life living on the streets of a city, begging for money and seeking shelter in a back lane at night. He lives in destitution, begging from the passers-by while seething with pain and discomfort. However, despite being surrounded by people and activity, Mbane is isolated and unable to fully participate in the rhythms and pleasures of urban life. He is unable to share in the small talk of the pedestrians, and even when they sing or whistle to the morning sky, Mbane can only observe from a distance. In the story, the city is depicted as a place of noise and activity, with people singing and dancing and engaging in various forms of work and leisure. However, Mbane is only able to experience this activity from a limited perspective, and is unable to fully understand or participate in it. This is due to Mbane's blindnes...
Read more

Fathers of Nations by Paul B Vitta *chapter 3* summary overview [TICK IT]

-
Chapter 3📚 The chapter unfolds with a flashback into Prof. Kimani’s life. Prof. Kimani joined the University of Nairobi directly as a senior lecturer straight from the University of Oxford where he studied. A month after his arrival, Prof. Kimani launched a noisy debate in which he demanded that the University of Nairobi henceforth strive for being relevant to the society rather than simply focusing on delivering excellence in work, Six months later, his clarion call prevailed. The University’s official motto became “Relevance to the society.” After winning this first war, he wedged another one which was even noisier. He wanted the university to be an agent of change not a mere spectator of it. In the meantime, he married Asiya Omondi. He became a Professor and now felt complete. A global economic recession hit Africa. Jobs and incomes shrank. To get out of the crisis, Africa had to make changes and donors were the architects of these proposed changes. Donors demanded for change and A...
Read more

Fathers of Nations by Paul B Vitta --Chapter 1 summary overview [TICK IT]

-
Watch here👉https://youtu.be/EMBAvfKiY0w It is evening, four strangers check in at The Seamount hotel in Gambia’s capital” Banjul None of them knows the other three First to check in is Karanja Kimani, a professor in the Institute of Development at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. He’s assigned a room on the fourth floor, east wing. Ngobile Melusi, a comrade and a citizen of Zimbabwe is second to check in and is allocated a room on the fifth floor of the south wing. Third to clock in is Chineke Chiamaka, a pastor at the Church Inside Africa in Lagos, Nigeria. Chiamaka is booked on the sixth floor of the west wing. Last to report is another stranger,  his name is SeifTahir, an Engineer formerly employed by the Ministry of Defense in  Tripoli- Libya. He is assigned a room on the third-floor north wing. In less than an hour after the booking, all the four “strangers,” receive a call from the same caller who declines to divulge details about himself, He only identifies himself as...
Read more