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Metaphors for Nation and War in Chinua Achebe's Memoir

Metaphors for Nation and War in Chinua Achebe's Memoir

Onwu Inya
Copyright: © 2016 |Pages: 21
ISBN13: 9781522500810|ISBN10: 1522500812|EISBN13: 9781522500827
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0081-0.ch011
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MLA

Inya, Onwu. "Metaphors for Nation and War in Chinua Achebe's Memoir." Political Discourse in Emergent, Fragile, and Failed Democracies, edited by Daniel Ochieng Orwenjo, et al., IGI Global, 2016, pp. 199-219. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-0081-0.ch011

APA

Inya, O. (2016). Metaphors for Nation and War in Chinua Achebe's Memoir. In D. Orwenjo, O. Oketch, & A. Tunde (Eds.), Political Discourse in Emergent, Fragile, and Failed Democracies (pp. 199-219). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-0081-0.ch011

Chicago

Inya, Onwu. "Metaphors for Nation and War in Chinua Achebe's Memoir." In Political Discourse in Emergent, Fragile, and Failed Democracies, edited by Daniel Ochieng Orwenjo, Omondi Oketch, and Asiru Hameed Tunde, 199-219. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2016. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-0081-0.ch011

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Abstract

Chinua Achebe's memoir, There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra, caused quite a stir in the Nigerian polity when it was published in 2012. This chapter, therefore, examined the metaphors used by the author to construe the concepts of nation and the (Nigerian civil) war in the memoir. Theoretical insights were drawn from Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Primary metaphor theory and Conceptual blending theory to analyze the metaphors identified. Two central metaphors were used by the author to construe the concept of nation, namely, the DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY and the SCAPEGOAT metaphors. Metaphors for war included WAR AS NIGHTMARE, AS A TRIANGLE GAME, and AS A SERIES OF VIOLENT CRIMES respectively. The metaphor system highlighted in this chapter indicates that bad governance, corruption and ethnic politics were critical to the failure of Nigeria's first democratic experience (1960-1966) and the resultant civil war of 1967-1970.

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