Volume 16, No 1, 2019
(De) Constructing Achebe’s Metaphor Of ‘Bull And Egret’ Within The Exegesis Of Biafran Nationhood
Ikechukwu Emmanuel Asika
Abstract
The novelist, Chinua Achebe also enjoys the reputation as one of the foremost poets who recorded, for posterity, the shades of the Nigerian Civil War experiences. In “Bull and Egret”, one of the titles in Beware Soul Brother, Achebe builds on the metaphor of the ‘bull’ and ‘egret’ to (re)tell the varying exigencies of the war. About fifty years after, the interplays that were part of the build ups of the war are far from been over, even as the clamour for secession assumes new guises. This paper undertakes a critical enquiry into the allegorical underpinnings of Achebe’s “Bull and Egret.” The crux of argument is that Achebe’s metaphor of ‘Bull and ‘Egret’ comes handy in our present re-assessment of the vagaries of Biafranhood under the umbrella of one Nigeria, fifty years after the war. Achebe’s poetic outpourings re-echo the stance that the Igbo nation remains the proverbial ‘bull’ in an unwholesome and rather parasitic relationship with the ‘egret’. The paper concludes on the underlying poetic truth that war is no longer an option but a tactical retreat of the ‘bull’ from the deliriousness of the ‘egret’ towards building a true Biafran nationhood.
Pages: 396-407
Keywords: Nationhood, parasite, metaphor, secession, biafranhood, allegory.