African Literature

This study examines how unconscious fears, trauma, and repression shape female identity in Amma Darko’s Faceless and Bayo Adebowale’s Lonely Days. Using the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, complemented by feminist perspectives, the research investigates how internal psychological conflicts mirror the external realities of patriarchal societies. The analysis demonstrates that both authors employ narrative realism, imagery, and interior monologue to reveal how women internalise fear, pain, and silence as mechanisms of survival. In Faceless, Fofo and Maa Tsuru represent the psychological consequences of abandonment, social neglect, and sexual exploitation, while in Lonely Days, Yaremi embodies the trauma and repression caused by widowhood and cultural marginalisation. The study finds that these psychological experiences, though destructive, ultimately inspire self-awareness and resistance. The research concludes that Darko and Adebowale portray African womanhood as both wounded and resilient. Through psychoanalytic interpretation, the study establishes that women’s repressed emotions and fears become instruments of identity reconstruction and liberation within oppressive social structures. Keywords: Psychoanalysis, Unconscious Fears, Trauma, Repression, Female Identity, Patriarchy, Faceless, Lonely Days.

This study examines the impact of war on the family as reflected in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun and Sefi Atta’s Everything Good Will Come. It explores how war and political instability destroy family ties, distort affection, and transform domestic life into a site of suffering and endurance. Both writers reveal that conflict extends beyond the battlefield, invading personal spaces and reshaping identity and human relationships. Through the Postcolonial Theory, the study interprets how historical oppression, power struggle, and the search for belonging continue to influence the African social order. It analyses the themes, characterisation, and dialogue of the two novels to show how war breeds trauma, silence, and loss within homes. The findings show that both Adichie and Atta represent the family as a mirror of the nation. In Half of a Yellow Sun, the Biafran War dismembers homes and leaves emotional ruins that reflect the nation’s tragedy. In Everything Good Will Come, dictatorship, social inequality, and moral repression recreate a form of domestic war that stifles growth and love. The research concludes that African women writers use the family setting as a platform for recording the psychological aftermath of national crises. It contributes to scholarship by revealing that the true cost of war is not only in the number of the dead but in the brokenness that lingers within the living.