War, Trauma and Liminality of Healing in Uzodinma Iweala’s Beast of No Nation

Abstract

Sustaining wars through the agency of child’s conscription over the centuries has been a regular but abhorrent phenomenon. However, what has been disturbing is the apparent violation of the child’s right by forcefully engaging him or her to fill up the desired manpower needed in war situations. If the experiences of those who volunteered and participated in wars, especially adults, could be brazenly devastating then the fate of those who were conscripted as children would be nothing short of traumatizing. In Beasts of No Nation (2005), Uzodinma Iweala, drawing from the experiences of a conscripted child soldier, not only exposes the psychological, physical, and liminal disenchantment the child faced but also, the impossibility of healing that characterized his post-war life. The idea of traumatized child’s psychology has dominated the critical attention given to the novel so far. However, in seeking to extend this notion, this paper examines the traumatic dispositions of the child soldier as a double wound, emphasizing his liminal condition, which the critics of the novel have paid little attention to. Therefore, contemplating on Kali Tal’s notion of liminality through which this paper is analyzed, the article concludes that the impossibility to attain healing after a traumatic encounter pitches one against his world manifesting as double tragedy.