Reclaiming Igbo Memory through Bremond's Narrative Logic in Adichie’s The Headstrong Historian

This study aims to unveil the narrative structures and choices in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's The Headstrong Historian by employing the theoretical perspective of Claude Bremond. Narratives have explicit structures, functions and components from the time of Aristotle to the present day, and Oedipus Rex is an epitome of a perfect narrative according to Aristotle and other virtuosos. Multiple scales, theoretical frameworks and models etc have been proffered over time to attenuate the narrative structures, functions and roles. Claude Bremond has incorporated the narrative logics and choices to a theoretical framework, which is an extension of Vladimir Propp's concept of narrative function, to unravel narratives. Adichie's The Headstrong Historian is a story spanning from a peaceful life to a perturbing and atrocious colonial era in Nigeria. The reclamation of identity and freedom in the post-colonial era to shatter the stereotypes entrenched by the colonizers about the indigenous individuals and culture. Adichie has deliberately preferred some narrative structures to others to emanate the narrative in a natural and meaningful way. This short story has been analyzed multiple times but Bremond's structuralist narrative logic has never been utilized to probe this story. This study not only bridges this gap but also paves the way for future researchers to employ the same theoretical perspective for other narratives. This study, thus, associates the narrative research to a broader spectrum.