Half of a Yellow Sun: Part 4, Chapter 29 Summary & Analysis

Ugwu is bored one afternoon and he ignores Olanna’s warnings and sets out on the road. He rounds a corner near a church and sees a group of men being forcefully conscripted into the army. One of the soldiers sees him and shouts, and Ugwu tries to take refuge in the church, but the priest won’t let him in. The soldier threatens to shoot Ugwu if he runs, so he joins the group of men with their hands on their heads.

Ugwu’s hands are tied and he is made to walk down the road. He sees Mrs. Muokelu, and a few moments later Olanna appears. Olanna talks to the commander, and then a soldier cuts Ugwu free. He is dizzy with relief, but senses Olanna’s fury. She takes him home and says he is so stupid he doesn’t deserve his good luck. She used all her money to bribe the soldier.

Olanna acts chilly towards Ugwu for a few days, until one morning Baby is crying because Olanna won’t buy her a roasted lizard a hawker is selling. Olanna and Ugwu share a smile at the absurdity of the situation, and after that things are normal again.

While Olanna is away visiting Kainene, Ugwu overhears Odenigbo talking and laughing with Alice. The next day Odenigbo and Alice sit together on the veranda. Later Ugwu worries that Alice is in the room with Odenigbo, so he knocks to interrupt. Odenigbo is alone, but he says that Professor Ekwenugo (who had been working on weapons with the government) is dead and “blown up.”

Ugwu thinks about the words “blown up” and then resolves to talk to Eberechi. He goes to her house and they make up. She promises to come visit him later. Ugwu goes home, and Odenigbo comes home late and drunk. He says “my good man” and then throws up on the floor. He tells Ugwu not to mention this to Olanna.

Eberechi starts to come around more, and one day Ugwu finally kisses her. She kisses him back and lets him take off her underwear for a moment. Ugwu wants to tell her that he loves her, but again he can’t. Eberechi says she has to go, and Ugwu escorts her halfway home. On his way back he is caught by some armed soldiers. He runs but then falls when he hears a gunshot.

The soldiers throw Ugwu into a van with a teenager and a man in his sixties. The elderly man eventually shames the soldiers into letting him go. The soldier who seems to be in charge is a thirteen-year-old boy called “High-Tech.” The teenager conscripted with Ugwu starts to weep, and Ugwu realizes the extent of his situation – he is about to be sent to the front lines with no real training.

High-Tech explains what their work will be – they are a battalion of field engineers who fight with the ogbunigwe. High-Tech does reconnaissance (which he calls “rayconzar”) to find out the location of the enemy, and then they set up their “operation.” Ugwu corrects High-Tech’s pronunciation of “reconnaissance,” which seems to win his respect.

When they reach the training camp – a former primary school – Ugwu’s head is roughly shaved and he is put through a “training” of beating and mockery. None of the other soldiers have boots, uniforms, or half of a yellow sun on their sleeves. Ugwu starts to grow terrified of the “casual cruelty of this new world.”

Ugwu is told that the next operation will be soon, and he is both scared and excited. Professor Ekwenugo had made the ogbunigwe sound glamorous, but the mines just look like dull metal canisters to Ugwu. Ugwu wishes he could tell Eberechi about his experiences, and about his brutal commander who is the only one with a uniform.

One day Ugwu finds the book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave: Written by Himself wedged behind a blackboard. Ugwu reads it in two days and then starts over again. High-Tech likes to sit with him while he reads, and on one day when the soldiers get no food High-Tech brings Ugwu some sardines.

High-Tech tells Ugwu that the Nigerians and Biafrans stopped fighting to celebrate Easter, and the two sides even got together to play cards and drink. High-Tech gives Ugwu a better haircut, and Ugwu thinks about people who shave off their hair as a “memorial to death.” Ugwu lies awake that night and imagines running home to Odenigbo and Olanna, but there is also a part of him that wants to fight, so he stays.

Ugwu’s first battle is at night, and he huddles in a wet trench. He buried his mine about thirty yards ahead and is now waiting for the “vandals” to approach. Ugwu hears gunfire and thinks about kissing Eberechi. He sees the silhouettes of men nearby, and he detonates his mine. He hits his target and the Nigerians are killed, and the Biafrans rush forward to strip their bodies of boots and guns.

Ugwu’s unit returns to camp and they all congratulate him, nicknaming him “Target Destroyer.” For a few days he is happy, drinking and playing cards. His unit decides to go to a bar nearby. They stop a civilian car and commandeer it for “an operation,” ignoring the pleas of the couple inside, who are searching for their son. The man driving says that this is wrong of the soldiers, and a soldier slaps him until Ugwu steps in.

The soldiers get in the car and drive to the bar. The bar girl says that they have no beer, so they drink the local gin. Ugwu is annoyed by his loud, boastful fellow soldiers. High-Tech starts to roll a cigarette and Ugwu sees that his rolling paper is a piece of the Frederick Douglass book. Ugwu slaps High-Tech, and the other soldiers pull him away. Ugwu thinks that “he was not living his life; his life was living him,” and he starts to get very drunk.

Ugwu goes out to urinate and pretends he is back in the yard in Nsukka. He hears shouting from the bar and goes back in, thinking that the soldiers and the war “tire him.” Ugwu sees High-Tech raping the bar girl as other soldiers hold her down and cheer. Someone says that “Target Destroyer” should go next. Ugwu tries to decline, but the soldiers start to tease him. He shrugs and takes off his pants. He doesn’t look at the bar girl until he is finished. She is staring at him “with a calm hate.”

The war continues, and Ugwu has more “operations” in the trenches. Sometimes his fear overcomes him, and he can only remember the gruesome details of battle when he is back at camp. He reads his book over and over. One day the commander drives up with a goat. The soldiers kill it and cook it, but then the commander takes all of it for himself. The next day the radio says that Umuahia, Biafra’s capital, has fallen.

The soldiers feel that the war is lost, but they are cheered by a rumor that Ojukwu will be visiting. A convoy of cars and officers drive past, and the soldiers all salute. Ugwu has no interest in Ojukwo or in any of the corrupt, arrogant commanders. There is only one captain he admires, a man named Ohaeto. At the next battle Ugwu is next to Ohaeto in the trench, and is he determined to impress him. Ugwu is about to detonate his mine when he is struck by shrapnel and everything goes black.