Futility of War and its Traumatic Effect on Women: A Study of Ade-Okere's Forest Dames

Abstract

War is futile and should be discouraged in its entirety by any individual, group, society or nation. Young men who never witnessed any war in their lifetime clamour for war in the face of any little provocation but those who had witnessed war never wished to experience any form of war again. During the civil war, the Northern part of Nigeria was aided by foreign allies against the Biafrans. The war was actually initiated by the northerners who started killing the Igbo people in the North with impunity. In the end, the war was declared as no victor, no vanquished even when millions of Igbo people were killed, their women and girls raped and their properties wasted. A lot of creative writings have been written on the theme of the futility of war. The creative writers in their individual works vividly demonstrate the futility of war with the aim to condemn any move for recurrence of war. Most of the writers wrote on the general perils of war. Many articles have equally been written on war and its imminent dangers to individuals and societies at large. In this paper, the researchers aim to investigate the traumatic effects of the civil war especially on Biafran women with the view to discourage further occurrence.