The pathogenicity of violence and mental disequilibrium in E. E. Sule’s Sterile Sky

Abstract

Sterile Sky by E. E. Sule is a partaker in the creative reflections on the phenomenon of violence, which has attracted scant attention in Nigerian literary scholarship. Relying on insights from orthodox medicine, specifically in its conception of violence, this article brings an interdisciplinary perspective to interrogate the literary representation of violence in the novel in terms of its relation to mental health challenges. Against the backdrop of the common belief that violence is associated with some mental health challenges, I demonstrate the paradox of violence as not only a symptom or consequence of mental instability or pathology, but also its cause. I also show how physical violence to persons or group of persons inflicts psychological violence on others. I go further to show how such psychological violence in turn leads to mental health challenges; and, finally but briefly, how some mental health challenges originally incited by violence beget new violence.

Keywords:

• Mental health challenge
• religious riot
• physical violence
• psychological violence
• Sterile Sky

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 SAP refers to Structural Adjustment Program, an economic program of the government that further pauperized poor Nigerians in the 1980s and 1990s.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kazeem Adebiyi-Adelabu

Kazeem Adebiyi-Adelabu is a senior lecturer at the Department of English, University of Ibadan, NIgeria, where he teaches African literature. His research interests include poetry studies, post-apartheid literature, and the intersection of literature and medicine.