Suicide as Redemption: an Analysis of Elechi Amadi’s The Great Ponds
Wazha Lopang

Abstract
This article looks at Elechi Amadi’s The Great Ponds and explores how suicide is for Wago a state of self healing. It will argue how Wago takes his life not out of cowardice but as a rejection of what society demands of him. The fatal removal of the self will be shown as an attempt to reject that society for the finality of death. It will be argued how suicide is a weapon of choice that heroic characters make use of when all other methods, civil and military, have failed. The damnation of death is seen not as a curse of the self but a final statement about society and its relationship with the individual. In essence the text explores how suicide in African literature is appraised especially in a setting where Christian or European notions of sin are nonexistent.

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