PRAGMATIC REPRESENTATIONS OF CONFLICT IN HELON HABILA’S WAITING FOR AN ANGEL

Abstract

This paper undertakes a pragmatic analysis of Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel, a novel which dwells on the horrors of military rule in Nigeria, specifically in the 1990s. Analysing three purposively selected extracts that bear out the thematic preoccupations of the text with the pragmatic tools of inference and presupposition, the paper reveals that social interaction between major characters in the fictional world of the novel is circumscribed the climate of fear and terror imposed by the military and hence characterized by tension, pain and agony, irrespective of the class to which they belong. The paper concludes that the novel is a repudiation of the horrors of military rule and the fate of those who resist it in hope for a democratic change.