Point of View and Moral Sympathy in Emeka Ukwuaba’s Benign Pain and Hypnotising Minefield

The management of narrative point of view is one of the most consequential decisions an author makes, as it fundamentally shapes the reader's moral and emotional alignment with characters, events, and social conditions. This study examines how Emeka Ukwuaba controls narrative perspective in Benign Pain (2021) and Hypnotising Minefield (2025) to generate moral sympathy for characters who occupy morally ambiguous or socially stigmatised positions, including domestic workers, trafficking victims, and condemned drug traffickers. The study is anchored on narratological theory, particularly Wayne Booth's concept of the implied author and the rhetoric of fiction as a framework for understanding how narrative perspective constructs ethical positioning. A qualitative textual analysis methodology is employed, supported by recent narratological scholarship applied to African fiction published within the last five years. Findings reveal that Ukwuaba consistently employs close third-person narration to grant readers intimate access to the interiority of marginalised characters, producing a form of narrative sympathy that challenges dominant social judgments. The study further demonstrates how perspectival shifts in Hypnotising Minefield allow the novel to present the multiple human costs of a single act of state violence on different characters and communities. The study concludes that Ukwuaba's management of point of view is central to his broader social and ethical project and recommends further narratological studies of contemporary Nigerian fiction that attend to the politics of perspective.

Keywords: Narrative point of view, Moral sympathy, Emeka Ukwuaba, Narratology, Nigerian fiction