The Thing Around Your Neck - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009)

Extract

[...] He obviously knew a lot about her culture and where she came from. However, she could not help but feel different from him. For example, when he offers her gifts, he probably expected her to be happy and enjoy them, but she did not understand the aim of those gifts that she considers "useless": "his gifts mistyfied me" (p125). She also was astonished when he told her that he took a year off to focus on himself: "You did not know that people could simply choose not to go to school". [...]

[...] You did not laugh" (p123). This tension reached a climax when she understands that he will never understand the racism she has to go cope with: "Before he apologized, he gazed at you blankly and you knew that he did not understand" (p124). The differences between them are exacerbated by the way people look at them. Their relation steers either hostile reactions or exaggerated sympathy ("you knew by people's reaction that you two were abnormal" p125). Materialism and the American dream The part concerning the presents her boyfriend gives her is important as it is part of the criticism of materialism in the novel. [...]

[...] The Thing Around Your Neck - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009) The thing around your neck is novel published by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in 2009. Through this novel, the Nigerian author tackles the issues of race, identity and materialism in a foreign country. Identity and foreignness The whole story is narrated in the second person by Akunna, a young Nigerian woman who has just immigrated to the United States of America. Akunna seems to be different from everyone else around her since almost everyone she engages with asks questions regarding her ethnic background, her accent ("they asked where you learned to speak English" p116), her hair ("they gawped at your hair. [...]

[...] It seems like they all want a small piece of America, or the elusive image they have of America : "Everybody in America had a car and a gun" (p117). They idealised America and were sure that Akunna would succeed there: "In a month, you will have a big car. Soon, a big house" (p117). In reality, Akunna is struggling in America. Indeed, she had to cope with her uncle who tried to abuse her and the blatant racism of some Americans. She also was constantly worrying about money and paying the rent. In the story, there is some symbolism regarding the situation of Akunna. [...]

[...] Akunna had no reason to come back to Lagos. She had too many struggles to acclimatize with her new environment. She talks about something that choke her at night, this might be symbolic of the loneliness that she is struggling with in America: "At night, something would wrap itself around your neck, something that very nearly choked you before you fell asleep" (p119). Although the thing around her neck unleaches after she meets her boyfriend ("The thing that wrapped itself around your neck started to loosen ,to let go" p125), it was still there. [...]