The Thing Around Your Neck - 854 Words

The women show courage and intelligence even though they are culturally suppressed. Discuss. The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie highlights the often challenging lives of Nigerian women living in Africa, but also abroad in the United States. It is however, not the difficulties which Adichie is ultimately focusing on, but the courage and intelligence of women who are able to make ‘small victories’, overcoming various attempts of cultural oppression. Adichie’s characters are subject to cultural suppression in several of the short stories. This is most pronounced in ‘The Arrangers of Marriage’ where Chinaza is forced by her husband to assimilate to her new surroundings by ridding herself of all signs of being Nigerian,†¦show more content†¦This includes the courage shown by the unnamed narrator in ‘Cell One’ to stand up and cause damage to her parent’s windshield so they could not go and visit Nnamabia for a day, a ‘little victory’ to the less favored sibling. Likewise, Ukamaka, in ‘The Shivering’ is courageous enough to apologise to Chinedu and repair their friendship, whilst in ‘The Arrangers of Marriage’ Chinaza returns to her husband. Despite his various attempts to strip her of her cultural identity and not ‘know[ing] him’ she returns and opens herself to ‘climb[ing] up to love’. Perhaps true courage is most evide nt in ‘A Private Experience’ where a Hausa Muslim and Igbo Christian hide together in a store while outside their respective ethnic groups are engaged ‘hacking down†¦with machetes, clubbing†¦with stones’. To risk the possibility of being seen together, alongside the friendship they develop is a truly courageous act. Adichie therefore demonstrates that ultimately human kindness trumps any religious lines, whilst the women are capable of actions that put themselves in harm’s way. Furthermore, the characters are intelligent and determined. In ‘Jumping Monkey Hill’ Ujunwa is well-educated and a capable writer, invited to a prestigious writing workshop. She is also intelligent enough to question Edward’s sexual advanced and proclaim that thisShow MoreRelatedThe Thing Around Your Neck943 Words   |  4 PagesThe collection of short stories ‘The Thing Around Your Neck’ written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie demonstrates that in Nigeria, men women, boys and girls are treated differently, and these relationship in which gender inequality exists leads to family conflict. And corruption exists in Nigeria and also the violence. These issues have lasting impacts on the characters. Many of the characters experience violence, some due to civil war and conflict between religious groups, and others due to corruptionRead MoreThe Thing Around Your Neck2524 Words   |  11 PagesYWCA Indianapolis P.O. Box 40264 Indianapolis, IN 46240 T: 317-250-8593 EM: ywcaindy@sbcglobal.net www.ywcaindy.org Questions for â€Å"The Thing Around Your Neck† by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Cell One 1. What were your thoughts on this first story about the spoiled boy, Nnamabia who stole from neighbors and his own family and always got himself out of whatever jam he was in? 2. Why do you think his family let him get away with such actions for so long? Could you tell they treated boys differentlyRead MoreThe Thing Around Your Neck Essay960 Words   |  4 PagesChimamanda Ngozi Adichie The Thing around your Neck Essay: Analysis and acknowledgement The main theme in the text †The Thing around your Neck† must be that outstanding culture clash a lot of hope full immigrants in America are exposed to. Just from the very beginning we experience that the main character Akunna from Nigeria has very high thoughts of going to America. Her family is also very convinced that it is going to be a huge thing for her, they are expecting her to send them presentsRead MoreThe Thing Around Your Neck Critical Analysis984 Words   |  4 Pagesunderstood as ‘boys being boys’. Adichie uses this common cliche of the treatment of men to her advantage in The Thing Around Your Neck, a book primarily about the struggles of Nigerian immigrant women. In The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, men are generalized to be antagonistic and inconsiderate, to further emphasizes the struggles of African women. The Thing Around Your Neck is a collection of different short stories ranging in characters, situations, and overall themes. In theRead MoreThe Thing Around Your Neck Critical Analysis881 Words   |  4 PagesAdichie made sure to show a large difference in the way men and women treat each other. In the book â€Å"The Thing Around Your Neck†, Adichie chooses to represent men in a disturbing, disrespectful and uncomfortable way and women is a more vulnerable way. She does this to show that there are a lot of men that try to take advantage of women in many different ways. In the book â€Å"The Thing Around Your Neck†, Adichie chooses to represent men in a disturbing, disrespectful and uncomfortable way by adding inRead MoreThe Thing Around Your Neck Short Story Summary1111 Words   |  5 PagesIn the short stories â€Å"The Thing Around Your Neck, written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Drown, written by Junot Diaz, there are two different characters who are both immigrants, and their lives after coming to America. In Drown, Yunior is a boy in his last year of high school, who sells drugs to younger kids, as a living. His former best friend,Beto left for college, and the story starts with his life without Beto. In TTAYN, the main character,and how he has developed without him. Akunna immigratesRead MoreThe Thing Around Your Neck By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie2141 Words   |  9 PagesThe short story collection, The Thing around Your Neck, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, contains twelve short stories about Nigerian characters in either Africa or America. In the collection, it is integrating to see the struggles of the Nigerian characters that straddle two worlds. It is also easy to see individuals act to control their own life, whether it is a woman or a man in the story. The protagonist of each story has the choice to choose whether they will accept, decline, or change the situationRead MoreAnalysis Of Chimamanda Adichie s The Thing Around Your Neck Essay1643 Words   |  7 PagesChimamanda Adichie’s collection of short stories The Thing Around Your Neck deviates from what many individuals in the West may consider to be the traditional view of Africa. In her 2012 TED Talk, The Danger of a Single Story, Adichie states that the â€Å"telling of African stories in the West† is a â€Å"tradition of Sub-Saharan Africa as a place of negatives, of difference, of darkness†¦Ã¢â‚¬ . In this same TED Talk, Adichie also speaks about how at one point a professor told her that the novel was not â€Å"authentica llyRead MoreThe Thing Around Your Neck - Tomorrow Is Too Far Analysis Essay1742 Words   |  7 Pageswhereas Dozie was only the son of a daughter. It was this summer that you found the shedded skin of the snake your Grandmama called echi eteka, ‘Tomorrow Is Too Far’ because it would kill you in ten minutes. The main character made it very clear that it was not this summer that you fell in love with your cousin, Dozie. That had happened three years earlier. The most significant thing about this summer was the death of Nonso. No one in Nigeria actually called it summer. It was the time betweenRead MoreInterpreter Of Maladies By Jhumpa Lahiri And The Thing Around Your Neck By Chimamanda Adichie1395 Words   |  6 PagesJhumpa Lahiri and The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Adichie. Both of the authors’ stories examine the cultural experience immigrants endure, marriage often playing a large role. A Temporary Matter from the collection, Interpreter of Maladies uses a well-established immigrant couple, whereas Arrangers of Marriage from The Thing Around Your Neck uses an arranged marriage to show the experiences immigrants endure. While we often recognize marriage as a beautiful thing, we must understand it