The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: A Critical Analysis, Study Guides, Projects, Research of Statistics

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The Thing Around Your

Neck

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie By Dylan Bruce, Nathan McCarter Samin Thapa

Author Background

ò Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie better known as Adichie is a Nigerian born Novelist/Nonfiction and Short Story Writer. Born in 1977 in the city of Enugu, Nigeria. Adichie was the fifth out of six children in her family. She grew up in a Igbo family at the town called nsukka in South east Nigeria. Her father James Nwoye Adichie was a professor of statistics at the university of Nigeria and her mother Grace Ifema was the first female registrar at the same university. In Her early life, Adichie studied medicine in the university of Nigeria for a year and a half before moving to America at the age of 19, where she completed a Masters in Creative writing at John Hopkins University. She also attended several other universities which she features in her stories. She has won several awards/prizes for her Novel/Short stories. She has been called ‘ the most prominent’ of a procession of critically acclaimed young Anglophone authors who is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature. She now divides her time between Nigeria and America where she teaches writing workshops.

Themes

ò Abuse Of Power ò Abuse Of Women ò Injustice ò Immigration & Adaption ò Personal Growth/ Maturity ò Violence & Corruption ò Family ò Relationships ò Belonging/Alienation

1. Why do you think the author chose to write in the second person narrative 'you'? ò It keeps the readers engaged by making them feel included and be a part of the migrant experience. Writing in 2 nd person is the perspective of the narrator’s personal migrant experience to America.

3. None of the characters in the story are named – why? ò the narrators personal migrant experience is the main focus of the story, therefore there is no names so the spot light stays on her

4. Discuss the meaning behind the quote form the Uncle: "the trick was to understand America, to know that America was give-and-take. You gave up a lot but you gained a lot too.” ò the uncle is attempting to explain that you will only get out what you put in. she needed to get herself more involved in the American culture and lifestyle to gain more of an understanding.

6. Explain what the narrator meant by "white people who liked Africa too much and those who liked Africa too little were the same - condescending (arrogant).” ò The quote shows the two sides of white people, One side thinks that they know everything and the others are just arrogant but both sides talk down on one another

7. Was the blank fortune cookie a positive or

negative omen?

ò “…your fortune cookie had two strips of paper. Both of them were blank” pg 121 ò It was a potential positive because it provided her with the chance to create her own opportunity’s in America

9. Why did it take the narrator a long time to write home? ò Akuna’s life in America isn’t anything that she feels like she could write home about so if she ever sends mail its just money no letter

10. What assumptions does the narrator make about Americans? ò The narrator feels like the American people will be ignorant about where she is from, she also expects the majority of white Americans to not accept her into their community, yet is very surprised when the white parents of her white partner accept her into their home.

12. Discuss the 'give' or compromises the narrator had to make in America. ò The narrator had to give away living in Nigeria with her family and move to America where she knew no one apart from her uncle who eventually tried to get sexual pleasure from her to return the favour of getting her a visa to Ameica." that American was about give and take".She ended up moving away from him and even further to a town called connecuit where she knew no one.

13. To what extent do the characters in this story

have options, choices and free will? Give examples.

ò Throughout most of the story, the characters have wide range of choice and free will which is shown in how Akunna was able to leave her uncle’s house when she felt threatened being there. She was also able to get a job at a restaurant very easily.

15. List the stereotypes that are included in this story. ò Akunna and her family thought that everbody in America had a car and a gun ò The girls in the college that akunna attended though that African could not speak English and that they haven’t see any cars. ò Akunna’s uncle’s neighbour heard that African ate all kinds of wild animals. ò People in the restaurant where akunna worked though that every black person with a foreign accent were Jamaican. ò They though Africa was all about wildlifes and safaris. ò Akunna’s boyfriend though that the only poor Indians in Bombay were the real Indians.