Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Essay Example
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Essay Example

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Essay Example

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  • Pages: 5 (1121 words)
  • Published: September 30, 2021
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One of the common themes within the book, the thing around your neck, written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is domestic violence. Under this theme, the author focuses mainly on lives and experiences of Nigerian women. The Nigerian woman is frequently caught up in either religious or political violence, has to cope with cases of displacements, experiences loneliness as well as having disappointment in their present lives or marriages and they have to deal with a surviving tragedy.

There is an often view of women generally as middle-class individuals, they are intelligent but lacks confidence, and there is a tendency of routing the women everywhere by more selfish and also amoral characters. In an imitation, a young married woman living in an isolation life in America realizes that her wealthy husband moved a mistress in the family in Lag

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os. There is also the telling of a story of a University educated woman also from Nigeria and again in America forcing to make ends meet through working as a house help.

In the American embassy, there is suffering experienced by a woman that had her child murdered by political thugs who were hunting for her husband. The woman suffers the numerous and petty humiliations shared by anyone that ever applied for a visa originating from the poor African country to enter the rich western regions.

Despite the fact that there were faints notes concerning optimism, overall, there were the sad stories that revealed endurance and disappointment rather than having hope. Moreover, concerning this theme, the author lays a concern on the position of women in Nigeria as well as the manner that they face repeated push to the society peripheries and

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margins of perceptions of the world beyond Nigeria (Adichie, page 120).

According to the author, the women occupy not only the spaces in Nigeria but also greater Africa as well as the Western world in broad. The majority of the characters of women that hold the position of being wives to American husbands, they have to deal with the sense of severe displacement of culture as they try to adopt the new life of being wives.

The other aspect of this theme is the view of a character by the name Akunna. The character is a woman who faces sexual abuse and unexpected betrayal from her uncle who is a married man and has children. There are numerous cases of entitled arrogance by the male, position and presumption by the men as encapsulated in the double-narration by Akunna. She makes a bitter recall whereby the uncle sat on her bed and had made the house to be his and after all seemed to enjoy it. She recalls that if she let her uncle, he would do numerous things to her. She reveals that smart women did it at all the time.

In addition, in the story, there is a reveal of domestic violence whereby the experiences by Akunna in the house of her uncle makes her feel to escape. The experiences in the story evoke those of other characters in the collection arising from the imagery of endings and new beginnings. After Akunna made the decision of leaving her Uncles family, the meaning of the term, the thing around your neck becomes clearer. It speaks of displacement, loneliness, despair and also a loss that is the gulf among

a sense of home and a landscape of cultural alien as well as disgust of highest order.

Reconciliation and Hope are the other common theme in the book. The author of the book reveals that ethnic violence despite being unnecessary also destroys lives of people and their communities. Notwithstanding the existence of this violence that destroys communities and lives of the people, there still can emerge reconciliation and hope for the future (Adichie, 200). For example, the Christian women poignantly share a refuge with the Muslim (Hausa) in slight market store, and there is an identification of troubles they experience with one another, among them being the rages of mob violence.

There is reeling by each of the individuals from senseless and sudden loss of their loved ones despite the fact that the author portrays this scene as being unenviable. The two women sympathize with each other, and they console one another. There is also sharing of intimate secrets among strangers. For example, the Nnendi woman makes a repetition, and the Hausa accent makes a sheath of Igbo name in gentleness feathery.

There are some fulfillments found in the women through sharing of their experiences and conversations. There exists no sense of sarcasm in the voices of those women as they make recounts of sufferings endured by those holding the stall. There is a view that whether the victim is a Hausa Muslim or an Igbo Christian, they all are experiencing pains. There is recounting by the author in italics concerning those thoughts of the woman that requested for holding and comforting her since she could not deal with the situation all by herself.

In the realization of this

reconciliation and hope, the individuals may not fully get it until they get the support. For example, Chika revealed that there was a focus by the media on dangerous and brutal actions as well as consequences of religious and ethnic conflict. Chika, however, overlooks the sense of shared suffering and grief.

Chika would read on the Guardian that reactionary Hauka speakers would have the history of violence against the non-Muslims. In the deeply poignant and personal association, all the women came into sharing of their universal experience concerning womanhood. There is an examination of nipples and experiences of the gentleness of the woman that was a Muslim and also Hausa.

The friendship encountered by these women after numerous sufferings also seem to overcome differences between them. Chinedu offers courage to Ukamaka to visit her Catholic church. Before visiting the church, she makes an assurance to him that she will give him the company to that Pentecostal church during another occasion. In this deed, there arises a comparison in that these guarantees have a reflection of Hausa and Igbo experiences by the women while taking refuge in a store.

Therefore, the theme indicates that different individuals may leave alone their difference and share their experiences and sufferings during the period of conflicts. Through the sharing of those experiences and sufferings, people come to appreciate that there were no need of having rivalry among them since they face the same problems and experiences. After an exchange of experience encountered by different individuals in different circumstances, the people come to appreciate each other, forgiveness emanates from them and there is the element of reconciliation. After reconciliation, the feeling of hope later

comes in as they lay strategies of moving forward

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