Explication de texte: The Thing Around Your Neck Erika Fauchère

Autumn Semester edegodoy@unil.ch

Roxane Hughes 29.11.2017

Re-negotiation of Cultural Identity in Adichie’s “Imitation”, “The Thing Around Your

Neck” and “Headstrong Historian”

Adichie’s “Imitation”, “The Thing Around Your Neck” and “Headstrong Historian” are part

of the short story collection The Thing Around Your Neck and they discuss how cultural

identity can be changed or even lost through time and generations. The author also discusses

the theme of migration by presenting protagonists with different social classes who need to

reconstruct the feeling of home and deal with the sense of belonging when migrating. They

go through different processes of adaptation in the new country, which changes their way of

seeing and perceiving home. Adichie also depicts one of the characters’ struggles with the

effects of colonialism in Africa and how this foreign influence caused not only a geographical

change, but also a change within the cultural identity of the population. Through the use of

figures of speech such as anaphora, metaphors and polysyndeton, as well as different

narrative techniques, Adichie depicts some of the feelings people have when going through a

diasporic experience and the idea that one’s cultural identity can be lost or changed through a

foreign influence. But she also shows that this identity can also be regained and reclaimed

through different cycles in life. Adichie also gives rhythm to the stories and allows the reader

not only to put herself/himself in the protagonists’ shoes, but also to understand how

migrating can make one lose the sense of belonging from the country of origin and in the new

home. That can make us feel like not belonging anywhere and belonging to both places at the
same time. She also conveys the feeling of hope, foreshadowing the idea that our cultural

identity cannot be completely lost and forgotten.

Some people have a sense of cultural confusion after migrating as they want to fit in

the new culture and they try to convince themselves that everything in that place is better for

them than in their home country. In “Imitation”, Adichie presents a Nigerian family who

moves to the USA in search for a better condition and status of life. Money for them is not a

problem and consequently there is less resistance against the integration of the new culture as

they do not have to worry about finding a job or finding means to support themselves. Nkem

lives in a white and wealthy neighbourhood, and she seems to accept and embrace completely

her new life in America until the moment she finds out that her husband is taking another

woman to her home in Nigeria. This event works as a trigger and she begins to have a conflict

inside her head, which makes her feel unsure of where her real home is. She is somehow

adapted to her new culture, as she describes the various activities she does that are typically

American. Little by little the old identity is replaced by the new one and she feels as though

“America has grown on her, snaked its roots under her skin” (Adichie, “Imitation” 37). This

metaphor depicts the idea that the new culture starts to grow in her without her even noticing,

and even after knowing about her husband’s affair, she mentions that “it hardly feels right”

(34) to refer to the house in Lagos as her home, and she insists that “ this” (34) is her home

referring to Philadephia. Adichie’s use of italic can be interpreted as if Nkem was trying to

convince herself that her house is now in the USA, but at the same time she also misses

Nigeria as she has her own roots that cannot be denied and forgotten easily. In “Doubleness

of Identity in Adichie’s “Imitation” Mohammad Hussein Oroskhan and Esmaeil Yohdi

comment on the title of the short story, that “it is about those people who have put a distance

between themselves and their own culture and roots so as to imitate the other one” (309).

This is the conflict Nkem is going through, she is performing like a local, she recognizes that
she has a good life in the US, but the moment she feels threatened as if she was about to lose

her house to someone else, she realizes that she also misses her home country. She mentions

“the cadence of Igbo and Yoruba and pidgin English spoken around her” (“Imitation” 37),

and Adichie uses this polysyndeton to emphasise that there is a list of things that might sound

simple, but they mean a lot to Nkem. She misses everyday things that are contrasted with

material things which belong to her luxurious life in America. She catches herself having

blurred visions of her old house, as if it has become a symbolic hotel room (41), which

confirms that in a way she does not feel she belongs there anymore when it comes to material

things. But when it comes to her essence or feelings related to senses, like the language, the

sun or the social relations she still feels that she belongs to her roots.

This feeling of belonging to one’s home country culture is not something that can be

changed easily and it takes time for some people to accept the new culture, especially if

unlike Nkem, the person needs to start his/her life from scratch in the new country. Akunna is

the protagonist of Adichie’s short story “The Thing Around Your Neck”, and her reasons for

migrating are different from Nkem’s, as she wins the American visa lottery and moves to the

USA with high expectations that are not met. She comes to live with her uncle, but after

going through some problems with him, she leaves his house to live in a tiny room and takes

a job as a waitress. She cannot afford to go to school and she feels somehow as if she had

failed in her new life in this new country, which makes even harder to adapt and accept the

new culture. Adichie uses second person narration in this short story, which makes the reader

feel sometimes alienated, but relates to the inner-struggle Akunna is going through. She sends

money to her family every month, but she does not write a letter to tell her family about her

new life, ever though she wants to as she has many stories to tell. She seems to be surprised

in a good and bad way with this new culture, and this is represented by the anaphora “you

wanted to write” (Adichie, “The Thing Around Your Neck” 118-119) that is repeated several
times as a way to show her feeling of discovery. This feeling is reinforced with

polysyndecton “and cousins and aunts and uncles” (119) to innumerate the people she wanted

to write to, it is not only to her family, but to many other people that are close to her, to share

her feelings, that are kept inside of her. Therefore, she feels lonely in this new life and

culture, she is more like an spectator and she does not feel part of it, it is all foreign to her.

The feeling of entrapment takes over at night she has the impression that “something would

wrap itself” (119) around her neck. Adichie uses the metaphor “the thing around your neck”

in the title to depict this idea of conflict and delusion, of going through so many things in a

new country, all alone, and at the same time missing home and loved ones. However as the

story unfolds, Akunna meets an American man to whom she is reluctant to open up at first,

but little by little she trusts him and she starts to feel more at ease in her new home. Irina

Cruz Pereira discusses the character in Adichie’s short stories in her article “Deconstructing

the single story of Nigeria: Diasporic Identities in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing

Around Your Neck”. According to her, they “reflect the complexities of the diaporic

experience and the evolving relation between individuals and nationhood” (54) and that is

what happens with Akunna. The more her relationship with her American boyfriend grows,

the more she feels like the thing that wrapped itself around her neck “started to loosen, to let

go” (Adichie, “The Thing Around Your Neck” 125), which means that the feeling of

oppression is going away. The diasporic experience for Akunna is a challenging one, but little

by little the relationship between the homeland and the host land is negotiated and shaped.

The acceptance and integration a new culture is not always something that can be

easily balanced. Nkem and Akunna both chose to go through this diasporic experience, they

had different reasons for migrating but they chose to leave their home in search of something

new. The protagonist of Adichie’s “Headstrong Historian”, which is the last story in The

Thing Around Your Neck, also goes through a foreign influence but in her own country. The
story takes place sometime in the late 18th century, when the British colonizers arrived in

Nigeria. Nwamgba lives in a tribal/clan system, and after her husband died she deliberately

sends her son to the “white men” school as a plan to fight against his cousins. They took her

land after her husband’s death, and she thought that by having her son educated and speaking

English, he would also learn how to use their weapons and he would have enough power to

take her land back. Ironically, that is not what happens and she slowly finds herself losing

her son to western culture, but at the same time she feels proud of everything that he has

learned. Nwamgba is also conflicted, she is proud of her culture and customs and she would

never imagine that her son would choose the foreign cultural identity rather than his home

one. She tries to fight it but eventually she realizes that “her son now inhabited a mental

space that was foreign to her” (Adichie, “The Headstrong Historian” 211). The western

culture might not have had an influence on her, but it takes over her only son, which might be

a sign for her that there is no continuity for her own culture through the next generations, that

her cultural identity is falling apart in her own home. She grows older and after so many

disappointments her the reader has the feeling that has given up when she says that she will

die soon and “be free of a world that increasingly made no sense” (212). Nwamgba does not

recognize the place that she once called home, everything changed, people changed and the

only hope she has is to have a grandchild that maybe can do things differently.

The birth of a child gives people hope, it is the beginning of a cycle, and for

Nwamgba it is a way to start over and try to do differently from the way she did it to her son.

She starts by refusing to call her granddaughter Grace, the name she was baptized, and

calling her Afamefuna, which means “My Name Will Not Be Lost” (214). This is

performative speech act, as if somehow she could foresee the future so she decides to name

her granddaughter with a name that means her wish not to be forgotten. Adichie shows the

reader that by doing that Nwamgba has not given up on her cultural identity, and that she
feels that her granddaughter might change things, even though she leaves home to go to a

boarding school in Onicha. The same year, Nwamgba feels her end is near “as if a lamp had

been blown out on a moonless night”(215). Through this metaphor the reader can clearly see

that Nwamgba feels her body not responding anymore, and her last wish is to see her

granddaughter before she is gone. In the final paragraph of the short story, Adichie gives

rhythm to the story by starting nearly every sentence with “it was Grace” (216-218), and

through this anaphora the reader can see the awakening of the protagonist. Grace reclaims her

culture, she accomplishes many things in her life and unlike her father, she seems to be very

proud of her origins and does not want to live under the same Christian path. Even after being

brought up by a Christian family, with a father that has different beliefs, Grace has her

grandmother’s cultural root inside of her, something that did not need to be imposed by

anyone. In “My Name Will Not be Lost: Cosmopotilan Temporality and Reclaimed History

in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “The Headstrong Historian””, by claiming that “Grace, the

Janus-faced historian, looks forward by looking backward” (52) David Mikailu and Brendan

Wattenberg confirms that Grace needs her cultural identity in order to move forward, she

evolves, but she does not forget where she comes from. Finally in her later years of her life

after feeling “an odd rootlessness”(Adichie, “The Headstrong Historian” 218), Grace

reclaims her culture by officially changing her name to Afamefuna. This “act of personal

reclamation” (Mikailu & Wattenberg 55) shows that she brought her past to the future, and

indeed her name is not lost. Even though she does not have any children, Afamefuna

embraces her identity and reclaims her home and heritage, and she will still keep her culture

alive through her legacy.

Adichie arranges these three short stories in “The Thing Around Your Neck” in a way

that the reader can get to know different feeling of different characters from different social

classes and backgrounds, when going through a diasporic experience or when having to
negotiate their identity with a foreign influence. First through Nkem’s conflicts when facing

her old life being faded away but at the same time missing important things that cannot be

found in the new country. Then Akunna who, even after showing resistance to accept the new

culture, slowly starts to feel more comfortable in her new land. And finally Nwamgba and

Grace/Afamefuna, who live the experience of a foreign influence from another perspective,

by watching another culture take over their own but also fighting to keep their identity alive.

Through these stories, Adichie shows that no matter which social class a person belongs to, or

the reasons why people migrate, or how strong a foreign cultural influence is on them, it is

difficult to simply forget their origins. A person’s identity can be influenced, changed, or it

can even be drastically denied, but it can also be regained, if not in one generation, but

through history.
References

Book

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. The Thing around Your Neck. Fourth Estate, 2009.

Articles

Cruz Pereira, Irina. “Deconstructing the single story of Nigeria: Diasporic identities in

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck”. Blue Gum, No. 3,

2016, pp. 50-55

Mikailu, David / Wattenberg, Brendan, “'My Name Will Not Be Lost': Cosmopolitan

Temporality in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 'The Headstrong Historian'”. African

Studies Quarterly ,Volume 15, Issue 4 ,September 2015. pp. 45-58

Oroskhan, Mohammed Hussein. “Doubleness of Identity in Adichie’s “Imitation””.

International Journal of English and Education, October 2005, pp. 300-310