ipl-logo

Americah By Ifemelu Essay

827 Words4 Pages

When moving from one’s home to a new place there are always expected differences. The most difficult changes are the surprising ones that are not always easy to handle or fully comprehend. In Americanah, Ifemelu experiences a multitude of cultural differences in the United States including race and exclusion while Lagos has always been Ifemelu’s home and the only place where she can fully be herself. By starting the novel at the end of Ifemelu’s time in the United States, Adichie places the reader in a time of experience and conclusion where Ifemelu is accustomed to the ways of America. She has experienced a journey where she struggled with herself and her identity away from Lagos. By leaving Lagos, she was able to see her life in Lagos from …show more content…

At first, Ifemelu was proud of developing a practiced American accent, but she soon realized how wrong it was to be proud and happy to accept a compliment for her American accent. The subconscious shame associated with her Nigerian accent disappeared as she embraced it and herself. While she learned to love herself in America, Ifemelu knew she could never be completely at ease and happy unless she was in Lagos. In Lagos, some people could not accept that she was mostly the same person, without an American accent. In the end, she was accepted for who she is, an Americanah. These instances of the contrasts between being judged for being herself versus accepted exemplify the meaning of the work as a whole that the United States brought Ifemelu closer to herself. She was able to go back to Lagos with a new appreciation for who she is as a person and how she looks, acts, and feels. Although America became a part of Ifemelu and she was an Americanah, Lagos is inherently a part of her while America has influenced her. All the familiar and natural things about Ifemelu came from Lagos. While Ifemelu had Auntie Uju and Dike in America, most of her family stayed in Lagos. Lagos represents the fundamental parts of Ifemelu such as her passions and values, while America represents the superficial parts of Ifemelu such as her preferences and comforts. America had the freedom of opportunities,

Show More
Related
889 Words | 4 Pages

How do the British attempt to raise their own perception of “civilization” over that of the colonial subject? 4.How does Okonkwo retain his pride and cultural identity during the British colonial occupation? What cultural and social values make him less susceptible to British colonial tyranny? 5.How does Okonkwo’s understanding of the family unit define his role as a member of Igbo tribe? What indigenous values in African tribes provide a framework for tribal customs in contrast the white European family values that are imposed on him and his family?

Read More
2387 Words | 10 Pages

Helen Oyeyemi’s The Icarus Girl engages with many questions within the diasporic dialogue and the writer asserts the position she takes with all issues she deals with. She, like many, sees that there are many things pulling apart the ideas of Englishness and Nigerian-ness but at the same time, there are things that fuse them together in people that live both those identities at the same time. Jess is the person she uses to establish this unsteady union and at the end, this young girl who begins her journey with a fragmented identity, emerges in a higher consciousness where she unifies both identities into one within herself.

Read More
1179 Words | 5 Pages

Adichie then talks about how she was amazed by how little people knew about Nigeria when she moved to the United States. Her college roommate knew nothing about her or the culture that Chimamanda is from. Adichie explains to her audience how dangerous can a single story be, and what it can do to a person if only knowing a single story. In this essay I will be analyzing some of Adichie’s events in her speech, and those events are misjudgment, storytelling, and culture. First I’m going to talk about misjudgment.

Read More
1799 Words | 8 Pages

It was then seen as the mug that you broke. Your breaking of the mug made way for change to occur, changes to the Igbo culture and a transition to the missionaries’ culture. The cultural changes of religion and institutions that the missionaries brought convinced many that their own culture was no longer worth saving and so they did nothing to try to stop the change from occurring; however Okonkwo still believed that the Igbo culture was worth saving but with this belief came the realization that he no longer had the power to stop such a change because the theme of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is that change is inescapable. The Igbo culture underwent much change: transitioning from a polytheistic religion of many gods to a monotheistic religion of only one god, and transitioning from a religious and community based “government” to a moral and secular based government. Along with all these cultural changes, Okonkwo went through his own change from powerful to powerless.

Read More
536 Words | 3 Pages

Adichie’s illustration of Akunna’s first meaningful relationship in America as marked by a traumatic imbalance of gendered power highlights her particular vulnerability to patriarchal exploitation as an immigrant woman. Akunna’s uncle is her bridge between Nigeria and America: he places her family members’ names in the visa lottery, and offers to let her stay at his house while she adjusts to the new country. At first, Akunna is comfortable in his household, where she is called “Aunty” and eats “garri for lunch.” She enjoys listening to her uncle’s friendly advice, laughing in solidarity at his anecdotes about his racist neighbors. The familiarity of Nigerian relatives and cuisine, as well as a developing kinship with her uncle, allows for

Read More
855 Words | 4 Pages

Although the cultural collision challenges both Okonkwo’s and Nwoye’s identity, Nwoye’s outcome is an example of being successful in cultural collision is being flexible and able to adjust to the opponent’s culture while Okonkwo’s outcome, suicide, shows resiting to a different culture can bring a catastrophe. Achebe’s two main character’s responses enhance the overall message of the novel by displaying how these main characters changed when two cultures collide one another. It is crucial to be open-minded and adjustable in cultural collision in order to be

Read More
828 Words | 4 Pages

In Chinua Achebe novel, Things Fall Apart Nwoye a young man under Okonkwo’s responsibility is affected positively by the introduction of western ideas into the Ibo culture. This being said Nwoye has found a passion for being apart of a religion not known by any local in Igbo called Christianity, to some it was a blessing and to others a disgrace. To Okonkwo he feels that anybody who converts to Christianity is a disgrace to their village. And how surprising is it that his own son converts to a Christian. And in his conversion he tries to escape his strict culture and find out who he is as a person.

Read More
3832 Words | 16 Pages

This essay will evaluate the question `why did the differences between Northern and Southern Nigeria become so evident in the fifteen years following independence from British rule? ´. To answer to this question, this paper will investigate areas directly affected by both the coming of colonialism as well as its departure, such as politics and leadership, religious and ethnic differences as well as economic difference between these regions. Furthermore establishing a concrete overview as to how Nigeria was run under the British

Read More
1229 Words | 5 Pages

Janek Grzegorzewski Devin Kuh 28 November 2017 Americanah Ifemelu and Obinze are in love having a simple life living in Nigeria. Their love is getting separated when Ifemelu is getting an opportunity to study in America, and she is deciding to live her boyfriend. In America, she is noticing what being black means.

Read More
1332 Words | 6 Pages

How Does Adichie Use the Setting to Display the Danger of a Single Story? Have you ever been effected by a setting or an group of people within that setting, these stories both use setting to portray how the characters feel .In both “The american embassy” and “The Arrangers of Marriage” written by Chimanada Ngozi Adichie apply setting to show the danger of a single story could influence people and families living in both Nigeria and America. In the story “the american embassy” the importance of the title displays where the story is set which is the american embassy in Nigeria Lagos, this title also shows what the protagonist is trying to receive from the american embassy which is a visa. In the story “the arrangers of marriage” the title refers

Read More
835 Words | 4 Pages

Before she met her, Adichie’s roommate, felt enormous pity for her and did not believe the two of them could be similar in any way simply because she was African. Adichie questions how things would have been different on their first encounter had her roommate heard of all the positive influential people making a difference in Nigeria. The undeniable truth is, a single story has the power to both deprive and empower people. In “The Danger of a Single Story”, Adichie captivates her audience and convinces them that many stories matter.

Read More
784 Words | 4 Pages

Have you ever read a novel about African cultures and traditions from African point of view? The novel Things Fall Apart, a tragedy by Chinua Achebe, centers on one tragic hero in Igbo village of Umuofia in Nigeria and the effects of European arrival on his life and Igbo clan. Throughout the novel, Achebe introduces Igbo customs to the reader by creating several occurrences and how they react on them to claim that the Igbo is civilized before the Europeans arrive. The significant difference between Igbo and Western cultures is the way wisdom is passed on: Igbo oral traditions transmit values and knowledge orally by allegorical tales, while Western literary traditions educate people through generations by written texts, just like the novel itself.

Read More
1056 Words | 5 Pages

The rate of poverty and homelessness created a need for more economic opportunities. Colonies provided a chance for work and prosperity(Iweriebor, “The colonization of Africa”). Europeans lied to the Africans and made them sign what the Africans thought were peace treaties. Proverbs were among the many popular folkloric forms. Nigeria’s diverse past traditions provide many culture ideas(Gall, Hobby, “nigeria”).

Read More
1837 Words | 8 Pages

S. Naipaul and J. M. Coetzee these Post-colonial writers have all dealt with Africa in their own individual and unique ways. Achebe does not treat the African culture and ways of life as something hybrid, complex, dependant for its significance on the Western style of perceiving things or neither has he shown Africa to be existing only in relation to its difference from or consonance with the Western form of religion, culture, identity, and discourse. The major theme of the novel ‘Things Fall Apart’ centers around the destruction of Africa’s intricate, almost incomprehensible but unique way of life and culture in the wake of British colonization and forced or maneuvered conversion to Christianity. The administrative as well as religious changes that the British tries to impose upon the native Africans has the disastrous effects of uprooting the indigenous people from their original root and tradition and can be seen as some instruments of subjugation, subordination and subservience which starts with creating distrust, doubts and insecurity in the minds of people for their Igbo tradition, and its cultural and religious practices and ends with making them internalize the Christian way of life and British administrative apparatuses. Another theme that is explored in this novel is the inherent fault of the central character Okonkwo, who is ambitious, industrious, honest, masculine but is rash, and unthinking and his sense of self and identity is wholly dependent on the approval of others in his community and he thinks of anything that intrudes into it as a threat and he tries hard to be a man though in a flawed manner.

Read More
790 Words | 4 Pages

The author utilizes characterization to represent the people in the Nigerian society and what they experience in order to provide for their families. The theme is further developed

Read More

More about Americah By Ifemelu Essay

Related Topics

Open Document