Humbert Noëlie 5150731 Writing assignment – Americanah The book starts off with a trip to the hairdresser’s, and hair is a recurring theme. What does it tell us about integration and intercultural adaptation? Americanah is a story written by Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi in 2013, based on her own experience when she came in the United-States in order to study at the University. It is a second person novel where the life of a young woman, Ifemelu, is depicted through analepses. Indeed, her character has “flashbacks” of her life in Nigeria while she is living in the United-States. In this book, we also have parts dedicated to Obinze’s – her teenage lover – life when he emigrates to the United-Kingdom. By the end of the book, the story is more focused on events in the …show more content…
For instance, in chapter 3, Ifemelu is a child still living in Nigeria and there is a passage where Ifemelu’s mother becomes more religious than she used to be, and here hair is still a topical subject. Her mother’s hair was seemed as very beautiful, Ifemelu’s father talked referred about is as her “crown of glory”. One day, after founding a new church, she came home and cut her hair because her new church and God said it was a sin. As Ifemelu’s mother never left Nigeria, she never knew about the racial meaning hair can have, so here the problem is more about the fact that she has to cut her hair in order to be accepted by God and leave her independence and former identity behind her. After cutting her hair, her mother burnt it with Catholic items in a way to fully remove them off the face of the earth. As soon as she met this new church and cut her hair, Ifemelu’s mother became more serious and less happy. After a while, she met another church – less restrictive – and started to be a little bit like she used to be before. Also her hair grew again as if it has more freedom now that she left the