In western media there is often, as Adichie would say, a ‘single story’ of Nigeria, and it is one which endorses the view that Nigeria and its’ people are rife with savage tumult and violence. Adichie challenges this assumption through her short stories which display elements of both the violence and the unseen stories of peaceful civil relations. Through her portrayal of these facets of Nigeria and its people, of both the intermittently true violence and the personal and pacifistic aspects, Adichie aims to show the reader the ‘real story’ of Nigeria and abolish the assumption that violence is Nigeria’s only story.
Adichie’s portrayal of Nigeria in Cell One is one of an apparently heavily violent, corrupt and decayed country which is directly
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Their brutal methods create a sense of extensive social atrophy which is indicative of a deterioration of both cultural and moral standards and of the law and order in Nigeria. The police are ‘famed’ for killing people ‘when under pressure to produce results’, and there are constant references to bribery. The symbolism of the title, Cell One¸ is significant because it uncovers the worst of the corruption that pervades politics and police during the period in which this story is set. Nnamabia’s sycophantic behaviour towards his oppressors is condemned by Adichie as it perpetuates oppressive regimes. His undignified ‘prais[ing]’ of General Abacha, disgraceful ‘frog-jump[ing]’ to the guards’ music, and his action of ‘slipp[ing] his money into his anus’ all portray the despicable situation which Nigeria is in. Similarly in A Private Experience Adichie does not shy away from the violence outside Chika and the Hausa woman’s peaceful bubble, the ‘work[s] of evil’ outside. She juxtaposes the barbarity outside with the peaceful intimacy of the two women’s safe place, illustrating that in the midst of vilence there can be peace. Adichie does not refute the claim that violence is rife in Nigeria, but she instead points it out and says that both the violence and our