Gender Inequality In Adichie's Tomorrow Is Too Far

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“General roles are absolutely nonsense. No not ever tell her that she should do or not do something because she is a girl. Because you are a girl, is never a reason for anything. Ever.” -Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This quote by Adichie perfectly captures the essence and message of her short story “Tomorrow is too far”. As a Nigerian writer, she successfully captured traditional gender roles that need to change. In a short sense, the story follows a seperated family from nigeria ass they suffer the heartbreaking death of one of the sons. However, his death is not as innocent as it may first appear, not only his death but other hard feelings in the stories are all focused around gender inequality. Adichie uses several literary techniques such …show more content…

In other words, don’t pass down the same values if they are promoting gender inequality. The multi person perspective in this story allows the reader to fully understand the feelings and viewpoint of culture/gender roles from each characters. There is a one generation gap between the Grandmama and the girl, of which you can bluntly see through the different viewpoints. Near the beginning of the story the narrator describes the summer as the one where “Grandma taught Nonso how to pluck Coconuts”, but “didn't show you because she said girls never plucked coconuts”. Later on in the story, Grandmama asks Nonso to “to climb to the highest branch of the avocado tree to show her how much of a man he was.” This is clearly the perspective of what Grandmama definition of “a man” is. But, compare it to the latest generation (the main girl of the story) who “really were (was) the better clumber, you could scale a tree, any tree, in seconds- you were better t the things that did not need to be taught, the things that Grandmama could not teach him”. Looking at how the grandma looks at climbing a tree, and how the girl looks at climbing the tree, you can begin to see the difference of generations. Grandmama believes climbing a tree is for a man, that girls just don’t. But the