Adichie's Life in "The Thing Around Your Neck"

     After watching the Ted Talk featuring Adichie and discussing the story "The Thing Around Your Neck" in class, I saw relationships between Adichie's life and the woman’s in the story.  Adichie did not grow up poor, but as she said in the video, she did go through the same experiences as most immigrants, more specifically people going from Africa to America.  This includes the stereotyping and the naivety of Americans when it comes to understanding another person's culture and where they are coming from.  Just as Adichie had explained in the video, some Americans only know one story about Africans.  The story references actual experiences of Adichie such as her roommate asking questions that were stereotypical and the roommate not understanding that she knows how to use a stove.  The woman in the book faces similar people, with very similar comments to Adichie’s real life experiences.  I think Adichie chose this story as the title of the book because it conveys her message that knowing one story can be dangerous.  This story is also the closest scenario to her experiences and I believe that this is why she uses the second person.  She wants to draw the reader in emotionally so he or she can understand the emotions she felt personally.  There is also more criticism towards America in this chapter than in the others.  Similarly, the word choice and sarcastic tone of this chapter differs from the rest.  There is definitely more emotion being conveyed and, after watching the video, this makes sense because it seems that this story is the one closest to her life.          

Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 6, 2017 at 8:05 PM

    Olivia, the danger of a single story is definitely a recurring theme in the "The Thing Around Your Neck." Just as the restaurant customers express their love of elephants and safaris to Akunna, Adichie's roommate asks to hear her "tribal music." The average American in Adichie's short story and TED Talk has only understood Africa through stories of war, disease, primitive culture. As Adichie asserts, one narrative about a whole people strips them of their dignity and "makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult." The pity and ignorance both Akunna and Adichie are subjected to causes them to feel unequal to their American counterparts. While I interpreted the "thing around your neck" as a metaphor for loneliness, you bring up a good point, as its connotation is that of being stifled or suppressed. The single story ultimately stifles and suppresses perspectives that could exist if only there were an abundance of other stories.

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