Big Ideas
Why does "something [have] to happen to Nonso"?
Because he takes up "too much space" from his sister, suggesting that women cannot survive in a world where men are favoured.
“But instead you say nothing and press your palms deep into the rough trunk of the tree.”
Female Narrator, "Tomorrow Is Too Far"
"Brooding stairs", "an airless hallway with frayed carpeting", "unevenly fashioned yellowish metal", "bare mattress", "a beige couch sat alone, slanted."
Disillusionment with the American Dream ("The Arrangers of Marriage")
Cultural Dysphoria
The uncertainty or sadness experienced when one is does not know where they fit within cultural categories.
Who wins the American Visa lottery?
Akunna
Who believes women would "offer both eyes [to marry] a doctor in America"?
Aunt Ada (Chinaza's aunt), revealing the conditioned belief that any man of position and influence is the best source of happiness a woman can hope for.
"She needed to be relaxed, and said this to herself over and over, as she started to read from her story.”
Jumping Monkey Hill
Akunna's boyfriend throwing up her authentically African "garri and onugbu soup".
His rejection of her culture, after fetishising it and professing himself as an admirer of African culture ("The Thing Around Your Neck")
Ethnocentrism
Who is Nonso's cousin?
Dozie
The transactional nature of "give-and-take" ultimately demands what from women?
That they sacrifice their integrity, agency, voice or identity to belong or to be offered "opportunities".
“He belonged to this hard earth... He belonged to the trees here."
Tomorrow is Too Far
The nameless African writers: "The Tanzanian", "The Ugandan", "The Zimbabwean", etc.
1. These nameless characters denote a diverse Africa, undermining Ujunwa's question of "which Africa?", suggesting that cultural identities are complex and multifaceted. 2. These nameless characters serve as a reminder of Adichie's postulation of "the dangers of a single story", which even the audience are implicated in as we subscribe to the stereotypes that reduce individuals to a single quality rather than a complex identity ("Jumping Monkey Hill")
Male Primogeniture
The legal practice of titles and property being inherited solely by the first-born male heir (by blood). Nonso is both a recipient and victim of male primogeniture.
The Oratory
What is Adichie saying by utilising gendered nomenclature?
Societal labels prescribed to men and women -- "wife, sister, mother" or "Big man, charming brother" -- fashions for them an identity or role that they must assume to "survive" in society. Women are reduced to positions of domesticity, while men are elevated to roles of power.
“It was the only way to avoid being called ungrateful.”
The Arrangers of Marriage
The Benin mask
A fabrication of love and marriage, revealing how relationships are merely transactional and that they are, in fact, unbalanced, due to the prescribed roles that both women and men must assume ("Imitation")
Nkali
A Igbo noun that loosely translates to "greater than another".
Whose name in Igbo means "Father's Wealth"?
Akunna
Adichie's implementation of "single stories" cements the limited perspectives of culture or individuality adopted as a result of the Western Gaze, as well as the diasporic experience. This injures characters who fight to maintain their identity, narrowing them to a single-dimensional persona that can easily be shaped by societal expectations, thus robbing them of "a kind of dignity".
"Later in the shower you started to cry. You watched the water dilute your tears and you didn’t even know why you were crying."
The Thing Around Your Neck
Grandmama's Garden
An allusion to the Biblical Garden of Eden, thriving and idealistic, it is juxtaposed by the "amoral kingdom of [the protagonist's] childhood", where her innocence is cut short by the death of her brother Nonso -- thus, the garden serves to highlight the illusory nature of morality within a climate of gender inequity, where women will do anything to "survive" ("Tomorrow is Too Far")
Roman-à-clef
A story in which real people or events appear with invented names. Chioma's story is a roman-à-clef (of Ujunwa's experiences), and Ujunwa's story is Adichie's.
Who was General Abacha, and which of Adichie's stories mention him?
Abacha was a Nigerian military dictator who served as Head of State in Nigeria during the setting of many of the stories. He is featured in "Cell One" (as the general who Nnamabia made himself "amenable" to), "A Private Experience" (mere mention), "American Embassy" (mere mention of his government).