AMERICANAH – CHIMAMANDE NGOZI ADICHIE
1) THEMES
Hair
Hair is incredibly important to Ifemelu's experience of Nigeria and America as,
especially in America, it can represent one's cultural and individual identity or be
wielded as a means of racism and oppression. The first half of the story is framed by
Ifemelu visiting a hair salon in Trenton, New Jersey to get braids in preparation for
returning to Nigeria. In addition, the stages of her life are seen through her
relationship to hair: her mother having beautiful hair when Ifemelu was a child and
then cutting it off in her years of religious extremism, Aunty Uju and her having to
relax their hair to be taken seriously in America, the embarrassment of her tiny Afro
after a certain relaxer starts to make her hair fall out, and her final love and
acceptance of her natural hair gained by cultivating relationships with other natural-
haired black women online. Through Ifemelu's hair changes, Adichie addresses the
ways in which hair is political, through the views of many female characters in the
book who want to sport natural hair but feel limited by the way natural hair and
braids are not taken seriously in the business world, and in which it is explicitly not
political, writing that people automatically viewed Ifemelu's Afro as a statement that
she did not intend.
Marriage
The book questions the institution of marriage, as marriage is wielded more often as
a means of economics than of love. The most important example of this is Obinze's
attempted green card marriage to Cleotilde in London. However, the economic
aspect of marriage is also important in Nigeria, where adultery is portrayed as
common and both marriage and extramarital affairs are shown as quite
transactional. For example, in Aunty Uju's relationship with The General, he would
give her as much money as she needed, but never gave her so much at one time that
she wouldn't have to come back asking for more. The climax of the novel centers
around how much Obinze values the sanctity of his marriage and family, with Obinze
eventually choosing a life with Ifemelu.
Language
Language and accents play a very important role in the novel as a marker of
nationality, social class, and assimilation. The reader may first recognize that
Ifemelu's father speaks very differently than other Nigerians in the book, peppering
his speech liberally with academic words. Ifemelu says he does this because of his
shame that he didn't obtain higher education. The other Nigerians in the story, on
the other hand, speak a mix of Nigerian Standard English and Nigerian Pidgin,
languages based on English but distinctly Nigerian in their grammar and vocabulary.
Once Ifemelu is in America, she must choose whether to speak with an American
accent or not, which she does at first until she is embarrassed that she takes
sounding assimilated as a compliment and switches back to speaking with the accent
she learned in school. With whom Ifemelu is able to speak Igbo is also quite
important. For example, she notes that Aunty Uju does not allow her to speak Igbo
with Dike, something he ends up regretting as a teen. Also, she and Obinze swapping
proverbs in Igbo was an important part of their early relationship.
,Religion
Though Ifemelu is not religious herself, two characters in the book are drawn in by
religion in a way that Adichie describes as dangerous: Ifemelu's mother and Esther,
the secretary at Zoe. Ifemelu's mother converts multiple times between sects of
Christianity that have her fast for days at a time, abstain from pleasures such as
dancing, and most importantly chop off her hair and swear off relaxer. Even as a
child, Ifemelu views these churches with skepticism, as she notices that the
congregants are often asked to donate as much money as possible while the
preachers live in luxury. Esther partakes in the same kind of religion, often fasting for
days and trying to get the other women in the office to come to her church. In one
interesting scene, Esther even tells Ifemelu, almost cheerfully, that she has "the
spirit of husband-repelling" (517).
Books and Education
Ifemelu's relationship with books is quite interesting, as she is a highly educated
woman but often told throughout the novel that she values the wrong kinds of
literature. As a teen, Obinze tries to get her to read the books he likes, most of them
about America or by American authors. On one occasion, he tries to make her
read Huckleberry Finn, which she does not even like enough to finish. In her
relationship with Blaine, too, he tries to get her interested in a higher caliber of
literature than she currently reads, and she tries to live up to these expectations. In
their first encounter on the train, she tries to hide her trashy magazine from him,
assuming that he will judge her for reading it before they have even said a word to
one another. Even in her relationship with Curt, who is not exactly an intellectual,
her taste in magazines is questioned when he sees that she is reading Essence, which
he calls "racially skewed" (364). In a moment of meta-literature, even the worth
of Americanah itself is questioned when Blaine's sister Shan says, "You can't write an
honest novel about race in this country. If you write about how people are really
affected by race, it'll be too obvious" (417), begging the question of whether
Adichie's book achieves this honesty.
Honesty
As in the quote above in which Shan questions the honesty of books about race in
America, the concept of honesty comes up often throughout Americanah. It seems
that in most cases, people are not as sparing as Shan when throwing around the
word "honest" regarding both literature and people. For example, Obinze is called an
honest man by many once he becomes a rich businessman in Nigeria simply because
he is not as conniving as many others. Ifemelu also notes that a white girl who has
come into the same hair salon as she to get braids says that the book Bend in the
River was "so honest, the most honest book I've read about Africa" (253), while not
speaking from a place of experience, meaning her assessment cannot be true.
However, honesty is used at least once in the positive sense, when Obinze tells
Ifemelu something he has continued to value about her since adolescence: "You
haven't stopped being honest, Ifem. Thank God" (529).
,Names and Nicknames
Names become very important to the novel as Ifemelu, Obinze, and others work and
study abroad in places where their names make them clear outsiders and sometimes
even dangerous (in the case of taking on other names for work purposes). The name
Ifemelu must take on - Ngozi - is even more significant in that it is one of the given
names of the author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
In the nostalgic sections of Part 1 wherein Ifemelu focuses on her teenage friend
group and romance with Obinze, the focus is on not given names but nicknames.
Obinze is called one nickname by most of their friends - The Zed - but when he and
Ifemelu become romantically intimate, she begins to call him the suggestive name
"Ceiling." The use of a special nickname shows others that they have a relationship
they cannot be a part of and keeps a playful sensuality in even their public lives.
Throughout the novel, even after the couple has broken up, Ifemelu will continue to
use this nickname for Obinze at certain times in a way that shows she has not fully
gotten over their relationship.
2) QUOTES
Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become
black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I’m Jamaican or I’m Ghanaian. America doesn’t care.
Ifemelu, p. 273
Adichie makes multiple important points in this quote. Firstly, the idea of
“becoming” black affirms the fact that “blackness” is not present in Africa because
the racial baggage of America does not exist there. Secondly, she points to the
combining of African cultures into one in America, both by whites who do not care to
understand and by Africans who often feel the need to band together, as she shows
in her story, in the face of American culture. Finally, the word “choice” alludes to her
decision about leaving America, making it clear that the United States is not always
the best place but nevertheless a place one must choose to accept along with its
flaws.
When you are black in America and you fall in love with a white person, race doesn’t
matter when you’re alone together because it’s just you and your love. But the
minute you step outside, race matters. But we don’t talk about it. We don’t even tell
our white partners the small things that piss us off and the things we wish they
understood better, because we’re worried they will say we’re overreacting, or we’re
being too sensitive. And we don’t want them to say, Look how far we’ve come, just
forty years ago it would have been illegal for us to even be a couple blah blah blah,
because you know what we’re thinking when they say that? We’re thinking why the
fuck should it ever have been illegal anyway? But we don’t say any of this stuff. We
let it pile up inside our heads and when we come to nice liberal dinners like this, we
say that race doesn’t matter because that’s what we’re supposed to say, to keep our
nice liberal friends comfortable.
Ifemelu, p. 359
, For Ifemelu, the way that race in America intersects with romantic relationships is
very important. While in America, she has long-term relationships with a white man
and a black man, but she feels that neither really understand her experience as an
African woman. This is especially true when she is in a relationship with a white man
and, as described in the quote above, feels at once happy and loved but also
misunderstood and dismissed by others and by Curt himself.
If you don’t understand, ask questions. If you’re uncomfortable about asking
questions, say you are uncomfortable about asking questions and then ask anyway.
It’s easy to tell when a question is coming from a good place.
Ifemelu, p. 406
At many times, it feels as if Adichie is speaking to the reader directly through
Ifemelu, especially on issues of race. While some black activists profess that it is not
the job of people of a certain race or culture to educate others, in this quote Adichie
instructs readers to educate themselves about issues of race by asking questions and
listening to the answers.
Academics were not intellectuals; they were not curious, they built their stolid tents
of specialized knowledge and stayed securely in them.
Narrator, p. 401
Another group Adichie lambasts in her book are academics, largely through the
characters of Blaine, Shan, and their friends. This group meets fairly often for parties
at which Ifemelu often feels out of place and uncomfortable even though many are
black and sensitive to racial issues. Still, their wealth, their American-ness, and their
lack of genuine intellectualism (as in the quote above) trouble Ifemelu and perhaps
lead to her disenchantment with Blaine and her life in America.
But of course it makes sense because we are Third Worlders and Third Worlders are
forward-looking, we like things to be new, because our best is still ahead, while in
the West their best is already past and so they have to make a fetish of that past.
Obinze, p. 539
Obinze, like Ifemelu, recognizes differences between Nigeria and other African
countries and the West, in this quote pointing out the differences in the architectural
choices people seek out for their houses. He links these aesthetic choices to the
country's history and the current moment in its economic development, saying that
people of the Third World like their houses to look new rather than antique or retro
because most of the wealth in their countries is new rather than inherited.
You could have just said Ngozi is your tribal name and Ifemelu is your jungle name
and throw in one more as your spiritual name. They’ll believe all kinds of shit about
Africa.
