Essay

Grade 12 IEB Americanah Essay (1)

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Course
Americanah Essays

Institution
St Mary's School, Waverley, Johannesburg

Book
Americanah

“Ifemelu chooses, instead, to become an Americanah: an identity predicated on experience rather than nationality, trajectory rather than place.” With reference to three characters discuss how identity in Americanah is constructed. Consider the different processes, which are involved in the forg...

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Uploaded on November 17, 2018
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Americanah – Topic 5

“Ifemelu chooses, instead, to become an Americanah: an identity predicated on
experience rather than nationality, trajectory rather than place.” With reference to three
characters discuss how identity in Americanah is constructed. Consider the different
processes, which are involved in the forging of identity.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Americanah is a story of immigration and the concept of identity dominates the
narrative. Identities are created, rejected and sometimes reform differently. Race
and nationality are largely the man determinates of identity. Many of the
characters find themselves seeking to belong, both figuratively and literally, to
people and places but often find themselves disconnected and alienated from
their environment, others and their culture. An analysis of Ifemelu, Obinze and
Emenike will show that many forces throughout the novel shape the identity of
different characters.

During Ifemelu’s first few months in America, she masks her Nigeria accent to an
assume an identity that Americans are more comfortable but this proves to be
difficult as “it took effort, the twisting of the lip, the curling of the tongue.”
Ifemelu, similar to Obinze, loses her identity as soon as she uses a false identity
to look for work as her immigrant student status precludes work. The relaxing of
her hair causes Ifemelu to adopt a more “professional” black identity for job
interviews. “Never had Ifemelu felt as free as the day she stops hiding her
Nigerian accent under an American one.” Although Ifemelu’s successful identity
as a Princeton academic, property owner, middle-class woman with aspects of
her Nigerian identity such as her accent and hairstyle, she finds the identity
unsatisfactory. Ifemelu returns to Nigeria knowing this was the place that she
would spent the rest of her life, but her American years have shaped an identity
that differs from her Nigerian identity that she had before leaving for America.
She struggles to assimilate into Nigerian culture and becomes an outsider with a
differing identity. Ifemelu is now an ‘americanah’. She is a “returnee with an
extra gleaming layer.” There is a point, however, were Ifemelu is grateful for her
dual identity as “[her passport] shielded her from choicelessness.” Finally, “she
was at peace; to be home … she has, finally, spun herself fully into being again.”
Ifemelu’s identity is largely shaped through her experiences in America and her
life once she has returned to Nigeria. However, Obinze’s identity is shaped by
vastly different factors.

Obinze is largely shaped by the fact that Ifemelu was “documented and he was
note.” As a result of this, Obinze loses his identity while Ifemelu struggles but

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