Americanah, an exhilarating and dazzling novel by Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie is a unique novel that tells a modern Romeo and Juliet love story,
while tying the three different continents. It is a fearless story of friendship
developing into love even when long distance relationship comes as an obstacle.
Even in this book, it is easy to spot Adichie’s style in symbol and her post
colonial critique.
Since she is a Nigerian writer, she is obsessed with expressing her views and ideas of issues happening in Nigeria in all of her novels. Her books are similar in a way that the characters mostly get unwanted attention of people because of race and identity and slowly heal as story goes on. In Purple Hibiscus, Kambili is dominated by her overly-obsessive, violent dad. Her life is controlled by domestic violence but she lives happily after realization. In Half of a Yellow Sun, Ugwu survives through racial hatred during Biafran War, a conflict that was the result of economic, religious, ethnic, and cultural tensions between the North and the South Igbos, that is breaking everything apart but heals and returns to his life. In Americanah, Ifemelu is living in America, going through racial slurs everyday, but finds her love and marries. Discrimination is the key, but and her moral is “everything will be okay”. The characters will face difficulties, but later return and live happier than before. This reflects the conflicts of Nigeria. Wars have strucked, and hunger and famine has spread across the land. However, when everything gave up, Adichie express her nostalgic hope toward her Country to repair and stand back to its feet.
Adichie’s story in her novels corresponds to stories of Nigeria. She compares Nigeria as family members. It is similar to George Orwell comparing Russian Revolution to Animal Farm. The viciousness inside what the society calls ‘a perfectly organized and happy family’ is not what it seems. It is actually a house ran by an overly-obsessive, violent leader.
As well as expressing her hope for her country’s future, she also has a strong desire for her readers to know more about Nigeria. It is as if her novels are advertisements for her country. She frequently shares the history of Nigeria and its cultures. She describes the way of living, food, and people of Nigeria to her readers so that they could be more interested. It is not like that doesn’t work; readers actually learn from her stories and become interested.
One of the similarity in her book is the family structure. The similarity with dads in each novel is that both dads cause disappointment and does not play a perfect role as a head in family. Dad represents domestic violence in her novels. It’s almost natural to suspect that Adichie’s dad also performance violence on her. In addition, whenever her characters in novels are stressed mentally, physically, and emotionally by their dads, they depend on their cousins or neighbors (strangers, non-family member). Kambili depended on her aunt and cousins, and Ugwu depended on his master and his wife.
Since she is a Nigerian writer, she is obsessed with expressing her views and ideas of issues happening in Nigeria in all of her novels. Her books are similar in a way that the characters mostly get unwanted attention of people because of race and identity and slowly heal as story goes on. In Purple Hibiscus, Kambili is dominated by her overly-obsessive, violent dad. Her life is controlled by domestic violence but she lives happily after realization. In Half of a Yellow Sun, Ugwu survives through racial hatred during Biafran War, a conflict that was the result of economic, religious, ethnic, and cultural tensions between the North and the South Igbos, that is breaking everything apart but heals and returns to his life. In Americanah, Ifemelu is living in America, going through racial slurs everyday, but finds her love and marries. Discrimination is the key, but and her moral is “everything will be okay”. The characters will face difficulties, but later return and live happier than before. This reflects the conflicts of Nigeria. Wars have strucked, and hunger and famine has spread across the land. However, when everything gave up, Adichie express her nostalgic hope toward her Country to repair and stand back to its feet.
Adichie’s story in her novels corresponds to stories of Nigeria. She compares Nigeria as family members. It is similar to George Orwell comparing Russian Revolution to Animal Farm. The viciousness inside what the society calls ‘a perfectly organized and happy family’ is not what it seems. It is actually a house ran by an overly-obsessive, violent leader.
As well as expressing her hope for her country’s future, she also has a strong desire for her readers to know more about Nigeria. It is as if her novels are advertisements for her country. She frequently shares the history of Nigeria and its cultures. She describes the way of living, food, and people of Nigeria to her readers so that they could be more interested. It is not like that doesn’t work; readers actually learn from her stories and become interested.
One of the similarity in her book is the family structure. The similarity with dads in each novel is that both dads cause disappointment and does not play a perfect role as a head in family. Dad represents domestic violence in her novels. It’s almost natural to suspect that Adichie’s dad also performance violence on her. In addition, whenever her characters in novels are stressed mentally, physically, and emotionally by their dads, they depend on their cousins or neighbors (strangers, non-family member). Kambili depended on her aunt and cousins, and Ugwu depended on his master and his wife.