Critical Introduction
Studying Adichie
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “The Thing Around Your Neck” is a short story worth studying. With complex themes, heart-wrenching characters, and unflinching narration, “The Thing Around Your Neck” touched us all in unique ways, and inspired each of the following thoughtful analyses you’ll read in this critical edition.
Psychological
Logan White’s Essay “A Collar of Re-Vision and Self-Actualization” is a critical analysis of a short narrative called “The Thing Around Your Neck”. The lens of Logan’s essay is approached from a psychological standpoint giving a unique exploration of identity and self-actualization in the creative process. This essay looks at the psychological factors influencing an individual’s writing, self-discovery and the portrayal of authentic identity. This exploration uses much of the footwork of a foundational understanding of the possible influences of re-vision on Adichie’s work and psychological values. You can expect a thoughtful analysis of the intersection of psychology and literature, shedding light on the writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie by navigating the reflections of personal journeys and how we find psychological values in this compelling narrative.
New Criticism
In “The Cost of Freedom: A Critical Look at The Thing Around Your Neck”, Wyatt Haedt delves into the nuanced themes and motifs present in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story via the lens of new criticism. He highlights how the title, “The Thing Around Your Neck,” symbolizes the various burdens faced by those of African descent who live in America. These include issues of identity, alienation, and disillusionment, that immigrants, particularly women like the protagonist Akunna, face when coming to the United States in pursuit of the American dream. The essay explores the notion of American idealization, only to be shattered by the harsh realities of immigrant life. It also examines the second-person narrative style as a tool to immerse readers in Akunna’s experiences while simultaneously emphasizing her detachment and alienation. Ultimately, the analysis shows how Adichie’s storytelling portrays the complex cost of freedom for immigrants in America.
Cultural Studies
In her essay “Between Worlds: Assimilation and the Voices of Alienation,” Sophia Zahorka analyzes Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story “The Thing Around Your Neck” through a cultural studies criticism lens. Zahorka delves deep into the intricate intersections of personal identity and cultural context within Adichie’s short story. Zahorka focuses on the nuanced struggles of assimilation and alienation experienced by immigrants in America. Her essay highlights Adichie’s transformative ability to portray the prevalence of stereotypes, micro-aggressions, and the cultural disconnect that contribute to the alienation experienced by nonwhite immigrants navigating through predominately white communities. Recognizing the transformative power of Adichie’s literature, Zahorka positions “The Thing Around Your Neck” as more than a fictional narrative but rather a significant testament to the resilience of immigrants.
feminist
Alize Portue’s essay “Finding Our Voices Under Patriarchal Suppression: A Feminist Reading of ‘The Thing Around Your Neck'” takes a feminist critical approach to analyzing Adichie’s short story. Alize delves into the radical gender themes of this story, from the main character’s sexual assault to her domestic life with her partner. Alize reads Adichie’s story as representative of the larger fight against voicelessness that all women fight every day. The essay focuses particularly on the inherent power imbalance of the relationship between the characters, and addresses how women must overcome patriarchal suppression in order to find their voices and use them to tell their own stories.
New historicism
Ashley Renteria’s essay “A New Historicist Look at ‘The Thing Around Your Neck,’” looks at Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story “The Thing Around Your Neck.” This is done through a New Historicism critical lens. Such a lens allows the reader to take a step away from the text itself and consider the author’s culture and time period. Adichie is a Nigerian author known for her writings about the diaspora of the African people. By bringing to light the history of Adichie’s rich Igbo culture and history, Ashley has given the reader a deeper understanding of the characters in Adichie’s writing; leaving them with a better appreciation for the “why” and not just the “what” of the story.
Queer Theory
In “The Heteronormative Behaviors of Women in Traditional Societies as Explored in “The Thing Around Your Neck” by Chimamanda Adichie,” Claire Thompson explores the heteronormative behaviors among women, particularly in those from traditional cultures like that of the Igbo in Nigeria. In her essay, Thompson observes how the protagonist, Akunna, navigate societal expectations and pressure, drawing parallels between her experiences and the struggles of queer characters in Adichie’s broader collection of stories. She highlights Akunna’s uncomfortable interactions with men and her eventual relationship with a man in the United States, revealing the compulsive heteronormative influences in her choices. In this analysis, Thompson examines Akunna’s lack of attachment to her romantic partner and interprets the recurring theme of “The Thing Around Your Neck” through a Queer Theory lens as the suffocating weight of cultural expectations. She argues that Adichie’s story elegantly explores the struggles women face in conforming to heteronormative ideals and reveals the persuasive influences a woman’s culture can have on her experiences.
Deconstruction
When is a stranger not a stranger to themselves? In his essay, Hobbes Stack notes that Adichie asks us to question this very fact as they want us to think about the parallel and chasm of culture and what is expected from stereotypes and assumed cultural norms where one major character is wasting their privilege and wealth crassly and the other has constantly suffered and struggled to keep afloat. When it comes to an end does it split evenly? Or do we struggle on with hope, worse give up as if it never happened proving the naysayers right? Do we need to run to better lives and when we do what happens if it seems to sour, do we run back to our past, marginalized by power structures and cultural norms that say told you so.
Adichie asks us what is most important about bettering our lives; the fact of comfort and familiarity of struggle or selling out who we are to attain it. We are subtly asked what is around the main character’s neck a mantle that needs shed of guilt for achieving the visa and wanting a better life or the realization that the brass knob of a life satisfied is tarnished.
Ethnic Studies
Jess Quiko’s essay, “Navigating Identity: Power and Ethnicity in “The Thing Around Your Neck” is an analysis of Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s, the “The Thing Around Your Neck.” It uses an Ethnic Studies approach and reveals the loss of cultural identity, societal expectations, and power dynamics that most immigrants face when coming to contemporary globalized America. By revealing issues as these, it illuminates the prejudice and stereotypes established by society because it shows how it can affect the immigrant class.
Marxist
Rose Parham’s essay, “Diasporic Dysphoria: Power Dynamics in ‘The Thing Around Your Neck’,” adopts a Marxist perspective, identifying and interpreting the presence of power dynamics and class issues present in Adichie’s short story. This essay analyzes both the literal and the symbolic representations of society’s classes, finding meaning in the power wielded by men in the story and how it serves as a reminder of the narrator’s the lack of voice in society due to her sex and her social status. The exploitation of immigrant workers faced by the narrator offers a grim depiction of the working class into which immigrants to the United States are instantly shuffled without their consent. By exploring the author’s background, the influence of Adichie’s culture on her writing becomes clear and her highly emotionally intelligent depiction of a messy social collision is revealed.
Although we took vastly different approaches in our readings of “The Thing Around Your Neck,” there are common threads that every essay manages to find in its own way. The intersectionality that exists across these critical readings becomes obvious when these essays are looked at as a whole, and reading each one lends to a greater understanding of Adichie’s masterful short story.
