Adichie's Use Of Figurative Language In Americah

Colonial times in America expressed strong religious beliefs. During this era, the common person would hold a profound sense of spiritual sentiment and atonement, through self-examination and a pledge to a new standard of personal morality. Many were devoted to God and those who weren’t would feel a pressure to. Speakers and writers would use figurative language, such as repetition and personification, as well as pathos to push individuals to fully dedicate themselves to God.

Imagine yourself shipwrecked upon an uninhabited island. The experience of being stranded will cause you to pose many questions, with the possibility of only one of those questions to being answered. One answered question is: what is the purpose of literature? Northrop Frye, within “Motive for Metaphor”, uses the analogy of being within an uninhabited island to examines the purpose of literature by connecting it to the purposes of language and their use within the different worlds and levels of the mind Frye sees present.

Adichie’s characters are subject to cultural suppression in several of the short stories. This is most pronounced in ‘The Arrangers of Marriage’ where Chinaza is forced by her husband to assimilate to her new surroundings by ridding herself of all signs of being Nigerian,

In the poem ,“America”, Claude McKay uses figurative language and diction to create a dark tone, a powerful empowering tone, and an optimistic tone. The theme of double consciousness of African-Americans is supported in the poem and the poem itself also connects to the purpose of the Harlem Renaissance which was to fight back racial hate and stereotypes with black empowerment.

The Goldbergs deemphasize the vulnerability of immigrants as not fully American or Jewish and their strife not to be nothing. On the other hand, Amos ‘n’ Andy presents racial stereotypes in America through slapstick comedy, which oddly enough reminded me of another immigrant book I read, Achiche’s Americanah. While Amos ‘n’ Andy deals with African Americans, Americanah is written from the perspective of a Nigerian immigrant, but Achiche’s commentary from an outsider’s perspective helps clarify race issues in America and why stereotypes presented in Amos ‘n’ Andy are so demeaning. Achiche confronts American tribalisms of race, ideology, and region through the blog of her character, Ifemelu, who poignantly states, “I didn’t know I was black until I came to the USA.” Throughout the novel, race becomes a prejudicial barrier or a taboo topic that well-intentioned people attempt to erase. In Amos ‘n’ Andy, race is presented in a negative manner because the white writers use stereotypes to engage a white audience in a topic they prefer to

My room-mate had a single story of Africa; a single story of catastrophe”. Adichie also tells how growing up in Nigeria reading only American and English children’s books made her deaf to her authentic voice. As a child, she wrote about such things as blue-eyed white children easting apples, thinking brown skin and mangos had no place in Literature. That changed as she discovered African writers.

Inspired by James Baldwin’s 1963 classic The Fire Next Time, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me powerfully educates readers on what it means to be African American in the United States today. It is formatted as a letter to his son, Samori, at the age of fifteen. It’s intention being to help him through navigate the world as a young African American male. He does this through sharing personal experiences and analyzing current events, with regards to historical context. By communicating his ideas in this format, he is uniquely able to more broadly depict the concept of racism in America. Where both memoirs and textbooks fall short, Between the World and Me does not.

The strength of Ellison’s novel lies in the fact that it is not written merely as a black vs. white man’s story; rather it is concerned with the experiences of the average American in its entirety and misconceptions. Consequently, the use of a nameless narrator allows anyone of any cultural background to envision themselves in the experiences of the

African American literature is the body of work produced in the United States by writers of African descent. This particular genre traces back to the works from the late eighteenth century by writers such as Phillis Wheatley to later reaching early high points with slave narratives and the Harlem Renaissance, and thus continuing today with authors such as Colson Whitehead and Maya Angelou. Among the themes and issues explored within African American literature are the roles of African Americans within the larger American society, African-American culture, racism, slavery, and equality. African American writing has also tended to incorporate oral forms such as spirituals, gospel music, jazz, and rap. Dating back to the pre-Revolutionary War period, African American writers have engaged in a creative dialogue with American letters. The result is a literature rich in culture and social insight. These pieces offer illuminating assessments of American identities as well as its history. Since the time of early slavery African American literature has been overlooked within the literature criticism. This essay thrives to show that within the English profession African American literature does belong alongside the great works such as A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and poetry as A Road less taken by Robert Frost. I will dive deep into history to not only investigate what critics think about African American literature, but why is it not held to a higher standard just as American

The role of African American literature in recent years has been to illuminate for the modern world the sophistication and beauty inherent in their culture as well as the constant struggle they experience in the oppressive American system. When writers such as Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois and Alice Walker present their material, they manage to convey to a future world the great depth of feeling and meaning their particular culture retained as compared with the culture of their white counterparts. Without this attempt at preservation, much of the richness of this community might have been lost or forgotten. At the same time, they illuminated some of the problems inherent within their society, including lack of education, lack of

They also simulate the structure of memory. The point of view and tone resemble hearing a firsthand story told aloud, and Adichie’s flashbacks and tangents add to this effect. As such, there is some danger of an unreliable narrator; though Adichie can speak volumes with few words, they can be misleading and tend to rely on allowing the reader to fill in illustrative preconceptions, the problem with which, she says in a TED talk, “is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete” (Adichie 13:05). We are limited by Nwoye’s perspective, which may be deteriorating as he blurs the lines between memory and reality.

The arrival of immigrants into developed nations has been a common trend for centuries, but so has the wave of resentment from natives of the land towards those who are migrants. Adichie illustries this migrant struggle through Americanah, which explores the hardships migrants must face with trying to be accepted into the new society. With her portrayal of the immigrant tendency to assimilate, Adichie skillfully highlights the pain associated with losing essential parts of one’s true identity.

Relationships span the spectrum, from the mumbled “hey” tossed over the shoulder to a colleague to the intimate “oh, how are you?” pressed into the palm of a lover or loved one. Many factors complicate them, but assumptions about race and racism can pull a relationship up or drag it down. Such is the case in Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie: Ifemelu, the protagonist, realizes that race tangles relationships until it is impossible to tell the beginning of the string from the end. While race, in the context of fleeting relationships, causes different people to be treated differently, it can also deepen lasting relationships and create cherished bonds between the two parties involved.

Aside from issues on racism, which is what is most discussed within the novel Americanah, Adichie focuses a lot on love and marriage in this novel and how it is viewed through the eyes of both men and female, and how each gender in particular react to these certain societal expectations. Throughout Americanah,Adichie the writer holds up a mirror for both men and women in today’s society to view themselves. Ifemelu, Bartholomew, Aisha, Obinze, Ranyinudo, etc, these people are symbols and representations of us and real problems not only immigrants but women face within America.

Approximately one million immigrants migrate per year to the United States, and the US is not the only country that takes in immigrants. The immigrants joining American culture and society - or any culture for the matter - leave their old lives behind and assimilate to the social and political norms of the culture. In The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the collection of stories have characters facing the reality of immigrating to a country that is not their home. While the stories are fictional, there is a sense of autobiography in Adichie’s work - going through similar situations as her characters do. The stories are about characters being a local of Africa, facing the common themes of oppression, assimilation, and reality. Written in 2009, The Thing Around Your Neck has a more modern setting that immigrants in 2017 could be facing now. Throughout the text, Adichie shows how immigrants are marginalized when attempting to join American culture and society.