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The Thing Around Your Neck

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Assimilation; How Does One Truly Do This in Chimamada Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck As immigrants enter the United States, there is no way of escaping the act of assimilating to the American culture in some way or another. When looking at Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck, this belief is evidently true in her various short stories. Although various character’s attempt to assimilate to the American culture, Adichie represents how there is no true way to fully let go of your past cultural roots. More in particular, this struggle is understood in her two stories titled The Arrangers of Marriage and The Thing Around Your Neck. While Agatha struggles with almost every aspect of her new life in America because of her husband’s idea …show more content…

In the midst of making their way up in America, Dave expresses to Agatha at the grocery store, “‘Look at the people who shop here; they are the ones who immigrate and continue to act as if they are back in their countries.’ He gestured, dismissively, toward a woman and her two children, who were speaking Spanish. ‘They will never move forward unless they adapt to America. They will always be doomed to supermarkets like this’” (Adichie 175). Dave’s character is basically saying that if people immigrate to America, they have to reshape their selves to the American lifestyle in order to live in it. Just as Dave was forcing Agatha to speak like the American’s do, he calls out the family for speaking in a different language saying that you must speak English all the time. While Dave calls out this family for utilizing their first language, Adichie uses this family as an example to show how people who don’t assimilate to the English language are looked down upon. After this sighting happens in the supermarket, Dave takes Agatha to the mall where their conversation is as follows, “‘Biko, don’t they have a lift instead?’ […] ‘Speak English. There are people behind you,’ he whispered, pulling me away […]” (Adichie 177). After Dave just got finished with informing Agatha that speaking in your native language is bad, she still continues to do so …show more content…

It says, “So when he asked you, in the dimness of the restaurant after you recited the daily specials, what African country you were from, you said Nigeria and expected him to say that he had donated money to fight AIDS in Botswana. But he asked if you were Yoruba or Igbo, because you didn’t have a Fulani face. You were surprised […].” (Adichie 119). While Akunna developed her own presumption of America’s ignorance, this male character proves this idea wrong and gives Akunna hope and reason to want to stay in America at this point. Despite the fact that this character stalks Akunna, his intentions are sincere and he differs from Agatha’s husband because he is accepting of her Nigerian culture. It says, “He found the African store in the Hartford yellow pages and drove you there” (Adichie 123). His character is fully interested in Akunna’s cultural roots portraying the idea that you don’t have to let go of it just because you’re in America. Therefore, he doesn’t necessarily force Akunna into a different lifestyle. On the other hand, she sees how lucky he is as an American to be given the option of going to school. It says, “[…] his parents, how they portioned out love like a birthday cake, how they would give him a bigger slice if only he’d agree to go to law school” (Adichie 126). Akunna envies this guy for his option to go to

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