The Thing Around Your Neck Essay

The story is written as a second person narrative. This style puts the reader in the position of the main character. We are never told the main character’s name, making it easier for the reader to relate to the character. Writing in the second person also challenges the reader, putting them in the position of the main character.

Ever seen something that may look odd to you? Or someone that shows up and you seem to wonder why they’re doing what they’re doing? Do you feel a little unpleasant about their actions? That’s totally normal, because that’s what we call cultural collision. In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, he shows how cultural collision affected the Ibo culture in Nigeria because of colonization and the arrival of Europeans who brought forth a new religion, a new lifestyle and ways that challenge the Ibo culture. The conflict in Things Fall Apart is the struggle between change and tradition. Chinua Achebe demonstrates Okonkwo’s daily life as a struggle to resist changing from

Anderson starts out the book by introducing the reader to her interest in African culture,and relates how she sent essays to an anthropological board so she could go to Africa to do her graduate study. She soon realised that she would be unable to do so because

People who are driven by greed end up focusing on what they do not have instead of being grateful for what they do have. This is relevant in the short story “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant because Mathilde Loisel ends up losing everything she owns just because she lets greed drive her decisions and get the best of her. When receiving an invitation to an extravagant ball, she declines because she says she does not have anything nice to wear. In the beginning of the short story she says, “There is nothing more humiliating than looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women.(Maupassant).” The reader sees how she puts value in possessions and what others think of her. After finding a dress and then borrowing a necklace that she thought

It tells about a Nigerian boy who lives with a family who often speaks their native languages; both of which, he is not familiar with. The narrator states

He never took his studies seriously because he gave himself the impression that he was surely going to travel to America. When Lilian, his close friend travelled to America. Her travelling increased his urge to travel abroad, and He began disturbing his relatives either to send him money or to help him with his travelling. However, they told him that life in America was not an easy one. When Lilian came back, she spoke to Okocha based on life and everything in America. Ever since then, he changed his view towards life in abroad, he faced his education seriously, and now, as I write he presently owns the one of the largest petroleum companies in Nigeria. If my uncle could change his view towards life in America, I do not see the reason anyone who reads Tettes article would change his or hers. In addition, Tettes article can serve as a preparatory to prepare the African youths for the challenges ahead of them on arriving here. For example, I had a close friend named Natasha I have never seen anyone like her that have longed to travel abroad. She played the visa lottery three times but unfortunately, she never won it. She eventually bumped into an old classmate of hers who helped her in travelling to abroad. Natasha sold her all her belongings and travelled abroad. When she arrived, she found out that things never worked out the way she thought. She had to work twice a day, at the funeral home in the day and in the restaurant at night. Natasha got fed up and

African society, influenced by its traditional economy, held strict gender roles, and Ekwefi stayed in the home and focused on traditional female tasks. Although African American society in the twentieth century prized women and elevated females to powerful matriarchal positions in the family, pre-colonial Nigeria in no way tolerated women outside the bounds of the home. Ekwefi lives “in perpetual fear of [Okonkwo’s] fiery temper,” and pours herself into raising her daughter, Ezinma (Achebe 13). Because Okonkwo fails to respect the religious customs and “beat” his wife “very heavily” during the “Week of Peace,” others in clan lose respect for him and his family, and Ekwefi can do very little to change this (Achebe 29) . To deal with her husband’s inadequacies, Ekwefi pours herself into Ezinma and raises her to exhibit strength and bravery. Because Okonkwo and traditional Nigerian society hailed masculinity as supreme and despised femininity, Ekwefi knew that in order to appease Okonkwo’s anger, she must raise her child to exhibit these characteristics, despite her gender. Her strategy proved successful, as “Okonkwo was specially fond of Ezinma,” but only showed his “fondness on very rare occasions” (Achebe 44). Furthermore, Okonkwo repeatedly states that Ezinma “should have been a boy,” (Acehbe 64) because he loves her, but continually

Around the world, values are expressed differently. Some people think that life is about the little things that make them happy. Others feel the opposite way and that expenses are the way to live. In Guy de Maupassant’s short story, “The Necklace”, he develops a character, Madame Loisel, who illustrates her different style of assessments. Madame Loisel, a beautiful woman, lives in a wonderful home with all the necessary supplies needed to live. However, she is very unhappy with her life. She feels she deserves a much more expensive and materialistic life than what she has. After pitying herself for not being the richest of her friends, she goes out and borrows a beautiful necklace from an ally. But as she

Roger von Oech, the author of A Whack on the Side of the Head, makes an unusual offer that thinking at random will increase the efficiency at which ideas become more abundant. This particular concept is certainly an original way to come up with new, fresh problem solving techniques. Ambiguity in the world can help new ideas flow for anyone when looked at in a creative way.

‘The Thing Around Your Neck’, written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discovers the inclined realization from the perspective of Nigerian woman Akunna is developed through her cultural hybridist. Similarly to the isolation felt by May, Akunna the protagonist, also begins to feel secluded due to her heritage as she unpredictably discovers how she is viewed in relation to those around her. The dialogue, “Many people at the restaurant asked where you had come from in Jamaica, because they thought that every black person with a foreign accent was Jamaican. Or someone who guessed that you were African told you that they loved elephants and wanted to go on a safari”, portrayed in a patronizing tone of the American expression and cliché reveals the social and cultural assumptions that limit the protagonists’ experience of discovery and self-acceptance. The meeting of Juan, a white man, startles her prior assumptions as he treats her as an individual rather than a symbol from a foreign land. Inexpertly, Akunna begins to discover the truth of her identity beyond ‘the white men and women who muttered and glared’. “That thing that wrapped itself around your neck, that nearly choked you before you fell asleep, started to loose, to let go”, the motif of the things around your neck identifies the psychological impacts that

“I was born in Nigeria, I came to Maryland when i was still in diapers…” Omokore insures her cultural roots remain a part of her everyday life. Although she can’t speak her language, yoruba, she can understand it well. At age one Omokore and her mother moved from Nigeria to Maryland, where her grandmother was living, due

A young man from an Igbo village meets a young Ibibio woman in the city of Lagos, Nigeria. They have fallen in love and intend to marry. The young woman wants the young man to send a letter to his father telling him of their engagement. The young man is hesitant because he knows his father has already arranged for him to marry a young Igbo woman from his village, in accordance with traditional customs. Instead, he goes home to the village to inform his father in person.

Chinua Achebe shows the reader the change of Africa as seen by the main character of the novel, Okonkwo. Okonkwo has the hardship of living in an ever-changing society. It is thru Okonkwo that the reader is able to visualize a society of immense cultural standing, and not as European colonizers would say, a society of savages. The main theme of culture is present in all areas of the novel, which helps to show to the reader all of its underlying themes, themes of tradition and themes of religion. Achebe sees the themes of culture, tradition, and religion in one bright light and European colonizers see those same themes in a totally different, somewhat snobbish dim light. However these themes are viewed, one thing is certain, change is on the horizon.

In today's world what we wear and how we present ourselves can say a lot about who we are and the stories we can tell. Without speaking a word to another person someone could decipher many things about me based on a necklace that I wear. My necklace could reveal many different aspects of who I am. it could reveal that I am close with my family. It could also be determined that I value the sentimental value over the monetary value. As a gift from my grandmother I have many personal attachments to this necklace, it will allow people to think certain things about me, and it can reveal a lot about who I am; but there are also things that it doesn't show.

when she hears of her husband’s death. Although she is not stuck as many women would have