Cultural Authority

Place is the focus between the two short stories “The Thing Around Your Neck” and “Jumping Monkey Hill”. Both stories take place on different continents but both deal with the issue of place  and cultural authority and authenticity. In “Jumping Monkey Hill” the irony of the story is that the members of the workshop are being told that they are not writing authentic African stories by a foreigner. This is illustrated when Edward says “how African is it for a person to tell her family she is a homosexual?” and then makes a joke to the writer’s decree “I am Senegalese” (108). Many of the members of the workshop are already accomplished writers, such as the Kenyan, but they all place the greatest authority with Edward which is shown by the groups compliance with him by laughing at Edward’s joke. Instead of Helping any of the writer’s, instead they are alienated from their own experience such as the Senagelse woman. She is told that her own experience and sexual identity, is in authentic to her own culture therefore she is made an alien by a forigener.
            The narrative’s reaction to this alienation is through Ujawa. Ujawa asks “Why do we Always say Nothing?” (112). This poses the question for the rest of that narrative that how does Edward’s perspective exist with such arrogance and authority. The answer to this lies in the last fragment of the short story “she wondered whether this ending, in a story, would be considered plausible?” (114) has a double meaning. At her talk at Maryland Univesity Adiche said that the premise of the short story was based on an actual experience that she had a workshop. With this in mndm the ending is completely plausible since it is based on Adiche’s own experience. But the answer to story’s plausibility is up to the reader who does not know this, specifically if the reader believes it or not. That answer also defines how instilled edward’s personality is, meaning that how greatly does the reader believe that his or her own perception of a culture is more accurate than even those who live it.