Parallels

In the book The Thing Around Your Neck Adichie uses different stories to show how all people regardless of race and class are generally quite similar at their core.  Many of these stories could easily have taken place in an American city.  In “Cell One” a young university student is accused of belonging to a gang and is subject to cruel and inhumane treatment at the hands of the police.  It is remarkable how easily this story could have been told about a young college student of color from Chicago or Los Angeles who because of their social status were brutalized at the hands of the police.  Also in “Cell One” are descriptions of how the young boys who are in gangs try their best to behave like the black pop culture icons that are representations of American gang culture.  In “Cell One” the gangs or  “cults” are described as, “eighteen-year-olds who had mastered the swagger of American rap videos.”  In the second short story, “Imitation,” the story of a wealthy Nigerian immigrant who faces marital difficulties is told.  In this story Nkem describes her lifelong pursuit of attaining whiteness, and upon having gained it the feelings of alienation and loneliness that she experiences.  Nkem and her business executive husband both spent their lives trying to climb the social ladder, and having climbed it are now faced with the emptiness of their existences.  This story is so very similar to modern American fiction with its despairing descriptions of white middle class alienation in the suburbs and the cities.

In the third story, “A Private Moment,” two Nigerians from opposite class backgrounds are forced into a very personal situation by extenuating circumstances.  They find that really they are quite similar human beings in many ways.  In fact, every story in this book can be viewed in this light.  Adichie may be making an important point about how people from the “3^rd world” are really just people like everyone else.