The Thing Around Your Neck –going deeper into the text
Now it is time to do a deeper reading of the text and find some common
themes and ideas that run across the short stories in Adichie’s collection.
When you write about the text, you are expected to discuss the collection
holistically; that is, linking similar themes, ideas, structures and features that
are expressed across Adichie’s stories, rather than discussing individual stories
in isolation from each other.
To accomplish this, please work through the steps below:
1) Brainstorm some of the key ideas or themes in the text (eg: agency and
disempowerment, family and relationships, etc). Place these as headings
into your exercise books (one theme heading per page)
2) Locate the symbols and quotes featured under each story on the next
page. Next, highlight key quotes and symbols in different colours (1
colour per theme) that might fit under particular theme headings. Note:
Some examples might fit under more than one theme heading.
3) Finally, create a ‘theme page’ per theme/idea in your exercise book.
Write down the theme in the middle of the page in a bubble and add
quotes, symbols, literary features and explanations of the theme to this
page. Choose 5-6 stories that encompass all themes and pick examples
from them.
**These theme pages will form the basis of your revision for this SAC.
TITLE
CENTRAL
CHARACTERS
KEY QUOTES
‘Cell One’
Nnamabia
(lacks agency);
his unnamed
sister
“Boys who had grown up
watching Sesame Street,
reading Enid Blyton, eating
cornflakes for breakfast,
attending the university staff
primary school in smartly
polished brown sandals, were
now cutting through the
mosquito netting of their
neighbour’s windows, sliding
out glass louvers and climbing in
to steal TV’s and VCR’s.” (p.5)
“When, at eleven, Nnamabia
broke the window of his
classroom with a stone, my
mother gave him the money to
replace it and did not tell my
father…”(p.6)
“Cult wars had become
common…it was so abnormal
that it quickly became normal”
(p.7-8)
“It [Enugu Prison] was where
the police could do what they
were famed for when under
pressure to produce results: kill
people” (p.10)
“My father said something
about how it was irrelevant
whether or not the man knew
where his son was”(p.15)
SIGNIFICANT
EVENTS,
SYMBOLS OR
MOTIFS
Unnamed daughter
(the narrator)
The Purple Rain
and Thriller
videotapes the
protagonist’s
father brings back
from America
CENTRAL THEMES
AND IDEAS
Violence and
corruption;
siblings/family;
religion; agency
Nnamabia’s
developing rash
(p.11: “new,
pimple-like insect
bite on his
forehead”, “bumps
spreading across
his face” p.12-13,
“scratched at his
bumpy face” p.16)
The jollof rice
Cell One (p.11)
The cracked
windscreen, as a
result of the
protagonist
throwing a stone at
her parents’ car
(p.14)
The treatment of
the old, retired civil
servant (p.15,
“I saw my brother’s eyes fill
with tears—my worldly
brother—and I felt a tenderness
for him…”(p.16)
“It would have been so easy for
him…to make a sleek drama of
this story, but he did not”(p.21)
‘A Private
Chika (lacks
“Even without the woman’s
Chika’s silver rosary
Religion; violence
Experience
’
agency);
unnamed
Hausa woman
strong Huasa accent, Chika can
tell she is a Northerner, from
the narrowness of her face, the
unfamiliar rise of her
cheekbones; and that she is
Muslim, because of her
scarf…she wonders if the
woman is looking at her as well,
if the woman can tell, from her
light complexion and the silver
rosary her mother insists she
wear, that she is Igbo and
Christian” (p.44)
“Later, Chika will learn that as
she and the woman are
speaking, Hausa Muslims are
hacking down Igbo Christians
with machetes” (p.44)
“Riots do not happen in a
vacuum” (p.48)
“She wonders what purpose
this lie serves, this need to draw
on a fictional past similar to the
woman’s” (p.50)
“She cries quietly…not the kind
of loud sobbing that the women
Chika knows do…The woman’s
crying is private, as though she
is carrying out a necessary ritual
that involves no one else” (p.51)
[Hausa woman praying] “…she
does not look. It is like the
woman’s tears, a private
experience, and she wishes that
she could…believe in
God…when the woman rises,
Chika feels strangely
energised”(p.52)
After her experience, Chika
“change[d] her mind about
telling her mother that offering
Masses is a waste of money”
(p.52)
“Chika will read in The Guardian
(p.44)
Chika’s Burberry
handbag from
London (p.43)
The Hausa
woman’s scarf at
the beginning
(p.44) and at the
end, when Chika
ties it around her
bleeding leg (p. 54,
56)
Burned cars after
the riot (p.45-46)
Chika’s T-shirt
embossed with the
Statue of Liberty
(p.47) and the
Hausa woman’s
green wrapper
The Hausa woman
bearing her breast
to Chika,
requesting medical
help (p.49-50)
BBC radio’s
description of the
riots as “religious
with undertones of
ethnic
tension”(p.54)
The stone covered
in blood Chika
keeps as “a
ghoulish souvenir”
(p. 56)
and conflict;
identity; cultural
difference;
common humanity
and connection
‘Ghosts’
James; Ikenna
that ‘the reactionary Hausaspeaking Muslims in the North
have a history of violence
against non-Muslims and… she
will remember she examined
the nipples of a woman who is
Hausa and a Muslim” (p.55)
“…Perhaps I should have bent
down, grabbed a handful of
sand, and thrown it at him, in
the way my people do to make
sure a person is not a ghost. But
I am a Western-educated
man…and I am supposed to
have armed myself with enough
science to laugh indulgently at
the ways of my people”(p.57)
[Men under the flame tree,
carpenters, gardeners] “…of
course they nurse resentment,
as they well should, but it has
somehow managed to leave
their spirits whole” (p.59)
[about Ikenna]: “There was an
uncertainty about him, a
diffidence that seemed alien,
unlike the man who so easily
got people to act” (p.62)
“Speaking of death in English
has always had, for me, a
disquieting finality”(p.64)
Description of Ikenna: “A man
who carries with him the weight
of what could have been” (p.66)
James: “…thinking of the lives
we might have had” (p.71)
“…landscape of ruins” (p.65)
“…a time immersed in
possibilities” (p.66)
James’ daughter Nkiru living in
America: “a life cushioned by so
much convenience that it is
sterile”(p.67)
James being unable
to obtain his
pension for years
(p.58-59)
‘dry winds’ of the
Harmattan season
(p.59)
The whirling dust
and wind in the
trees (p.65 and
p.71)
“Dried-up looking
clerks” (p.57)
Ikenna Okoro (“the
coming to life of a
man who died
thirty-seven years
ago”, p.60)
Ikenna’s
“discoloured”,
“hollow” laughter
(p.62)
Desecrated items
in the house in
Nsukka in 1970
(p.63)
Ripped
photographs and
broken photo
frames (p.63)
The blood on the
backseat of the car
(p.65)
The worn leather
and peeled paint in
Nostalgia and grief;
national identity;
violence and war
James’ study (p.73)
“…grandson who does not
speak Igbo, did not understand
why he was expected to say
‘Good Morning’ to strangers,
because in his world one has to
justify simple courtesies” (p.66)
“Things have fallen” (p.68)
‘Jumping
Monkey
Hill’
Ujunwa
(initially lacks
agency);
Edward;
Chioma (lacks
agency)
“…calls home with her faint,
vaguely troubling American
accent”(p.71)
“…the resort had the
complacence of the well-fed
about it, the kind of place
where she imagined affluent
foreign tourists would dart
around taking pictures of lizards
and then return home still
mostly unaware that there were
more black people than redcapped lizards in South
Africa”(p. 95)
“As for the Ugandan, Ujunwa
had disliked him from the
airport, and did so even more
now because of his toadying
answers to Edward’s questions,
the way he leaned forward to
speak only to Edward and
ignored the other participants.”
(p.99)
“The first thing that came to
Uhunwa’s mind was to ask if
Isabel ever needed royal blood
to explain the good looks of
friends in London”(p.98)
“She sat there for a long time,
trying to decide whether to
name her character something
common, like Chioma, or
something exotic, like
Ibari”(p.100)
“You Kenyans are too
submissive! You Nigerians are
too aggressive! You Tanzanians
The ostrich
medallions Edward
urges the writers to
eat (p.101)
Ujunwa’s character
Chioma
Ujunwa’s story
The unnamed
writers at the
writer’s workshop
(eg: “The
Ugandan”, “The
Tanzanian”) (p.97)
The names of the
cabins at Jumping
Monkey Hill (eg:
Baboon Lodge,
Porcupine Place)
(p.95)
The smoke from
Edward’s pipe
hanging over the
room (p.107)
African identity;
the nature of
fiction; cultural
imperialism and
appropriation
have no fashion sense! You
Senegalese are too brainwashed
by the French!” (p.102)
“Afterwards, everyone turned
to Edward, even the Ugandan,
who seemed to have forgotten
he was the workshop leader”
(p.107)
“Which Africa?” [Ujunwa, in
response to Edward’s critique of
the Senegalese woman’s story
as not “reflective of Africa”]
(p.108)
“The white South African said
Edward would never look at a
white woman like that because
what he felt for Ujunwa was a
fancy without respect”(p.109)
[Ujunwa, in relation to women
who are sexually harassed by
Edward] “But why do we say
nothing?...Why do we always
say nothing?” (p112)
‘The Thing
Around
Your Neck’
Akunna
(initially lacks
agency); her
unnamed
American
boyfriend
“She wondered whether this
ending, in a story, would be
considered plausible”(p.114)
“You thought everybody in
America had a car and a gun”
(p115)
Akunna’s two blank Agency; identity;
fortune-cookie slips cultural difference
(p.121)
“…he bought you a hotdog with
yellow mustard that nauseated
you. Introduction to America,
he said with a laugh.” (p.115)
The stain on the
carpet in Akunna’s
new apartment
(p.117)
“…he enrolled you in
community college…They
gawped at your hair…You
smiled tightly when they asked
those questions. Your Uncle
told you to expect it. A mixture
of arrogance and ignorance, he
called it.”(p.116)
The ‘thing around
your neck’(p.119
and p.125)
“America was give-and-take.
You gave up a lot but you
The bruises on
Akunna’s arms
(p.119)
Akunna’s unnamed
boyfriend throwing
up garri and
gained a lot, too”(p.116)
“If you let him, he would do
many things for you” [when her
Uncle harasses her] (p.117)
“…You wanted to write about
the surprising openness of
people in America, how eagerly
they told you about …the kinds
of things one should hide…the
way people left so much food
on their plates and crumpled a
few dollar bills down, as though
it was an offering, expiation for
the wasted food”(p.118)
“Sometimes you felt invisible
and tried to walk through your
room wall into the hallway, and
when you bumped into the wall,
it left bruises”(p.119)
“…they thought that every black
person with an accent was
Jamaican”(p.119)
“You were used to accepting
what life gave, writing down
what life dictated…you did not
know…that people could dictate
to life”(p.121)
[Akunna remembering her
father having a car accident
with a foreign car] “The Big Man
at the back did not come out,
but his driver did, looking at
your father’s sprawled form
from the corner of his eye as
though the pleading were like
pornography, a performance he
was ashamed to admit he
enjoyed”(p. 122) “After you told
him this, he…said he
understood how you felt. You
shook your hand free, suddenly
annoyed, because he thought
the world was, or ought to be,
full of people like him. You told
him there was nothing to
onugbu soup in her
sink (p.123)
The glass Akunna
drops in an
argument with her
boyfriend (p.126)
Akunna’s
goosebumps when
nothing could
warm her up
(p.126)
understand, it was just the way
it was”(p.123)
America as a world “where you
could buy presents that were
just presents and nothing else,
nothing useful”(p. 124)
“You did not want him to pay
for you to visit home. You did
not want him to go to Nigeria,
to add it to the list of countries
where he went to gawk at the
lives of poor people who could
never gawk back at his
life”(p.124-125)
“You knew by people’s
reactions that you two were
abnormal”(p.125)
‘The
American
Embassy’
Unnamed
woman; her
son Ugonna
“You hugged him tight for a
moment, and then you let
go”(p.125)
“’Our people have become too
used to pleading with soldiers’”
(p.126)
The protagonist’s observations
of people who “…fingered
prayer beads and quoted the
Koran…wore blue medals of the
blessed Virgin Mary hanging
around their necks”(p.137)
The visa interviewer’s comment
that “The United States offers
new life” to those legitimately
escaping Nigeria from General
Abacha’s military rule (p.140)
The unnamed narrator’s
realisation, halfway through the
interview, that she would rather
die before she “hawked Ugonna
for a visa to safety”(p.139)
“’They don’t give our people
immigrant visas anymore,
unless the person is rich by
The unnamed
mother (the
protagonist)
The plastic file of
documents under
the protagonist’s
arm (p.126)
Ugonna’s gunshot
wound: “the splash
on his chest so red
she wanted to
scold him for
playing with palm
oil in the
kitchen”(p.127)
The soldier
smashing a man’s
spectacles (p.127)
The soldiers’
swinging whips in
the embassy line
(p.128)
The protagonist’s
Violence;
immigrant
experience; agency
‘The
Shivering’
Ukamaka (lack
agency);
Chinedu (lack
agency)
American standards. But I hear
decision to jump
people from European countries out of the window
have no problems…”(p.134)
despite the
existence of other
[In relation to comments about options to exit the
her journalist husband’s
house (p. 133)
bravery]: “It was not bravery. It
was an exaggerated
The scar in the
selfishness”(p.136)
shape of an ‘L’
carved into the
“They had not told her, ‘You will protagonist’s
have many good children’. She
husband’s
had heard them tell that to the
forehead (p.135)
woman in front of her” (p. 138)
The ixora flowers
“Her future rested on that face. the protagonist
The face of a person who did
wants to plant on
not know that palm oil when
Ugonna’s grave (p.
fresh was a bright, bright red
141)
and when not fresh, congealed
to a lumpy orange”(p.141)
The protagonist’s
decision to leave
the visa interview
(p.141)
“Life was a struggle with
Chinedu and
ourselves more than with a
Ukamaka meet
spear-wielding Satan” (p.143)
when Chinedu
knocks on her door
[after praying] “Then she felt
suggesting they
herself start to shiver, an
pray together
involuntary quivering of her
(p.143) and
whole body” (p.144)
Chinedu and
Ukamaka’s
“…always agreed with him
reconciliation and
about almost anything” (p.144 – visit to the Catholic
Ukamaka, in regards to her exChurch (p.166)
boyfriend Udenna)
Ukamaka’s habit of
“Us. Our country. These words
refreshing internet
united them in a common loss,
news pages (p. 142,
and for a moment she felt close 145, 146)
to him”(p.145)
Ukamaka’s photo
“…went back into his embrace,
of Udenna (p.151)
surprised by the familiar
comfort of it, certain that he
Chinedu buying
instinctively understood her
“few groceries”
crying from the relief of what
and his scouring of
had not happened and from the sale flyers (p.155)
melancholy of what could have
happened…”(p.147)
The mailbox
Immigrant
experience; malefemale
relationships;
agency
“…she had been arranging her
life around his for three
years”(Ukamaka, in regards to
Udenna p.148)
without Chinedu’s
name on it (p.162)
“I never liked hot food until I
met Udenna. I’m not even sure I
like it now” (p.151)
“’Have faith’, was like saying,
‘be tall and shapely’” (p.148)
Ukamaka feels “uneasy” when
Chinedu prays (p.143)
“’Udenna did this to you and
Udenna did that to you…Why
did you let him?’” (Chinedu,
asking Ukamaka) (p.160)
‘The
Arrangers
of
Marriage’
Chinaza
(Agatha) (for
the most part,
lacks agency);
Ofodile (Dave)
“…feel so uncertain of a future,
to lack control about what
would happen to him
tomorrow” (about Chinedu and
his expired visa, p.164)
Chinaza’s view of her new home
in America: “airless”, “musty”,
“old”, (p.167) “uncomfortable”
(p.168)
“They did not warn you of these
things when they arranged your
marriage. No mention of
offensive snoring, no mention
of houses that turned out to be
furniture-challenged
flats”(p.168)
“’It is like we won the lottery for
you!’ Aunty Ada had said”
(p.170)
“I had thanked them for finding
me a husband…I did not remind
them that I wanted to take the
JAMB exam again and try for
the university” (p.170)
“’Busy, Americans say busy, not
engaged’”(p.170)
The walls of the
house being
“uncomfortable”
with each other,
with so little
between them (p.
168)
Ofodile calling
himself ‘Dave’ and
wanting Chinaza to
be known as
‘Agatha’(p.172)
Ofodile controlling
the brand of
biscuits they buy
when Chinaza
wants to buy a
familiar brand
(p.174)
Ofodile’s rattling
car (p.175-176)
Agency; identity;
marriage; cultural
difference
“’You don’t understand how it
works in this country. If you
want to get anywhere you have
to be as mainstream as
possible.’” (p.172)
The American food
court (p.176)
The coat the colour
of “a gloomy day’s
sky” Ofodile buys
Chinaza (p.177)
“What did it matter that you
could or could not take the carts The Good
out? The point was, there were Housekeeping Allcarts”(p.175)
American cookbook
(p.179)
“They will never move forward
unless they adapt to
Chinaza’s work
America”(p.175)
permit application
“Uncle Ike would be horrified at
the thought of eating
here…there was something
humiliatingly public, something
lacking in dignity, about this
place, this open space of too
many tables and too much
food”(p.176)
Chinaza’s decision
not to leave
Ofodile yet
“[I] shook my head; she [Nia], a
black American, had chosen an
African name, while my
husband made me change mine
to an English one” (p.181)
“We spoke only English
now”(p.182)
Ofodile being married “just on
paper” without telling Chinaza
(p.185)
‘Tomorrow
is Too Far’
Unnamed
woman; Dozie;
Nonzo
“She didn’t show you, because
she said girls never plucked
coconuts”(p.188)
“You asked Grandmama why
Nonso sipped first even though
Dozie was thirteen, a year
older…Grandmama said Nonso
was her son’s only son, while
Dozie was only a nwadiana, her
The idyllic garden
(“fruits would rain
down”, “tangled in
leaves”(p.187)
The deadly snake
“tomorrow is too
far” (p.188)
The punishment
Agency; family;
gender; regret
daughter’s son”(p.188)
Rain is “silver” (p.189)
(guilt) that follows
the garden and the
snake
“She never left your room with
that laugh” [when reminiscing
about her mother’s deep laugh
when saying goodnight to
Nonso] (p.190)
The mango tree
that cracks when
struck by lightning
the summer Nonso
dies (p.189)
“You both needed Nonso to get
hurt… to make him less
loveable…Less able to take up
your space”(p.195)
The avocado tree
(191-192)
Unnamed daughter
(the protagonist)
“As though you were not there.
Sometimes she would pat your
back and say in Igbo, it’s good
you are learning, nne, this is
how you will take care of you
husband one day”(p.194)
The moment before Nnonso’s
accident: “[a]n open
moment…[with] a sky washed
clean” (p.196)
‘The
Nwamgba;
Headstron Obierika;
g Historian’ Anikwenwa
(Michael);
Afamefuna
(Grace)
“You are weeping, standing
alone under the avocado
tree”(p.197)
[description of Nwamgba]:
“sharp-tongued, headstrong
daughter who had once
wrestled her brother to the
ground” (p.199)
The waters of the
Agency; religion;
Oyi goddess (p.200) identity; cultural
imperialism
Missionaries
Slavers
Nwamgba being perceived by
the local Catholic priest as
“troublingly assertive”(p.209)
“…since people ruled over
others not because they were
better people but because they
had better guns”(p.204)
Obierika’s grasping
cousins
Anikwenwa being
baptised as
‘Michael’ (p.208)
“…the white men set up a court
in Onicha where they judged
disputes”(p.205)
The singlet and
shorts given to
‘Michael’ following
his baptism (p.209)
“…when the girls were
separated and a woman teacher
Anikwenwa
refusing to
came to teach them how to
sew, Nwambga found this silly,
in her clan girls learned how to
make pottery and boys sewed
cloth”(p.208)
“Father Shanahan told her that
Anikwenwa would have to take
an English name, because it was
impossible to be baptised with a
heathen name”(p.208)
Anikwenwa: “He disliked the
shorts and shirt that made him
sweat…being in the same class
as old men and missing out on
wrestling
matches…Anikwenwa’s attitude
to school slowly changed…the
curiosity in his eyes had
diminished…as if he had found
himself bearing the weight of a
too-heavy world. He stopped
eating her food, because, he
said, it was sacrificed to idols.
He told her to tie her wrapper
around her chest instead of her
waist, because her nakedness
was sinful.” (p.210-213)
“She felt her son slipping away
from her”(p.211)
“…a world that increasingly
made no sense” (p.212)
“Sister Maureen, told her…that
primitive tribes did not have
poetry”(p.216)
“…the book she would write
called Pacifying with Bullets: A
Reclaimed History of Southern
Nigeria” (p.217)
“Grace…who…would change
her name to Afamefuna”(p.218)
participate in his
ima mmuo
ceremony (p.210)
The Gods had
“changed”, asking
for gin instead of
palm wine (p.214)
Mgbeke (Agnes)
insisting that she
keep her clothes on
while bathing in
the sacred Oyi
waters
Nwamgba naming
Grace Afamefuna
(meaning: My
name will not be
lost)