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A full bodied, MLA format and cited paper about The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie....

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Ornellas 1

Dominic Ornellas Intro to Literature 170 Group 2- Sam Foley Paper One- Adichie When I first started reading The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the thing that stood out to me most was how she integrated multiple different cultures into her stories; Some of which are aggressive towards each other, into a beautiful story with loss, but also friendship and compassion. In “A Private Experience”, Chika comes face to face with a Hausa Muslim woman of a completely different background. I relate to this story because Chika was witness to religious differences and violence that I never thought possible. Except for my childhood friend Bahador, he lived in Iran and experienced such violence every day. Now after reading this, I can sympathize with his hardships and can explain my argument as to why I can better understand religious difference and violence after having read this story.

“A Private Experience” was my favorite story and it interested me for a variety of reasons; the story itself had elements of love, loss, as well as others that will be explained later. All of which are key essentials to have in a good story, during “A Private Experience” our main protagonist Chika is visiting her aunt in Kano with her sister Nnedi; They are in the marketplace buying oranges and groundnuts, but when the riot breaks out due to religious conflict and violence, she loses her sister in the crowd. We find out that she will never find her sister again“She will tape copies of photos on the walls of the market and the nearby stores. She will not find Nnedi. She will never find Nnedi.” (47) This is a great example of elements of love and loss

Ornellas 2 in the story, she cared about her sister with all her heart, a sister who she loved and went to the University of Lagos with, demonstrated in democratic rallies against General Abacha, and lived with all her life. But she will never find her other half.

In “A Private Experience” Chika experiences conflict and companionship in the face of religious violence. Because of this she is forced to hide in an abandoned shop no larger than a walk-in closet with a Hausa Muslim woman of a completely different background. During this they make casual conversation about the family members they lost in the riot, their professions, as well as the brutality happening outside the shop. Even though Chika and the Muslim woman are from the two opposite religions that are currently fighting, they still show each other kindness and compassion; An example of this is when the Muslim woman reveals her breasts to Chika because they are in pain from recently having a baby- “Burning- burning like pepper,” she says, cupping her breasts and leaning towards Chika, as though in an offering.” (49). Another example of this is when Chika attempts to leave and search for her sister, but cuts herself accidentally while running back after seeing a mutilated corpse. “Your leg. There is blood,” the woman says, a little wearily. She wets one end of her scarf at the tap and cleans the cut on Chika’s leg, then ties the wet scarf around it, knotting it at the calf.” (54) But even with the compassion they show each other, the underlying element is religious difference and violence. This is because they are both witness to countless burned, mutilated corpses when they finally leave the shop, mentally scarring Chika, as well as the fact that Chika never finds her sister. An example of this is when Chika attempts to leave the shop for the first time- “She almost doesn’t see it, walks so close to it that she feels its heat. The body must have been very recently burned. The smell is sickening, of roasted flesh, unlike that of any she has ever smelled.” (53) These experiences as well as the one

Ornellas 3 when Chika and her aunty are searching for Nnedi later in the police car (53,54) are proof that the most prominent element of this story is religious difference and violence.

Now that I’ve read this story and had this experience, I am better able to interpret and sympathize with experiences I had with a childhood friend. When I was in elementary school I had a friend named Bahador that lived across the street from me; We would hang out together almost every day, he would constantly tell me stories about his life in Iran before he moved to Washington. He told me about how he and his family were Sunni Muslim, and how they lived day to day with Shi’i Muslims that were disrespectful to one another. He had to use different dialect to greet people or risk being yelled at and beaten. A few years ago, he went to visit family that was still living in Iran, and he had to leave his iPhone behind; This is because there were regular militia that patrolled the streets and if they were to search him (which they frequently did), they would confiscate his phone and most likely charge him with a crime he didn’t commit. This was common, common enough for Bahador to stop making seasonal visits to Iran, and to disconnect him from his family, purely because of religious difference and violence.

At the time, I could never understand how two groups of people from the same area with the same language could be so hostile to one another. It was unreal, that was until I read “A Private Experience” by Adichie and was able to see a deeper meaning to the violence and conflict between the two groups. The same religious difference and violence that Bahador faced, was also experienced by the main protagonist in the story, Chika. This correlation of experiences, and the similarity between the two was capable of allowing me to sympathize with Bahador, to feel what he felt, even if not to the same extent. It’s an experience that changed how I see the

Ornellas 4 world, that within everything there is good and evil, but with great passion for ones cause the lines between the two can slant, and even disappear.

Ornellas 5 Works Cited Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. “A Private Experience.” The Thing Around Your Neck, designed by Gott, Wesley. Anchor Books, 2009, p. 43-56....