Diego Martinez

September 17, 2021

English 211

Americanah
 Throughout our time with racism or lose of hope, we tend to make decisions that we

might regret. Americanah shows us those images in our head for example when Ifemelu was

communication with a character from registration and the character did not think that Ifemelu

knew English, we all tend to deal with something within our lives and Chimamanda Ngozi

Adichie the author of Americanah tells us her novel of what others might feel. The narrator gives

us a perspective, one that we could never forget. It shows us how much we are in common and

how we see things in a matter of crisis. Obinze is the character I am narrating for chapter 23. He

struggles to find a way to America, so he must deal with other matters.

We see Obinze’s character feeling scared for events that he shouldn’t be doing. While in

London, He meets the Angolans Family who is going to help Obinze get his green card illegally

by marrying Cliotilde, his bride-to-be. The only reason Obinze is doing it illegally is because he

is in the country illegally and needs help because he does not want to be deported back to

Nigeria. Obinze states “I just want to know that you’re sure about doing this.” (283). While

doing this, he did not know if Cliotilde was okay with what they were doing, he made sure but

after he was making sure she had said “yes”, it was not what Obinze was expecting but it was an

answer. I must wonder if she was okay with it but did not want to tell the truth, we do not see this

other side of the story, but we only see one side of it. The author of the story felt like it was

necessary to only include a troubled side of it, the story could have changed, if it did Obinze

could have been deported and would’ve never got a visa from his mother. The narrator

introduces this concern by saying “she played with her straw, shyly, not meeting his eyes…” This

statement shows to me that she wasn’t comfortable with the answer that she gave and that she

regretted doing it in the first place. The narrator doesn’t tell us the other side but gives us piece
by piece on what Cliotilde was thinking when he asked her if she was okay with the plan that

they had came up with.

When reading the novel, we see a continues order, we see it going back and forth in time

and it shows us how much every single detail was projected to show us an image. We also see

our characters emotions changing with every skip of the story, as if it was foreshadowing an

event or remembering a specific event for the reader. “The memory, clear as a light beam, took

Obinze back to a time when he still believed the universe would bend according to his will.”

(287) When the narrator stated this, it shows that there are good memories that he wished were in

his situation at the time. It also shows us a perspective that he is remembering a event that is

important to the story, it gives us an insight on how the character is feeling during a tense

situation and what they think about. We later see in the chapter that Obinze was speaking with

his mother about her handing him a six-month visa to go to London. This shows us a time

backwards in which he was having a hard time getting his visa towards America. “Maybe you

can get to America from there. I know that your mind is no longer here.” Although we see a ton

of help from his mother in the story, Obinze could have never imagined that she would give him

a visa to London to help him get back to America. There may be some details that never played

out from the narrator’s point of view, for example if something had changed with the relationship

with his mother and him after giving him the visa to go to London. I must wonder, does the

narrator tell is their point of view for a reason or does it all connect to the story with its proper

event?

While reading chapter 23 repeatedly, I feel the same energy coming back towards me,

scared and terrified. I see this type of encounters every day, whether it’s trying to go to a better

place or trying to find a good job to support someone. Obinze shows us that he does more than
what he wanted to do. The narrator took a good perspective towards his actions to give us the

right word choices to show us how Obinze is feeling. “And each time he emerged from the air-

conditioned cool of the embassy building and into the harsh sunlight, stunned and unbelieving.”

(289). Dedicated is one descriptive that the narrator shows us, they tell us that he kept returning

within the next few months to see if anything had changed. Reading that paragraph very

thoroughly I noticed he was scared to be there because of his race, America was just recovering

the events of a terrorist attack and everyone that was “different” was looked differently because

everyone was scared. Obinze’s mother says, “it’s the terrorism fears.” It had affected everyone

of color who was trying to find a better place in America, these challenges stopped everyone

from trying to pursue their dreams into the U.S. because of others seeing them very differently,

like they are a danger to society. The narrator mentions this challenge to Obinze because

everywhere someone would go there will always be a challenge to overcome and there will

sometimes be a solution to the problem or sometimes the problem will stay there without a

solution. Many narrators in books do not give enough perspective like the one in Americanah

does, giving us emotions and feelings from every character is determination, not only for the

author but also for the reader. It’s different but important at the same time. Americanah is a very

interesting book to start reading but chapter 23 focuses us on struggle’s that Obinze had.

In conclusion, we see many narrators focus on giving emotions towards their characters

but not to this extent. We see their emotions and their struggles with challenges that they came

up on, as if it was trying to get to America or seeing the fear of others because of an act of

terrorism. Narrators’ points are a great advantage to understanding the full story that they are

trying to tell. Without them we would not understand what the references are trying to say but we

would only see what is in front of us and not behind the actual meaning.