How Does Adichie Create Stereotypes In Americah

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“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tells the story of a young girl, named Ifemelu and the experiences she faced when moving to the United States from Nigeria and then moving back Nigeria. Throughout the book the reader gets to read about her encounters with love and race. Starting with Ifemelu’s relationship with Obinze in Nigeria. Ifemelu thought that she had everything, she was getting a college education and could spend all day with her boyfriend. Until she decides to move to America so she could get a proper education. Strikes against
This new difference plays a part in Ifemelu’s experience when her roommates asked of she wanted to go eat with them. “... they often said, ‘Let’s go get some,’ about whatever they needed … as though this getting was not an act that required money. She was used, at home, to people first asking ‘Do you have money?’ before they made such plans (Ngozi 157).” If Ifemelu had a different experience in Nigeria she could have related to the people she was surrounded around. Another time her identity affected her immigrant experience is having to work. Ifemelu had to pretend to be someone else so she could get a job which gave her something else to be worried about it since she shouldn’t have been working, seeing that she only had a student visa.
These parts of Ifemelu’s identity not only affect Ifemelu’s immigrant experience but they also change the course of her life. For example if she never needed money she would have not went to the tennis coach’s house. And if she hadn’t went to the tennis coach’s house and have given him that “massage” she would have never felt the way she did feel after. Then she would have never ignored

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