Nneka Arimah's What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky

“Wild” is one of the twelve short stories of Lesley Nneka Arimah’s collection “What It Means When a Man Falls From The Sky.” This engaging short story is about rebellious Ada and how she learns the hard way that her behavior is immature and unbecoming. As readers, we learn that what children really need is unconditional love and acceptance of their raw personality by watching how the opposite plays out through this story. Looking through the lens of Reader-Response Criticism, we learn from examining the characters, theme, setting, plot, and point of view that pushing children to be perfect and obedient, can many times make them cripple under the pressure.
To start off, this story is meant to discuss that just because a child goes to the ‘right’

school and gets all the ‘right’ things, doesn't mean they will turn out perfect. The main character, Ada, we soon learn is both round and dynamic. We know this because she does a great deal of changing throughout the story; she is a very realistic character. In the beginning of the story, Ada thinks of herself as mature and clever, but after going to the fundraising party, she admits that she actually has a lot of growing up to do, “I’d never felt as much as a child as I did just now” (Arimah 44). We watch Ada grow up a bit throughout the story as she bonds with Chinyere’s son, Jonathan and also as she learns from the results of her careless mistakes.
In an interesting book review by Amy Weiss-Meyer who’s a longtime editor of The Atlantic, Weiss-Meyer mentioned how Arimah is interested in generational shifts, especially those of mother and daughter (Weiss-Meyer).

We see these mother-daughter relationships often in Arimah’s stories and a main focus in ”Wild.” So much of this story is about the interactions and inflictions of the two mother and daughter relationships shown in this story, that of Ada and her mom and then that of Chinyere and her mom, Ugo. Arimah likes to mix things up and give us an un-rosy picture of the mother-daughter relationships by having the two not see eye to eye. Auntie Ugo’s frustration with Chinyere really shows through as we hear her conversation with Ada, “‘You know, we did everything for that girl, everything. The best schools, the best everything.’” (Arimah

31)
The setting is also very important because it’s mostly set in Nigeria. This makes a big impact because there are different things someone would come across in Nigeria, such as heavier sexism and stricter gender roles. An ebook article about gender roles in Nigeria by Ronke Iyabowale Ako-Nai, who is known by his writings of his African homeland, conveys that a main focus of daily life there is the belief that men are naturally superior to women (Ako-Nai). In Nigeria and other African countries, women are seen to have two goals: to be a good, obedient wife and to raise good, obedient children. This concept is seen often in “Wild” because Ada and Chinyere’s mothers are both determined to turn them into a perfect, obedient daughters. With both of these mothers’ Nigerian background, they don’t want to accept that some people are more passionate and spirited than others; that not all girls can be perfect, obedient angels. With their mothers’ pressure to be ‘good,’ Ada and Chinyere turn the other way and refuse to conform to their mothers expectations.
To add to this, plot is another important literary aspect.

The beginning parts of “Wild” introduces us to the characters, we get to know Ada’s rebellious nature. As we learn more about her recklessness and carefree personality we get excited for what’s to come later in the story. The plot builds suspense when we expect Chinyere to be a perfect daughter and member to society after hearing Ada’s mockery of her mother’s praise, “Chinyere was such a sweet girl; Chinyere went to church, so why couldn’t I; Chinyere was so obedient” (Arimah 27). After reading this, we imagine Ada and Chinyere differing personalities and imagine what the rest of the story will be about. However, when we first find out that Chinyere is just as reckless as Ada after reading, “Chinyere explained that her mother didn’t allow her to have a mobile anymore and she wasn’t allowed to go anywhere or do anything” (Arimah 23), we are pleasantly

surprised.
When Ada meets Chinyere she is super surprised to learn that Chinyere is just as rebellious as she is. She isn’t the perfect person she expected her to be. We soon learn that Chinyere seems to be envious of Ada after reading Chinyere’s jealousy mocking Ada’s relationship with her mom, “‘Her mom’ -- She imitated my punctuation poorly-- ‘gets angry with her and buys her clothes’” (Arimah 33).
On The Rumbus, fiction writer and graduate of the MFA University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Maggie Cooper, interviews Armiah on her collection of short stories. Cooper relays that Arimah enjoys playing out difficult questions in her works, such as what if a child is disliked by her parents?(Cooper) We first learn that Chinyere and her mom don’t have a good relationship after Ada noticed the tension between the two and wonders, ”I thought of what it would feel like to have my mother despise me, to have utter disappointment at the center of our relationship” (Arimah 37). She sees the answer to her question play out as she watches and feels Chinyere’s pain as she and her mother interact throughout the rest of the story. Arimah also asks the rhetorical question in interview with Cooper, “How many times can a child be disappointing?” (Cooper). We soon see that Chinyeres mother is so disappointed with Chinyere that she is just fed up, how many times can Chinyere mess up until she pushes her mother over the edge?
In the last scene when Chinyere comes back home after her mother, Ugo, finds out that she left Ada behind at the party, we see just how furious Ugo is with Chinyere, “I pulled away from the window once more. This wasn’t a memory I wanted” (Arimah 53). Ada’s mother expected Chinyere to be a good influence on Ada and even though she is just as rebellious, she ends up posing as an example of what Ada’s life could look like later down the road. Chinyere, as well as Chinyere’s relationship with her mother, is a wake-up call for Ada. Ada didn’t want to see herself in the same position Chinyere is in now. Ada figures that this could very easily be her future if her immature behavior continues, “I wanted to tell her about Auntie Ugo and Chinyere, how it seemed they would come to blows any minute, and how even at our most contentious we had never been like that” (Arimah 35). In the end, Ada does learn, like her mother wanted.
After agreeing to an article written by the newly-discovered author and editor of The Village Voice, Jonathan Durbin, Durbin states that “Arimah’s extraordinary ability to convey imagined experience [gives] her readers an emotional understanding of her characters’ struggles” (Durbin). All of Arimah’s stories are fiction, but she makes them so unique and detailed that they feel like they have happened or that she is speaking from experience. Wild is told through first person, through Ada. This first person point of view really does allows us into the world of Ada including all of her ups and downs. It gives us, as readers, that personal perspective of a shared memory that brings us into the story with the main character as if we were there ourselves. The embarrassment of how Ada’s reckless behavior led to her spilling Chinyeres beans, “I was quick to answer, caution dulled by the wine and eager to clap back to the insult I expected to hear. ‘Jonathan.’” made me turn red-faced as if I made the mistake myself.
In an article by Scott Russell Sanders, an American novelist and author to more than twenty books, and who is now a Professor Emeritus of English at Indiana University, Sanders explained that a important power of stories is that they help us see the consequences of our actions (Sanders). I think Ada’s mother actually knows Chinyere better than she leads on, that she is rebellious and her actions had consequences, ones that Ada could learn from before she gets herself in a similar rut.
The author is trying to say through this story two things; first, that if you push children to be a certain way, many times they will cripple under the pressure and rebel against it. Sometimes the pressured adolescents will end up turning into what you tried to steer them away from. And second, sometimes you don't see yourself clearly until someone similar is standing right in front of you.
After being apart of so many uncomfortable situations since her stay in Nigeria, Ada understands Chinyeres actions, but even more she understands her pain. She understands how much Chinyere wants to break-free from her chains of shame and condemnation. This comfort we feel as we read, “Chinyere settled for leaning her head on my shoulder, stiff at first, then relaxing into it. I curled my arm around her. When I felt her tears on my neck, I tightened my grip” (Arimah 54), gives us the idea that Ada’s comforting is due to her understanding Chinyere’s agony and also due to her desire to not see herself in a similar predicament.
After examining the literary aspects of Arimah’s ”Wild” while looking through the lens of Reader-Response Criticism, we have learned as readers that Chinyere’s and Ada’s rebellious behaviors are due to the pressure they feel from their mothers to be perfect. Since Ada’s stay in Nigeria, she learned so much from watching, learning from, and being there for Chinyere. Ada learned that actions have consequence and that her rebellious behavior needs to change or else her future could look a lot like Chinyere’s. Also, as readers, we learned that being accepting of people’s raw personality and allowing them room to grow has a big impact on children by reading “Wild” and watching where the opposite took us, down the road of rebellion. There is a such thing as too much pressure.