THE PERKS OF BEING ANAFRICAN WOMAN IN ADICHIE’S THE THING AROUND YOUR NECK

Abstract

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s contemporary literary works have prominently engaged with diasporic experiences, migration, and gender disparity,among other issues that fit under the umbrella of postcolonial literature. This essay aims to further explorethe representation of ‘the African woman’in three stories found in Adichie’s story collectionThe Thing Around Your Neck,namely ‘Imitation’, ‘The Thing Around Your Neck’, and ‘Jumping Monkey Hill’. Using the postcolonial concepts of double colonisation, hegemony, mimicry, ambivalence, feminism and postcolonialism,and hybridity, the essay will open a communicative dialogue with the stories by discussing the perks of being the African woman amidst the subjection and discrimination she faces. Herintersectionalexperience works as a basis for the paradoxical nature behind the burden of the African woman, which in return will extract her oppression and use it as an asset towards self-resilience, independence, and freedom. Therefore, this study revealsthe postcolonial representation of the African woman in Adichie’s stories yetembracing her resistance as she overcomes society’s prescribed intersectionality.