Story 10: The Arrangers of Marriage

On today's story review of The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, we're looking at story 10 titled The Arrangers of Marriage.

Mehnnnnn!

Just like the title suggests, the story follows Chinaza, a young Nigerian woman whose aunt and uncle arrange a marriage for her with a doctor living in America. After only a few weeks of getting to know him, she packs her bags and moves across the world to begin a new life.

Only, that new life turns out to be very different from what she imagined, what struck me most wasn't even the marriage itself, it was her husband.

From changing his Igbo name to Dave Bell, to correcting the way Chinaza spoke, to rejecting anything that connected him to Nigeria, it felt like he was constantly trying to prove he wasn't who he really was.

At some point, I found myself thinking, "Oga, rest Na"

And I think that's what made the story so interesting.

While Chinaza is trying to adjust to a new country, Dave is trying to erase the old one from himself entirely.

Thinking about it, I realised that the "arrangers of marriage" weren't just the aunt and uncle who planned Chinaza's future, they represented all the people who make life altering decisions for others and expect gratitude in return.

Because that's the tricky thing about being indebted to people, sometimes saying no feels like committing a crime.

But I also think there was another arranger in this story. Dave! He wasn't trying to arrange a marriage though, he was trying to arrange an identity, deciding which parts of himself and his wife were acceptable and which parts needed to be left behind.

This story made me think about how much of ourselves we're willing to change to belong somewhere, and at what point adaptation becomes erasure.

@favvy_Okwans🖤.