The Thing Around Your Neck

Kamara is a recent Nigerian immigrant to the US who works as a nanny for an American family. She develops feelings for the wife of the family, an African American artist named Tracy, becoming consumed by thoughts of acting as a nude artist’s model. Her focus on Tracy is motivated, at least partially, by her loneliness. Kamara’s experience as an immigrant is one of isolation—her husband feels distant, she is far from her friends, and she has no purpose or job. Even her experiences in America are alienating. When discussing her friend in Nigeria’s troubles she refrains from sharing her own issues because she feels she “could not complain about not having shoes when the person she was talking to had no legs” (77).

Her obsession with Tracy shows her latching on to the one person that has made her feel special. She has to hide so much of herself in America, even hiding her level of education to make Neil more comfortable. Tracy’s offer and Kamara’s fixation on it exposes her real desire—to be seen. Feeling disconnected from her husband, Kamara has no one else she is close to in the US. Even her relationship with Josh is limited by Neil’s discomfort with his affection toward her. Tracy’s offer is one of investigation and understanding. By wanting Kamara to model for her, she asserts that there is something deeper in Kamara to be discovered, and that there is someone who wants to do the discovering. Tracy’s offer, and the feelings of specialness for Kamara that come with it, lose their significance when Tracy makes the same offer to someone else.

Ujunwa is a young Nigerian writer who has recently lost her job and is attending an African writers workshop in South Africa. She is observant and solitary, immediately sizing up the others at the workshop and trying to parse their characters. She sorts the others around her into categories, able to identify and parse personality traits and life experiences into quick sketches. Ujunwa is humorous as well and is able to adeptly tease Edward’s wife for her ridiculous insistence that Ujunwa is so beautiful that she must be descended from nobility. She shares this with her mother, who she tells about nearly everything that happens at the workshop. Her family relationships are complicated—she obviously loves her mother and is confused and conflicted by her father’s infidelity.

For as capable as she is in developing insights into others, Ujunwa has a hard time processing her own difficulties at the workshop, with so many of her analytical observations being directed outward. She doesn’t realize, or allow herself to realize, how upsetting Edward’s sexual comments toward her are. For as much as she keeps others at a distance initially, she requires their commiseration to accept the harassment she is facing. This makes her final confrontation with Edward particularly revealing. Out of his own self confidence and prejudice, he denies Ujunwa validation of her experiences. That she is able to cast off his understanding of her story with the admission of its autobiographical nature shows a strength and belief in her experiences and convictions.

Akunna’s commitment to duty and her care for her family define her. As she leaves for the US, she knows she is expected to make money and send back gifts, because she is the one to have received a visa and will be able to buy them “handbags and shoes and perfumes and clothes” (102). She is so devoted to her family and her duty to them that she can’t bring herself to consider disappointing them, choosing to isolate herself rather than not send them the gifts they requested. This devotion is a factor in her strained relationship with her American boyfriend. His dismissive discussion of his parents and lack of focus are anathema to Akunna’s experiences and beliefs and her commitment to her family.

Akunna is more than her dedication, however. She is also observant and analytical. She understands herself, her desires, frustrations, and what she can manage. When her uncle attempts to assault her, she immediately takes decisive action, leaving and making sure he does not know where she is going. She is able to quickly find a job and reestablish herself, despite her unfamiliarity with the country she is in. Akunna also is aware of not only the internal tensions within her relationship, but also of the outside observers casting judgement. She catalogues people’s responses to seeing her and her boyfriend: “You knew by people’s reactions that you two were abnormal—the way the nasty ones were too nasty and the nice ones too nice” (111). She understands the world and how people work, which is part of the reason her boyfriend’s attitude can be so frustrating—the rules Akunna lives by seem to be completely relaxed for him.

Chinaza is the narrator of “The Arrangers of Marriage”, and the story follows her struggles to adapt to life in her marriage and in the US. Intelligent and capable, she tries her best to make her new life tolerable despite her misgivings. She tries to behave as she has been taught a good wife behaves—cooking well, caring for her husband—but David traps her between expectations of ‘American’ behavior and her Nigerian culture. She struggles, as David seems to appreciate her cooking and evidently wanted a Nigerian bride but continues to complain or dismiss anything that doesn’t fit his vision of how people should live in America. Chinaza is constantly on the back foot, having to reevaluate all that she has been taught and prepared for.

Chinaza is also pragmatic. Though she does not want to marry David or leave Nigeria necessarily, she knows that she has few other options. She confesses to her neighbor Nia that she once loved someone else but that “he was too young and he had no money” (163). Her pragmatism is what at first makes her try to fulfill David’s edicts on behaving as an ‘American’ would, as she wants to keep the peace. When she tries to leave David, it is also her pragmatism that draws her back to him, understanding that her life will be far more difficult if she leaves him without getting papers. Chinaza does her best with her back against a wall, having no family that will accept her back in Nigeria and needing Dave to continue to live in America.