Americanah: Coming Home
Because of the breadth of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Americanah, one could say it is “about” a multitude of things: race, family, the American dream, belonging, class divide, the African diaspora, and growing up. But I think it is first and foremost, a love story between Ifemulu and Obinze.
Ifemulu falls in love with Obinze when they are in highschool in Nigeria together. She is instantly drawn to his kindness, his quiet manner, and his honesty. Before we are even introduced to his character, Ifemulu narrates that he was the great love of her life. Ifemulu has a few relationships during her adult life throughout the novel. Obinze was her first love, but she has meaningful relationships after their separation that come close, but never seem to replace, what she and Obinze had. Two of her most serious relationships after Obinze include Curt, a rich white man who she meets at her first job in America and Blaine, a high-culture academic she has a sparkling first meeting with on a bus ride.
Ifemulu’s journey of personal growth and discovery tracks with her romantic relationships. With Curt, Ifemulu finds comfort, ease, and security. After struggling to pay the bills when she first arrives in America, she experiences luxury for the first time, taking frequent vacations first class, going to the farmer’s market, storing her clothes in his walk-in closet, enjoying the finest things in life. He even pulls some strings to get her her first real job. But with the lightness and ease of their relationship, Ifemulu feels that Curt does not fully understand her. In some ways he is protective and acutely aware of the discrimination she faces, but in other ways, completely blind. They come from too different of worlds, and in the end Ifemulu cheats on him, irreparably destroying their relationship. At first she doesn’t know why she does it but she gets a feeling like there is something else out there for her, as the text states, “She did not know what it was but there was something wrong with her. A hunger, a restlessness. An incomplete knowledge of herself. The sense of something farther, beyond her reach” (Adichie 358). Ifemulu feels that she does not know herself fully, and that there is something greater to be gained ahead. In the same way she is still getting to know herself and gaining her balance in a new country and a new culture, she finds herself in a relationship with someone who doesn’t know her and can’t give her what she wants, and so she tears it up and starts over.
Ifemulu first meets Blaine, a political science professor, on a bus ride, and she is immediately struck by him. They have a promising first encounter, but nothing comes of it. Almost ten years later, she meets him again in Washington D.C. at a convention, and soon after they start dating. When she meets Blaine again, she has quit her desk job and has successfully grown her blog on her own, leading her to give diversity talks at conventions and at prestigious universities. She is finding her place in the world and achieves real success. Her relationship with Blaine is strong, but she feels that she doesn’t quite belong in his world. His friends are academic and well-educated, and have rousing and provocative discussions over socio-political conflicts over dinner, and are united by a hope in Obama’s election. But Ifemulu always feels that Blaine thinks he is above her, he is obsessed with the principles of things, in things being right and true and places himself as the arbiter of such principles. They also come from different cultural backgrounds. Ifemulu is a Nigerian woman who has immigrated to America, while Blaine is African-American, and has been raised and well-versed in American culture and ideas. Ifemulu breaks it off when she realizes she needs to go back home to Nigeria. Even though she had been in America for thirteen years and has found success there, she still feels out of place and longs to return home. As it says in the text, “Nigeria became where she was supposed to be, the only place she could sink her roots into without the constant urge to tug them out and shake off the soil” (Adichie 8). The restlessness she feels in America, and the disconnection she feels in her relationship with Blaine, culminate in her returning to Lagos and eventually, reuniting with Obinze.
It is when Ifemulu is reunited with her family and her culture that she falls in love with Obinze again. Ifemulue narrates of their rekindled romance, “she felt truly alive, her heart beat faster when he arrived at her door, and she viewed each morning like the unwrapping of a gift,” and continues, “This was love, to be eager for tomorrow. Had she felt this way as a teenager?” (Adichie 553). The love she feels for Obinze is even stronger after her time away from him in America, and in his time in the UK. Only after Ifemulu undergoes her trials of life in America and realizes how much home means to her, does she fully drop her guard and let Obinze back into her life after years of silence and separation. What Ifemulu had been searching for in America, a sense of belonging, security, family, and being fully known and understood, she finds only in Obinze, after searching for it in a foreign place and with relationships with people whose worlds she will never fully know. In this way, Americanah is one of the grandest and most sweeping love stories, it takes the two highschool sweethearts years of silence and thousands of miles of distance to finally end up together, more in love than ever in a place they both call home. Americanah is told primarily through Ifemulu’s point of view, and it shows that she must first become independent and grow as a person before she can fall back in love with Obinze. When they were young, they left Nigeria in pursuit of the American dream, where they believed they would have it easier and would be prosperous. But they both struggled and fought their way to independence, and while they gained some things in America, they realized, simply put, what they didn’t want to fill their time with. Only after both of them have completed their journeys and realized what they want out of life can they be together and be happy.
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