You Can’t Have Both Life is full of compromises. While we have been raised from birth to believe that with hard work and a little bit of luck, we can have anything we want in this world. The bitter reality, however, is that compromising in life is inevitable. In life we must choose between things constantly, family or a fulfilling career, passionate love or the security of a long-time marriage. While we learn to expect this, in life there are often compromises which we are forced to make. Compromises with regards to who we are that we simply have no control over, compromises that those around us make for us. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Americanah examines the issue of such unintended compromises. While the ending to Adichie’s
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Several characters in the book struggle greatly with solidifying their own identities pertaining to race and nationality. Dike in particular struggles with defining his own background and identity. Being a Nigerian-born boy, raised in America by a strongly Nigerian woman, and attending a predominantly white school, Dike finds it difficult to walk the line between being Nigerian-American and being American black. Dike feels very out of place at school, and he is even singled out due to his race by the administration. After someone hacks into the school’s computer network, Dike is the first one to receive the blame, despite him having no advanced computer knowledge. Dike says to Ifemelu: “You have to blame the black kid first” (Adichie 433). While Dike laughs at this at first, seeming to take it as a joke. It becomes obvious alter on that incidents like this only further Dike’s low self-esteem and difficulty shaping an identity for himself. Later Dike confides in Ifemelu, telling her just how out of place he feels at school. Dike says: “I feel like I have vegetables instead of ears, like large broccoli sticking out of my head…” (Adichie 433). To his peers, Dike is just a black kid, and not a Nigerian-American. Yet when Dike tries to embrace his being black, he is met with hostility from his mother at home. Aunty Uju wants Dike to be a true Nigerian boy, but this …show more content…
Yet these issues are remarkably similar in the fact that the character’s experiencing them have no clear solution or any solution at all. Obinze’s dilemma on choosing between romantic love and his love of his daughter has no true solution. Obinze either must choose one and leave a part of his life unfulfilled, or try to compromise between the two and try to find a sense of balance. Dike, on the other hand, would like nothing better than to be able to choose his racial identity. Yet he is unable to do this because he is being relayed such conflicting messages. His friends and peers at school see him as American black, while his mother sees him as Nigerian and forces him to reject any sense of identification Dike feels with American black people. Dike’s compromises are forced upon him, he is either black or Nigerian in the eyes of those around him at the given time. Both Dike and Obinze’s experiences bring the reader back to the same conclusion, that in life compromising is inevitable. Everyone will one day be forced to choose between things that they love, and sometimes we may be forced to compromise all
Several characters in the book struggle greatly with solidifying their own identities pertaining to race and nationality. Dike in particular struggles with defining his own background and identity. Being a Nigerian-born boy, raised in America by a strongly Nigerian woman, and attending a predominantly white school, Dike finds it difficult to walk the line between being Nigerian-American and being American black. Dike feels very out of place at school, and he is even singled out due to his race by the administration. After someone hacks into the school’s computer network, Dike is the first one to receive the blame, despite him having no advanced computer knowledge. Dike says to Ifemelu: “You have to blame the black kid first” (Adichie 433). While Dike laughs at this at first, seeming to take it as a joke. It becomes obvious alter on that incidents like this only further Dike’s low self-esteem and difficulty shaping an identity for himself. Later Dike confides in Ifemelu, telling her just how out of place he feels at school. Dike says: “I feel like I have vegetables instead of ears, like large broccoli sticking out of my head…” (Adichie 433). To his peers, Dike is just a black kid, and not a Nigerian-American. Yet when Dike tries to embrace his being black, he is met with hostility from his mother at home. Aunty Uju wants Dike to be a true Nigerian boy, but this …show more content…
Yet these issues are remarkably similar in the fact that the character’s experiencing them have no clear solution or any solution at all. Obinze’s dilemma on choosing between romantic love and his love of his daughter has no true solution. Obinze either must choose one and leave a part of his life unfulfilled, or try to compromise between the two and try to find a sense of balance. Dike, on the other hand, would like nothing better than to be able to choose his racial identity. Yet he is unable to do this because he is being relayed such conflicting messages. His friends and peers at school see him as American black, while his mother sees him as Nigerian and forces him to reject any sense of identification Dike feels with American black people. Dike’s compromises are forced upon him, he is either black or Nigerian in the eyes of those around him at the given time. Both Dike and Obinze’s experiences bring the reader back to the same conclusion, that in life compromising is inevitable. Everyone will one day be forced to choose between things that they love, and sometimes we may be forced to compromise all