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A Stylistic Analysis Of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck
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1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This work will make use of
Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck as its primary source. A stylistic
analysis shall be done to know how the writer has been able to
manipulate language to achieve certain effects. This analysis shall be
conducted using the following elements of stylistics, graphology,
morphology, phonology, syntax, lexico-semantics and point of view.
1.5 JUSTIFICATION
A study of this nature is important as it helps us to know how language
contributes to meaning generation in Adichie’s The Thing Around Your
Neck which has qualified the book published in 2009, to win various
prizes. Since a literary work cannot be complete without an effective
use of language, it is significant to study how Adichie has employed
language to create stylistic effects.
This work will
expand the frontiers of knowledge. It will make a place in the body of
knowledge and help upcoming researchers to understand how Adiche has
employed stylistic devices in her text.
1.6 METHODOLOGY
This research will adopt a functional approach, an approach where
particular note is taken of the stylistic function, effect and thematic
significance of linguistic features in a literary text.
The essay will study the society created by the writer through the
character and situations in the text. The Thing Around Your Neck will
serve as the primary source. There will also be reliance on secondary
materials such as text books, stylistics dictionary and internet
sources.
1.7 THE AUTHOR
Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie was born in 1977 in Enugu, Nigeria. She studied medicine and
pharmacy at the University of Nigeria then moved to the US to study
communications and political science at Eastern Connecticut State
University. She obtained an MA in creative writing from Johns Hopkins
University, Baltimore.
After initially writing poetry and
one play, For the love of Biafra (1998), she wrote several short
stories published in literary journals. She has won various competition
prizes. The first novel Purple Hibiscus was published in 2003 and is set
in the political turmoil of 1990’s Nigeria. The narrative was told from
the perspective of a 15-year-old Kambili Achike. Purple Hibiscus won
the 2005 commonwealth writers prize (overall winner, best book) and was
shortlisted for the 2004 orange prize for fiction. Her second novel,
Half of a Yellow Sun 2006 was set before and during the Biafra war. It
won the 2007 orange broadband prize for fiction.
Her latest book is
a collection of short stories; The Thing Around Your Neck (2009),
shortlisted for the 2009 John Llewellyn-Rhys Memorial prize and the 2010
commonwealth writers prize (Africa Region, Best Book). Chimamanda lives
between Nigeria and the United States
1.8 DATA DESCRIPTION
In
the novel published in 2009, the writer turns her penetrating eye on
not only Nigeria but America, in twelve dazzling stories that explore
the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the
United states with a few telling details that do not portray one culture
superior to the other.
In “A private experienceâ€, a
medical student hides from a violent riot with a poor Muslim woman whose
dignity and faith force her to confront the realities and fears she has
been pushing away. In “Tomorrow is too farâ€, a woman unlocks the
devastating secret that surrounds her brother’s death. In “Imitationâ€, a
young mother finds her comfortable life in Philadelphia threatened when
she learns that her husband has moved his mistress into their home in
Lagos. “The Thing Around Your Neck†depicts the choking loneliness of a
Nigerian girl who moves to America that turns out to be nothing like the
country she expected though falling in love brings her desires nearly
within reach, a death in her homeland forces her to re-examine them.
“Searing
and profound, Suffused with beauty, sorrow and longing, the collision
of two cultures and the deep human struggle to reconcile themâ€. The
Thing Around Your Neck according to the back cover of the book, “is a
resounding confirmation of the prodigious literary powers of one of our
most essential writersâ€
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