Perspectives
Literary Movement
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story “The Arrangers of Marriage” can be considered an example of feminist fiction.
The story presents Chinaza, who is an intelligent young woman that obeys tradition but also wants to escape an average life by furthering her studies and making her own money. Adichie makes Chinaza the main character but also the first-person narrator. In this way, she also gives value to the female perspective.
There are also gender-based expectations present in the story. A good example is how Chinaza describes Nia in relation to the norms that her family has: “Aunty Ada would call her an ashawo, because of the see-through top she wore so that her bra, a mismatched shade, glared through. Or Aunty Ada would base her prostitute judgement on Nia’s lipstick, a shimmery orange”. This reflects how people who obey traditional norms sometimes think that a woman should act in a certain way.
The expectations can also be analyzed when looking at Chinaza’s character. She is meant to obey her husband, cook for him and even adapt to a lifestyle that she doesn’t like.
Works with the same theme or by the same author
Another important work by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the short story “The Thing Around Your Neck”. Like “The Arrangers of Marriage” this story also presents a Nigerian woman, Akunna who moves to America and gets into a relationship with a white man. Akunna, like Chinaza also suffers a cultural shock because she is not used to the American culture.
A short story that is quite similar to “The Arrangers of Marriage” is Susmita Bhattacharya’s “Dusk over Atlantic Wharf”. Like “The Arrangers of Marriage” the story also presents the life of a woman who leaves her home country after an arranged marriage. The main character, Lata, leaves Mumbai to join her husband in Cardiff. When you analyze the two stories you could discuss how the husbands have tried to adopt the identity of their new country and how the two female characters are affected by loneliness and homesickness....
