Thing Around Your Neck

What is loneliness? To some, loneliness is the need to be around other people. To others, loneliness is just another sad emotion. So how does an author successfully incorporate a tone of loneliness in their writing? For example, anyone who has read “The Thing Around Your Neck” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has likely picked up on most of the main themes of the short story: stereotypes, acceptance of one’s heritage, or even new beginnings. However, there’s an underlying sense of loneliness hidden in Adichie’s words as well. In the story, Akunna’s experience is told through the second-person, so the reader is able to step into the shoes of the main character, experiencing her story as it’s told. Second-person point of views are especially known to amplify feelings; if implemented well. Adichie’s use of a second-person narrative point of view explores an interactive theme of loneliness through Akunna’s separation from her family, being alienated from her coworkers and peers, and her feelings that constantly haunt

Akunna’s separation from her family and her home causes feelings of loneliness that wrap around her neck like a rope, closing in on her each day: “At night, something would wrap itself around your neck, something that very nearly choked you before you fell asleep” (Adichie 5). This shows that her loneliness is becoming more than just sad; it’s complete suffocation. Akunna’s loneliness is so severe that she physically feels something snake around her neck and constrict until she can barely breathe. Even more, this suffocation is something described like it happens every night, implying that this torment would continue on as long as Akunna stays lonely. Reading this particular scene through the second-person narrative creates a painful and agonizing mood; the reader is able to put themselves in Akunna’s shoes and feel her desperation and