Is it possible that Ifemelu needs to be with someone Nigerian, or does she simply need to be with Obinze?
Question: Is
it possible that Ifemelu needs to be with someone Nigerian, or does she simply
need to be with Obinze?
During
her time in the United States, Ifemelu dates men of a wide variety in backgrounds,
intellectual behaviors, and dispositions towards racial issues. She goes from an
ignorantly supportive partner in Curt who doesn’t truly understand her problems
with being black in the U.S., to Blaine who does understand this issue,
although from a different perspective as a natural born American and with
different attitudes towards progress for their race. Adichie writes these
experiences into the novel not to demonstrate how different the dating
experience is with men of different nationalities, but to show why Obinze was her
true love—because she did not need to explain herself to him. While it seems
like Ifemelu values the qualities of a fellow Nigerian the most in a
relationship due to her struggles with American men, she is simply attached to
her first love in Obinze because he understood her for who she was.
Ifemelu’s
longing to be understood by her partners evolved from her first meeting with Obinze
at Kayode’s party. Adichie expresses the self-love Ifemelu feels after speaking
with him, writing “with him, she was at ease; her skin felt as though it was
her right size” (73). Obinze is able to show Ifemelu what she desires most in a
man--the ability to make her feel comfortable with herself. She is attracted to
this feeling of self-acceptance so much that she tells Obinze that she loves
him after their first conversation (76). During her relationships with Curt and
Blaine, Ifemelu is in a constant struggle to find this feeling of comfortability.
With Curt, their racial differences become too hard to overcome due to Curt’s
ignorance about Ifemelu’s woes as a black woman, and his past relationships do
not correlate with his relatively peculiar attraction to Ifemelu for his social
status and wealth. And with Blaine, their disagreements on what her blog should
be and how she should use her voice to advocate for change brings a restriction
on Ifemelu’s individualism that brought her fortune prior to their relationship
(427). Ifemelu does not end her relationships with Americans because they are not
Nigerian enough, she ends them because they do not bring her the feeling of
self-fulfillment that Obinze did.
What interests me about the question is it implies we always search for people of the same nationality as our own for love. I really enjoy the TV show 90 Day Fiancé—the premise being an American and their lover from another country get 90 days to decide if they want to get married and if they do, the foreigner gets to stay in America. The show receives a lot of ridicule, however, from the dramatic storylines that come from the couples and criticism over whether the love is real or if the American is being used for citizenship. It begs the question to what extent is exploiting international love morally decent and what impact does it have on viewers’ interpretations of foreigners uniting with their lovers in the U.S.?
ReplyDeleteI agree with this post and would say that it does a great job tying in the American boyfriends and their contrasting differences and using their differences as reasons for why Obinze is the right person for her and not some Nigerian man. The contrast between Curt and Blaine really gives us the position to say that she tried both ends of the spectrum with Curt being extremely dense and Blaine over analyzing everything. Blaine seemed like a compatible boyfriend for Ifemelu, but he never really understood her and always tried to change her; for example when he tried changing the blog: “‘I don’t want to explain, I want to observe,’”(Adichie 386).The complete difference between the two made her realize that only Obinze was right for her. This post has strengthened my view on the novel and that Obinze is the right person for Ifemelu. I would also like to add that when Fred, the Nigerian that lived in America, asks her to go for drinks she simply brushes it off and goes home.(Adichie 505) Ifemelu leads us to believe that when a Nigerian man who is intellectual, not corrupt, and respectful tries to court Ifemelu she does not fall for him and instead keeps trying to get back together with Obinze. This interaction with Fred gives us better insight that she is not in Love with Obinze because he is Nigerian but because he is Obinze.
I want to start by saying how much your blog post enlightened me. Your post was very thorough and thoughtfully constructed. That being said, I agree with your main argument. Adichie intentionally portrays the idea that Ifemelu finds a sense of understanding and comfort with Obinze, but can never seem to find this feeling of belonging again with any other man in America. Your post discusses how the main issue seen between Ifemelu and her previous partners was a lack of understanding and communication. In Curt’s case, it was not that he did not want to respect or support her as a Nigerian woman in America, but that he simply never could. Adichie makes it clear that for Ifemelu, a relationship with Curt could never work due to the extreme cultural differences they have (364). For Blaine on the other hand, as someone who shares some of the racial inequities Ifemelu has to deal with, one might think that the relationship would succeed. Yet, the relationship inevitably ends because Blaine pushes Ifemelu to feel the same passion towards political and social issues (387). While he feels that these issues are important to discuss as a black American, she does not always agree with him. This led you to claim that Ifemelu loves Obinze not because he is Nigerian, but because he understands her person. However, I slightly disagree. In both relationships with Curt and Blaine, it was their ignorance, whether intentional or not, of Nigerian culture that kept Ifemelu from feeling the way she felt with Obinze. Could being Nigerian not help some of the relationship issues that occurred between Ifemelu and other American men? Ifemelu didn’t have to explain herself or her reasonings to Obinze because he already understood her background and ideologies that originated in Nigeria. To me, I feel that this connection between the two of them allows Ifemelu to be able to speak her mind without worrying about how her tone or mannerisms will be seen through the eyes of an American. It is because Obinze is Nigerian that Ifemelu realizes how much she wants to be with him. Nonetheless, this blog post was truly informative and really helped me see Ifemelu’s views of men in a clearer way.
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