Negotiating identity in a diasporic space: a study in selected stories from Adichie’s the thing around your neck

Abstract EN

This article attempts to consider the interplay between migrant identities and the diasporic space in Adichie's collection The Thing Around Your Neck.

The analysis will be conducted with particular reference to some characters in the short stories The Thing Around Your Neck and The Arrangers of Marriage.

The purpose is to highlight how the characters grapple with two worlds and to demonstrate the resultant fragmentation of identities.

In the light of the insightful contributions of Homi Bhabha's Third Space and Vijay Mishra's the hyphen, the article traces the trials diasporic characters undergo in order to (re)form their identities in a perplexing cultural space.

Adichie's diasporic characters seem to be haunted with unresolved questions about who they are and what they want to become.