https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i4.092
Negotiating Belonging: Manifestations of Alienation and Anxiety in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah
SHEKINAH ELCY M
Research Scholar of English (Reg. No: 2511214022002)
PG and Research Department of English
Nazareth Margoschis College at Pillaiyanmanai, Nazareth
(Affiliated to Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Abishekapatti, Tirunelveli–627012, Tamil Nadu, India)
Email: shekinahelcy@gmail.com
DR. J. MARY STELLA
Research Supervisor and Assistant Professor
PG and Research Department of English
Nazareth Margoschis College at Pillaiyanmanai, Nazareth
(Affiliated to Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Abishekapatti, Tirunelveli–627012, Tamil Nadu, India)
Email: stellaponraj2008@gmail.com
Abstract: This paper examines the multifaceted manifestations of alienation and anxiety in immigrants’ lives as embodied in Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This paper argues that alienation and anxiety are orchestrated as adapting and progressing condition shaped by both internal conflicts and external structures like linguistic adaptations, racialization, socio-economic instability, professional instability, cultural dislocation, identity crisis and psychological fragmentation. Characters negotiate belonging, but it eventually results in fragmented identities and a persistent sense of unbelonging both in foreign and native land. It also indicates the psychological aspects of immigrants’ lives through anxiety. Through a close examination of lead characters, the study substantiates the experience of an incessant sense of inbetweenness in immigrants’ lives, identities that are neither ingrained in their homeland nor assimilated in a foreign land. Moreover, this paper explores how symbols such as language and hair function as both experienced and contested sites of alienation and anxiety. It also underlines the paradox of return, disclosing that the homeland itself becomes uncongenial. Eventually, this paper claims that Americanah defines alienation and anxiety as a volatile process that simultaneously reconstructs and disrupts identity; it offers a nuanced view of the elusive nature of belonging. This research paper employs postcolonial theories by Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Frantz Fanon, Homi K. Bhabha, W. E. B. Du Bois and Stuart Hall.
Keywords: Immigrants, Anxiety, Alienation, identity, Belonging
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