The Thing Around Your Neck

Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 2009

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“The Thing Around Your Neck”Chapter Summaries & Analyses

“The Thing Around Your Neck” Summary

Told in second person, the main character, a woman named Akunna, has “won the American visa lottery” and is leaving Lagos to go stay with her uncle in America (102). He lives in Maine, and he tells her living in America has both pros and cons. At first, Akunna enjoys staying with her uncle, who is actually the brother of her father’s sister’s husband, and his wife and children. He then attempts to coerce her into having sex with him, however, and Akunna leaves.

She ends up in Connecticut, working as a waitress. She can’t afford to go to school now that she is paying rent, so she reads course syllabi online and follows the reading lists. She misses home and sends money back every month. She begins to want to write letters, telling stories about waitressing, but because she can’t afford to send gifts, she does not. Lying in bed, Akunna feels a pressure around her neck. At the diner Akunna meets a white man who knows about Africa, asking her respectful questions and discussing African poetry with her. He eventually asks her out. She says no the first few times he asks but becomes scared that he’ll stop asking and says yes. They become close, and Akunna begins to share stories of her life in Lagos with him.

She begins to be uncomfortable with the differences between them. It bothers her that he goes to countries around the world to stare at the poor and brings back useless gifts to give to her. They argue over these things but make up. Akunna feels the pressure around her neck tighten. She meets his parents and likes them, appreciating how they don’t make her feel abnormal or like a prize. Afterward, her boyfriend tells her about his problems with his parents because they want him to go to law school. Akunna is frustrated by his attitude. Akunna finally writes home to her family and finds out that her father has been dead for five months. Her boyfriend buys her a ticket home, asking if she’ll come back to him. Akunna does not answer.

“The Thing Around Your Neck” Analysis

The Immigrant Experience for Akunna is from the start framed as a prize—she has, according to her family, “won the American visa lottery” (102). The shine of receiving the visa and moving to America immediately begins to fall away, revealing instead the isolation and dangers that come from leaving behind all the people and places she knows. Her near assault and subsequent displacement emphasize just how little recourse Akunna has as an immigrant: Her only option besides assault is to flee all the family she has in the US and start in a completely new town. This isolation is complicated by what Akunna feels is her role in the family now that she lives in the US. She wants to be able to send her family presents and share tales of prosperity, but due to her circumstances she feels she cannot even write to them because she does not have good news. Her feelings of failing her duty to her family and her isolation due to her immigration compound and mix, each worsening the other.

These failed expectations are further exacerbated by the cultural differences between Akunna and her boyfriend. Though Akunna enjoys some of the things they do together, she is also often deeply frustrated by his attitude, mirroring her relationship to the US itself. These differences between them increase the isolation that she feels, particularly due to their class differences and different attitudes toward family. Akunna is continually shocked at the attitude her boyfriend takes toward life, travelling instead of working, rejecting generous offers from his parents to vacation with them, and lacking ambition. His relationship with his parents is strained, to Akunna, entirely by his choice. Akunna now deals with not only physical isolation but also emotional and cultural isolation from the one she should be able to be closest to. That her boyfriend rejects advances from his parents, while Akunna’s feelings of failure prevent her from learning of her father’s death for months, highlights their different attitudes and acts as a catalyst for Akunna’s frustration in the relationship and in the US.