Task 2A: Challenges as an immigrant
For Task 2A, you are required to discuss the challenges experienced by the characters in the extract from ‘My Mother, the Crazy African’ and compare them with similar challenges experienced by characters in an English-language literary text or film you have studied.
Since we cannot choose the English-language literary text or film for you to compare with ‘My Mother, the Crazy African’, we will only give you an outline of the short story extract, present the challenges experienced by the characters, and give you some general literary references which are comparable to the text.
Outline: “My Mother, the Crazy African”
The text in Task 2A is an excerpt from the short story “My Mother, the Crazy African” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The author is a Nigerian novelist and short story writer who was educated in the United States and now spends her time in both the US and Nigeria.
The narrator-protagonist of the short story is a young girl named Ralindu, who has been living for three years with her parents in Philadelphia, United States.
The girl feels ashamed because she speaks English with an accent and prefers saying that she is from Philadelphia rather than from Nigeria.
Her mother does not understand her daughter’s perspective and compels her daughter to say that she is from Nigeria whenever she is present and someone asks her.
The girl prefers going by the name of Lin at school, because it sounds more American, although she knows that for her mother Ralindu is a beautiful Igbo name and reminds the woman of her other children who have died.
Lin has been dating Matt, a boy from her school and waits for him to come to study together at her house. Lin’s mother has a hard time understanding the friendship between girls and boys, as well as consumerist American culture.
While waiting, Lin hides the traditional food her mother has put on the table. After Matt arrives, the mother asks in Igbo how long the boy will be there, but Lin internationally delays the answer because she does not want Matt to know that she speaks Igbo well.
Challenges experienced by the characters
The excer...
