Home away from Home: Imageability and Way finding in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck
This essay explores the process of orientation in migratory space in three of the twelve stories that make up Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s collection The Thing around Your Neck— “Imitation,” “On Monday of Last Week,” and “The Thing around Your Neck”—from the perspective of Kevin Lynch’s theory of wayf...
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2023 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de Valladolid |
| Repositorio: | UVaDOC. Repositorio Documental de la Universidad de Valladolid |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:uvadoc.uva.es:10324/64160 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://doi.org/10.24197/ersjes.44.2023.11-34 https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/64160 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Filología Inglesa |
| Sumario: | This essay explores the process of orientation in migratory space in three of the twelve stories that make up Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s collection The Thing around Your Neck— “Imitation,” “On Monday of Last Week,” and “The Thing around Your Neck”—from the perspective of Kevin Lynch’s theory of wayfinding, developed in his work on urban spaces The Image of the City. The analysis of how gender and class affect the female protagonists’ conceptualization of home is based on Lynch’s notion of imageability. The metaphorical extension of the concepts of imageability and wayfinding aims to grasp migrants’ psychological and emotional experiences of orientation. Taking as a point of reference three highly imageable objects—masks, mirrors, and letters—the study of the protagonists’ wayfinding in America reveals the tension between reality and imagination in the creation of mental images of home. In her recognition of the potential of female agency, Adichie draws a parallel between the protagonists’ reorientation in the exilic space and their reorientation in their intimate relationships. |
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