DEMYSTIFYING THE TURMOIL OF CULTURAL IDENTITY AND RACIAL POLITICS: A DIASPORIC STUDY OF ADICHIE’S AMERICANAH

Abstract

The current study has taken into consideration Americanah, a famous diasporic novel written by Nigerian-American author ChimamandaNgoziAdichie. This study attemts to vindicate the instances which caused the turmoil of identity in the character of Ifemelu, after she migrated from Nigeria to America, and leads her to a sense of guilt and inferiority complex. She faced a lot of trials and challenges to cope with her historical identity and construct a new identity to fit in American Society. When she is back in Nigeria, her friends describe her with the name “Americanah” to tease her Americanised way of behavior. This study has presented a detailed overview of racial politics and shows the struggle of Ifemelu with the stereotypes and discourses of race in America while fight with the myths of sexism and racism. The theoretical framework used for the analysis has been taken fromStuart Hall’s Cultural Identity and Diaspora (1990) and Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic’sCritical Race Theory (2017).