The Novelist as a Psychologist: A Psycho-Sexual Study of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah

Abstract

The novel, Americanah is the third novel in the series of highly creative, exhilarating and ambitious novels written by one of the most talented African writers of the 21st century, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The novel is a mature tale, a moving narrative and quite a prodigious attempt in literary creativity which leaves much to be admired, appraised, and in all, envied as regards to the beauty, quality, stylistic and thematic components and mechanisms that formed the matrix of her monumental creation. In telling this beautiful story, Chimamanda Adichie comfortably, though rather unconsciously, filled the rank of a psychologist concerned with the workings and understanding of the various psychological imbalances and dispositions of the characters she created. Adichie created characters with varying psychological dispositions which in some cases we may find overbearing, awkward and somehow unnatural. However, she understood them and like an expert psychologist, helped to restore the peace and balance these characters solely desires. Ifemelu, Obinze, Aunty Uju rank among such characters with rather weird and quixotic attitudes to life which the writer carefully dealt with. The paper adopted Sigmund Freud psychoanalytic theory as the theoretical framework for the research. How the writer created these characters, their actions, attitudes, imbalances and how she reconciled their various problems and united their desires, aspirations and passions to suit their ‘over bearing’ psychological drives is the crux of this study.