67 pages • 2 hours read

Americanah

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013

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Chapters 7-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 7 Summary

Though they had originally planned on going to a different school, after Obinze’s mother collapses, both he and Ifemelu decide to attend Nsukka University, where his mother teaches. Ifemelu is initially disappointed by her college experience, and feels “as though she did not belong” (110). The teachers go on strike in protest of their unpaid salaries. Ifemelu returns to Lagos until the strike is over, and during this time, Obinze grows jealous of any flings she might be having. The strike ends, and Ifemelu returns to school. She and Obinze finally have sex, and the experience leaves her “a little disappointed” (115). When she becomes ill a week later, she panics, assuming she is pregnant. Unable to tell her parents, she calls Uju, who advises her to go get tested. She tests negative, but gets sicker that night, and Obinze’s mother drives her to the medical center. Ifemelu has a ruptured appendix which is treated through surgery. Her parents visit her in the hospital and meet Obinze, with whom they are impressed. Obinze’s mother warns her son and Ifemelu to be more careful with sex.

Chapter 8 Summary

Strikes at the school become common, and students begin to leave. Obinze’s friend Emenike leaves for England, while Ifemelu’s friend Ranyinudo is rejected for an American visa. Aunty Uju offers to take Ifemelu in if she studies in America, in exchange for watching Dike. Ifemelu is hesitant, but Obinze urges her to accept the opportunity, and Ginika takes care of her college applications. Ifemelu applies for a visa and is accepted. She says goodbye to Obinze’s mother, and she and Obinze develop a plan: “he would come to America the minute he graduated. He would find a way to get a visa” (124).

Chapter 9 Summary

Back in the braiding salon, the African hair braiders ask Ifemelu if she knows the Nigerian actress in the movie they’re watching. She does not. She remembers her first summer in America, which shocked her, as “she had thought of overseas as a cold place of wool coats and snow” (127). She is overwhelmed by the changes. Uju has changed the pronunciation of her name and Dike is no longer a baby but an Americanized six-year-old. Ifemelu sleeps on Uju’s floor, struggles to cook American food to Dike’s liking, but is nonetheless filled with “an eagerness to discover America” (130). She witnesses Uju approximating an American accent at the grocery store and is told not to speak Igbo to Dike, lest he be confused. Uju is tired from her medical exams and the struggle of raising Dike on her own in a strange land. “America had subdued her” (135).

Chapter 10 Summary

Ifemelu spends that summer waiting, looking for “the real America” (136). She writes and calls Obinze, but spends most of her time with Dike, watching American cartoons and is appalled to realize that he is not learning division in first grade, as she did. She eats American food and tries to interest Dike in Nigerian food, but he rejects it. She also watches American TV shows and “ached for the lives they showed, full of bliss” (139). She is puzzled by the constant reports of crime on the news and then alarmed, but Uju assures her that there is even more crime in Nigeria—they just don’t report it on TV.

Chapter 7-10 Analysis

Like many other teenagers, going to university marks a major shift in Ifemelu’s life. This pattern of adjustment, self-discovery, and new experiences will repeat itself during her first months in America, as well. She and Obinze go to Nsukka University together, but the change is still significant for Ifemelu. At first, she finds the school ugly, “too slow, the dust too red, the people too satisfied with the smallness of their lives” (109). She is grateful to have Obinze close, as university scares her, somewhat. It is “bigger and baggier, there was room to hide, so much room” (110). She quickly becomes popular, and comes to love Nsukka, “a hesitant love at first” (109). Her love for America runs in the opposite direction. She has such high hopes for her American life that the reality of culture shock overwhelms her. During her first night in America, as she sleeps on Aunty Uju’s floor, she feels “a frisson of expectation, an eagerness to discover America”. But the next day, reality sets in, as she struggles to cook Dike the food he likes.

Her new experiences in America and at Nsukka are approached with anticipation and excitement, but the reality often disappoints Ifemelu. When she and Obinze first have sex, it is not as she imagined. “It was, to Ifemelu, like a weak copy, a floundering imitation of what she had imagined it would be” (115). America, too, is not The Cosby Show or the books she has read. Men pee against storefronts just like in Nigeria. The food is strange and unappealing. But it is full of electricity and stability. As she writes to Obinze in an email, “It is wonderful but it’s not heaven” (145).