The Thing Around Your Neck

Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 2009

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“The Arrangers of Marriage”Chapter Summaries & Analyses

“The Arrangers of Marriage” Summary

A Nigerian woman, Chinaza, is taken to her new home in New York by her new husband, Ofodile. Unlike the house she expected, it is an apartment. She thinks about how people do not tell you many things when they arrange your marriage, like about empty apartments and husbands who snore. The next morning, they briefly have sex and then she attempts to call her aunt and uncle, who raised her and arranged her marriage, but the line is busy. Her husband is a doctor, and over the course of the morning he continually corrects Chinaza on little things, telling her that in America they must act American. He tells her they go by English names in America, saying he goes by Dave and Chinaza should go by Agatha.

The couple goes grocery shopping, and Chinaza is upset by the lack of familiarity. Dave complains about the residency program he is in and sneers at Nigerian customs as he shows Chinaza around the grocery store. He says that people who do not adapt to American ways of life will never move ahead. Chinaza misses the marketplace back in Enugu. Dave then takes Chinaza to the mall, buying her a piece of pizza and a coat and telling her about the wonders of America. The next day while Dave is at work Chinaza makes him a Nigerian meal for supper, and though he enjoys it, he brings back an American cookbook the next day and tells her she has to cook like an American now.

Chinaza meets a neighbor, Nia, who is a Black American woman. Nia invites her over to have a coke and tells her about the hair salon she owns. She offers to show Chinaza around Brooklyn and also offers to get her a job at Macy’s. Winter arrives and Chinaza asks Dave why she doesn’t have her work permit yet. He tells her that he was married to an American woman before and that she is making trouble as their divorce was not finalized when he married Chinaza. She says he should have told her this. He says it would not have changed anything. That night Chinaza takes the clothes she brought from Nigeria and leaves her husband, going to stay with Nia. They talk and Nia confesses she and Dave had sex when she first moved in. Nia counsels Chinaza to stay with him until she gets her papers and then leave him and start a new life. Chinaza returns to Dave the next night.

“The Arrangers of Marriage” Analysis

Chinaza is another wife brought to the US by her husband, a familiar character type within this collection of stories; but “The Arrangers of Marriage” sets her apart as wholly unprepared for The Immigrant Experience. Chinaza’s choice to marry Dave and leave Nigeria is not much of one—her family pressures her into it, and she is given little to no information about the practical reality of marrying him. When Chinaza gets upset because Dave married her before his divorce with his first wife was finished, he tells her that “It wouldn’t have made a difference. Your uncle and aunt had decided. Were you going to say no to people who have taken care of you since your parents died?” (161). Chinaza is repeatedly shown to be competent and curious, a good cook who quickly adapts to New York despite her homesickness. Still, she is met with no reward for following her husband’s and family’s wishes. She is instead stuck in an unequal marriage begun under false pretenses.

The immigration aspect of the story also emphasizes the unfairness of the position Chinaza has been put in. She is isolated, not only from people she knows, but also from physical items she is familiar with. Dave stymies her attempts to make the apartment more familiar, not letting her buy the brand of biscuits she recognizes, telling her not to cook Nigerian food, and buying her American style clothing. Her green card, the thing that would allow her to embrace the US if she so chose to and to make her own choices and not be dependent on Dave is held as a tool of power over her by her husband. He prevaricates on her employment license, with her status as an immigrant another form of power Dave has over her.

This also plays into Dave’s hypocrisy. He continually asserts his desire to be American, speaking with an American accent, rejecting Nigerian culture, and denying Chinaza any opportunity to alleviate her homesickness in the name of helping her adapt. Despite this, he wanted a Nigerian bride. When Chinaza questions him about this, Dave’s real goal becomes clear—power and position. He embraces American customs with such fervor in order to obtain more respect. His derogatory comments about immigrants who don’t adapt and his assertion that he will move ahead show his real desires. He marries Chinaza, who he has been told is meek and brings her to the US because it is more conducive to his desires to have a wife who will not question him and will make him feel like the powerful and respected man he wants to build himself into. Chinaza’s own agency and desires are second to this goal.