Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah: (Re)opening a Conversation about Race and Beauty

Abstract

[Abstract] The purpose of this dissertation is to comment upon Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah (2013). The analysis of the novel will focus on “race” as a social construction, which will enable to explore how beauty, hair texture and skin colour are connected to the current reality of race in the United States. In order to do that, I will provide a short account of how the definition of “race” has changed through time, and the analysis of the novel will illustrate its connotations in the twenty-first century. The following section will use a black feminist approach so as to examine how Black hair and colourism still matter in terms of beauty and success, and how the social media are a key player in either the reinforcement or the obliteration of images that sill promote white ideals of beauty in increasingly multi-ethnic and multicultural environments.