Americanah

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013

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Chapters 27-30Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 27 Summary

Obinze sits in a bookstore café, eating and reading, hoping to “become Obinze again” (317). He reads American novels rather than British newspapers, trying to “find a resonance, a shaping of his longings” (317). He worries about his forthcoming sham marriage. He has given money to several brokers, but has nothing to show for it. A Bangladeshi mother and her nine-year-old son sit down next to him, as the café is full. He strikes up a conversation with them and learns that they are visiting the Tate Museum. The boy’s father died recently, and this is the family’s first annual trip to London without him. He is attracted to the mother, which makes him think of Ifemelu and also of Tendai, a woman he has recently slept with. He leaves the café and texts Tendai. He sees a newspaper headline, full of fears about immigrants and asylum seekers, and tries to see the crisis from the British point of view, “illegal immigrants who were overcrowding an already crowded island” (320). He thinks again of Ifemelu. “He had never felt so lonely” (321).

Chapter 28 Summary

It is Vincent’s birthday, which Obinze does not remember, and he is nearly caught. Vincent calls that night and demands a greater percentage of Obinze’s earnings, which Obinze refuses. A week later, he is called into his boss’ office. His boss has been informed that Obinze is not Vincent and asks to see his passport. Obinze leaves his job, knowing he will never return, and “wishing more than anything that he had told Nigel his real name” (324). Years later, when Obinze is working in Lagos, he needs a white man to present to investors as his General Manager. He calls Nigel up and offers him the position.

Chapter 29 Summary

The Angolans demand more money from Obinze to arrange the sham marriage to Cleotilde. Obinze has run out of money and is unemployed, so he asks Emenike for a loan. They meet at a bar, and Obinze sees how much and how little Emenike has changed. His clothes are better but his grandiose personality is the same. He tells Obinze a series of stories in which “someone would first underestimate or belittle him, and he would then end up victorious, with the final clever word or action” (328). Emenike invites Obinze out to dinner with him and his white British wife, Georgina. Obinze is repulsed by the “voodoo of fine dining” (330) and confused by the food placed in front of him, but agrees to attend a party Emenike and Georgina are throwing.

Obinze arrives at the party early, and takes the opportunity to look at Emenike’s library. He considers how different Emenike’s English house is from the Nigerian house he grew up in. Obinze is introduced to Emenike and Georgina’s well-educated, successful friends, and notes how differently Emenike speaks when around them. The group discusses the differences between England and America and how each country treats its immigrants. Obinze remarks that “‘English people are in awe of America but also deeply resent it’” (336). They discuss race relations, and Emenike tells the story of being passed over by a taxi driver, though Obinze notes that Emenike told him the story with a “rage” (341) that he omits in front of these friends.

Chapter 30 Summary

Cleotilde and Obinze’s wedding has been arranged. Nicholas lends Obinze a suit and they proceed to the courthouse. Obinze is nervous, but excited to “walk with surer steps on Britain’s streets” (342). Before they can be married, however, a man approaches Obinze and asks for his name. The man informs Obinze that his visa has expired and that he will be deported. Obinze is arrested and taken to a holding cell. His court-appointed lawyer advises him that his chances of remaining in the UK are low, and Obinze says he is willing to return to Nigeria. His friends visit him in detention, most of them upbeat, “as though he was merely ill in hospital” (348) and he thinks of Ifemelu.

Obinze is escorted with several other deportees to a plane bound for Nigeria. They are kept on the plane after it lands, and Obinze notes that the flight attendant’s face is “tight with disgust” (350). Obinze pays the Nigerian police a bribe, and is released into the custody of his mother.

Chapter 27-30 Analysis

Despite his loneliness, Obinze manages to form real, human connections during his time in London. He befriends Nigel, a white coworker, who trusts him enough to ask for romantic advice. Though this relationship reads as passing and situational, it is clearly important to both men, as evidenced both by the fact that Obinze later extends a job offer to Nigel from Nigeria, an offer that Nigel accepts. Obinze spends his leisure time reading American novels rather than English papers—in American novels, he finds “a sense of the America that he had imagined himself a part of” (317). In English newspapers, he sees headlines about the illegal immigrant crisis and feels shame. American books show what he could be; English papers show who he is.

The dinner party that Obinze attends at Emenike’s flat highlights a diversity of opinions on immigration, race, and the US/UK divide, but it also highlights the various hypocrisies of the guests, something Obinze is unnerved by. Later, this will cause him to strive against pretentiousness and hypocrisy once he has made his fortune. When Obinze is introduced to Phillip, an obviously gay friend of Emenike’s, he remembers suddenly how Emenike used to beat up a gay student at their secondary school, how the gay boy’s face swelled up so “it looked grotesque, like a big purple eggplant” (334). Alexa, another guest, argues that African health workers should leave Britain and return home. When Mark, another guest suggests they like England better, Alexa is unmoved. “‘Life isn’t fair, really. If they have the privilege of that medical degree then it comes with a responsibility to help their people’” (338). Mark asks if she feels such a responsibility for poor towns in Northern England, and she says nothing. Overall, Obinze is struck by the fact that the guests do not understand what it is like to be “mired in dissatisfaction, conditioned from birth to look towards somewhere else…resolved to do dangerous things, illegal things, so as to leave, none of them starving, or raped, or from burned villages, but merely hungry for choice and certainty” (341). Even in his most difficult predicaments, Obinze tries to create choice for himself, to run his own life. During his deportation hearing, his lawyer offers to argue his case, but Obinze decides to go back to Nigeria. His choices may be bleak, but he still fights for his choices.