Ifemelu and Obinze have been dating for a while and of course they had the sex talk with Obinze’s mother where Ifemelu promised she will talk to her when they are ready to have sex; however that did not happen. She also promised to use protection. Fast forward to chapter seven, while massaging Obinze, they started touching each other and they had unprotected sex. She feels confused by the suddenness of them having sex. She thought they would plan how and when they would do it for the first time. The narrator stated: “she did not want him to stop, but she had imagined this differently, assumed they would make a carefully planned ceremony of it (Adichie,114).” She feels it was a weak copy of what she imagined it would be. She felt shaken and a little disappointed by the “unplannedness of it”.  Ifemelu said: “it seemed somehow as though it had not been worth it at all (Adichie,115).” Then she thought she got pregnant when she was having pain. This is similar scene to Esther’s experience in The Bell Jar, except for her protecting herself with the birth control. Esther had wanted the freedom that men had when it comes to sex so she got birth control and went to have sex; however after having sex she did not feel the difference that she expected to see in herself. She thought she would be different but it was anything but that. Just like Ifemelu’s experience, Esther got sick except her case, Esther was bleeding a lot and she had to go the emergency room while Ifemelu went to clinic to get a pregnancy test. Ifemelu found out that she had appendicitis. It is interesting to see the similarity of their experiences that I did not see while reading the chapter.

Women of all different ages have different sexual experiences. Some good and some negative. We have read about different sexual experiences throughout the semester.

During Ifemelu’s first sexual experience with Obinze she felt that it was “like a weak copy, a floundering imitation of what she imagined it would be.” meaning that she expected it to be more. Even before they had sex she stated that she expected them to make a ceremony of it. Ifemelu and Obinze didn’t use protection so Ifemelu was worried that she would get pregnant. She was irritated that she had been tense and unable to relax. Ifemelu gets sicks later in the week and believes that she’s pregnant. She calls Aunty Uju and she tells her to go to a town where nobody will know her and take a pregnancy test. Ifemelu played an active while reluctant role in her first sexual experience. She was very panicked after the experience.

In contrast Celie in The Color Purple had a very different first sexual experience from Ifemelu. Celie was raped by her step father. Celie seemed very distressed during her first time saying “he put his thing up against my hip and wiggle it around. The he grab hold my titties. Then he push his thing inside my pussy. When that hurt, I cry.” Celine did not play an active role in her sexual experience, she was taken advantage of. It was no enjoyable for her, it was more of a painful experience, physically and mentally. After the rape she was treated badly by her step father still and he raped her repeatedly. Celie blames herself because she does not yet understand that she was a victim.

For a girl losing her virginity can be very scary. In the books The Bell Jar written by Sylvia Plath and Americanah written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie both the main characters, Esther and Ifemelu experience the loss of virginity. They were both scared because the loss of virginity had one main troubling factor and that was the thought of becoming pregnant. Esther and Ifemelu were both educated girls who had their whole life ahead of them. They were not thinking about having a family just yet, they were engaged on having a successful future. Not knowing how sexual intercourse actually feels, they assume it must be an exciting get away within the souls and decide to act upon it. However, at the end it was not what they had expected and the urge to have sex was no longer within them.

In the novel the bell jar, the main character Esther has sex for the first time. She decides to get a fitting in other words a form of birth control so the consequence of her action may no longer worry her. After she gets a fitting she decides it is now okay to have sex. However, she was not thinking about who to have sex with. Her main concern was that she wanted to be free and for once she wanted to do something that no one else could tell her otherwise. After she has sex with a guy she barley even loves, she completely shuts him down. This is her way of redeeming herself and being in control of her life. She states, “It occurred to me that the blood was my answer, I couldn’t possibly be a virgin any more. I smiled into the dark. I felt part of a great tradition.” (pdf. 120) Esther’s sexuality was considered as freedom, and although she does not chose to be with the guy anymore she realizes what she had done was worth doing and starting from this point on she is in control of her life. This is why the very first thing she did was send her partner the medical bill for her obsessive bleeding and erased him out his life. In conclusion Esther being protected from pregnancy gave her the rights to her own body/life.

In the book Americanah written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ifemelu has sex for the very first time, expect she has sex with her lover, Obinze. As stated, Ifemelu is also troubled from the fact that she may end up being pregnant. She is not protected from birth control and she did not use condoms. Later that week Ifemelu had started throwing up and this is when she started going crazy because she thought she was pregnant. As a reader you could tell Ifemelu was still very young because she was troubled about the fact she would have to tell Obinze’s mother she had sex with her son. The narrator states, “She had been tense through it all, unable to relax. She had imagined his mother watching them; the image had forced itself onto her mind..” (pdf. 72) This shows me that Ifemelu sexual experience was much different than Esthers because she couldn’t relax, she had the issue of being pregnant and also the issue of telling his mother. Ifemelu had felt tense even when she chose to have sex with the love of her life, unlike Esther who was much happier having sex with someone she did not know.

Overall, as you could see Ifemelu would have been happy if she had the power to get birth control, and the fact that she did not, her sex with the love of her life (Obinze) was not an act worth doing. And for Esther the act was worth doing only because she had protection (birth control) however she chose the wrong guy to do it with.

Ifemelu’s sexual experience in Americanah was pleasant, it was actually with love and when Obinze and Ifemelu did it, it was pleasure and not rape or abuse. They were happy to do it as Obinze said “if it doesn’t work, then we will welcome Junior.”(Adichie 114) There was a fear of her being pregnant but not in a bad way. She said is he might find someone better but he was solid on keeping the baby if he got her pregnant.

Esther’s experience was a completely different, she actually prepared herself by getting a “fitting” done before going to the professor Irwin and actually having sex. She wasn’t scared of getting pregnant but after she had sex with the professor she bled a lot and had to go to the hospital to stop the bleeding. And after she was treated she sent the bill to Irwin and never saw him again.

In The Color Purple, Celie’s first sexual experience was very disturbing. Since it was her father figure and he warned her not to tell anyone by saying, “you better not tell no one but God, itll kill your mammy.” After she went through that experience, she was very lonely and isolated from the world. So she started to tell her story to God as she was told by her step- father. The aftermath was a mess too, she was pregnant twice and her children were given away.

Everyone’s sexual experiences are different, Ifemelu’s experience was joyful and Celie went through hell and it never got better for her. Even when she got married, that experience was also terrifying. Esther on the other hand found her liberation in her sexual experience.

Not every women’s first sexual experience is the same. For some its what they expected and for others its nothing like what they thought it would be. Both Ifemelu in Americanah and Esther in The Bell Jar experience having sex for the very first time and it didn’t seem to be what they expected it to be. They both had different experiences but the same outcome, which is they weren’t as satisfied with the feeling afterwards. Ifemelu’s first time starts when she is giving Obinze a massage because his muscles are aching after he has played basketball. Obinze is enjoying the pleasure of the massage and decides to take things further by undressing Ifemelu. Now Ifemelu wasn’t new to the feeling of him undressing her except this time he would be undressing all over her, “when he undressed her, he did not stop, as usual, at her underwear (Adichie 71 pdf). Ifemelu imagined it happening differently she “assumed they would make a carefully planned ceremony of it” (Adichie 72 pdf), Obinze did not use a condom and I’m guessing that’s not how she planned it; especially since she could get pregnant. Obinze didn’t mind not using a condom since they “we’re going to get married anyways” (Adichie 72), but Ifemelu feels that hes only saying that in the moment. Ifemelu loves Obinze very much and thought her first time having sex with him would be special and although it may have been “the unplannedness of it all had left her a little shaken, and also a little disappointed. It seemed somehow as though it had not been worth is after all” (Adichie 72). A women’s first sexual experience should feel like everything she hoped but Ifemelu did not feel this way. Instead she was worried the whole time about what she would say to Obinze’s mom and how she would react and just how unplanned it all had been.

In The Bell Jar Esther also had an unsatisfying first sexual experience with an math professor named Irwin. Esther feels that Irwin would be a good man to sleep with being that he was smart, experienced being an older guy, and no one really knew of him so it no one would ever know. As there about to have sex Esther awaits for the big change in her life that’s about to happen, ” I lay, rapt and naked, on Irwin’s rough blanket, waiting
for the miraculous change to make itself felt” (Plath 120 pdf). As it is happening all she can feel is a sharp pain and in the end she starts to bleed, Irwin treats it as its nothing, “Oh, that often happens, Irwin reassured me. You’ll be all right” (Plath 120). Esther imagined a completely different feeling of being a new person, ” I wanted to brood over my new condition in perfect peace. But the towel came away black and dripping” (Plath 120). Esther and Ifemelu are both females who had sexual intercourse with the opposite sex and played the role of being a virgin who was experiencing sex for the very first time. In the end, after their sexual experience neither of them feel satisfied. The consequence of having sex Ifemelu ends up having stomach pain, she throws up in fear that she is pregnant and wonders what will happen, just full of worries and disappointment. Esther is feeling pain instead of pleasure during and after her sexual experience and doesn’t seem to really feel a change in herself so much like she wanted to feel. Both women’s first sexual experience was different but both felt very unhappy with the outcome.

In Americanah Ifemelu first time with Obinze was definitely unique. Ifemelu was in love with him and she had clearly pictured her first time being special, she wanted to treat it like a special ceremony. What she got ended up being a little different. Her sexual experience came after she gave Obinze a massage. You can tell it was not how she expected when she said ” It felt, to Ifemelu, like a weak copy, a floundering imitation of what she had imagined it would be”.(chapter 7). In her mind the sex was supposed to be a amazing planned experience she would share with Obinze mom. A week after the sex Ifemelu started to feel pain in her lower area and she was also vomiting. In her mind she was pregnant, but it turns out she just had to get her appendix removed. Her first sexual experience could be related to Esther from The Bell Jar. Her first time was also a rare case. She didn’t seem to enjoy it much either and after the sex she began to hemmorage heavily and had to go to the hospital. Both girls seem to be secure in there sexuality, only attracted to the opposite race. Esther seems to play a bigger role in her sexual experience than Ifemelu does. To Esther only a certain type of guy could take her virginity, but to Ifemelu she already had it set in her mind Obinze would be the guy she sleeps with. Neither of the two girls speaks much on their first sexual experience after it is done. This tells ,e that it most likely wasn’t an enjoyable time and they are not in a rush to do it again. Both girls didn’t seem too worried about the consequences sex can have. Esther had a diaphragm so she wouldn’t get pregnant which says she though her first time through thoroughly. Ifemelu on the other hand let Obinze use the pull out method and didn’t seem to care if she had gotten pregnant. Obinze said “But Ifem were going to get married anyway”. So Obinze was perfectly fine if he had gotten her pregnant. Although she didn’t seem to care for the consequences she does get upset with Obinze when she thinks she is pregnant.

At the beginning of Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the symbol of hair was introduced in the setting of a hair salon in Trenton. In fact, most of the setting was the hair salon as it played a flashback role. Naturally in a salon setting, hair would be a reoccurring symbol but Chimamanda manages to use hair as a representation of multiple things. One of the first things hair represents in Americanah was identity. Hair represents Ifemelu’s identity and her struggles with identity. When she moved to America she was told by her Aunty Uju that she had to lose her braids. “I have to take my braids out for my interviews and relax my hair. Kemi told me that I shouldn’t wear braids to the interview. If you have braids, they will think you are unprofessional.” (Adiche146) Having her hair braided represented Ifemelu’s confidence as a smart black American and it represented her identity as a Nigerian. Changing her hair meant changing her independence and reduced her confidence. Changing her hair to make her look more professional meant that she was conforming to American standards rather than staying true to her own. Changing her chair and getting rid of the braids reminded her of when her mother came home and abruptly cut off some of her own braids. Her mother did it for the sake of religion and Ifemelu interpreted the act as her mother also giving up her own independence. But also for Ifemelu, changing her hair highlighted the racism associated with American ideas of beauty. A black women was expected to straighten her hair to look professional and this also represented changing ones identity.

In the book Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, is based on a highly educated African American women named Ifemelu and her the struggle of being pinned under specific labels (especially labels about race). Although she is also in journey for love with Obinze. Her story is generally told through the element of fiction: Point of view, usually in third person (narrator). The book starts with third person to allow the setting to be set up for the reader to understand and get some background on the main character. For example, “The rude stranger in the supermarket-who knew what problems he was wrestling with, haggard and thin-lipped as he was- had intended to offend her but had instead prodded her awake”( Adichie,8). In this quote we see from her point of view how a label such as ‘fat’ has made her react a specific way. At first, she took it negatively by ‘noticing’ the tightness in her clothes. Although she also saw that she was not happy in her life and wanted desired a change. The ‘third-person’ point of view continues, but this time to allow insight on flashbacks/ thoughts. This allows for the reader to properly follow the zig-zag motions of the story line. Furthermore, when it states “Throughout the years of childhood, Ifemelu would often look in the mirror and pull at her own coils, will it to become like her mother’s, but it remained bristly and grew reluctantly”( Adichie, 49). This quote is a flashback to when the main character had a mother so beautiful and that everyone admired. She challenged her own ideas of beauty and her hair as an African girl. In conclusion, point of view allowed for the readers to see more than just one person’s perspective and specifically allowed for them to see the change or lack of change in the reaction to labels.

In the book Americanah by Chimanda Ngozi Adichie, the narrator introduces us to a young intelligent Nigerian Igbo women who travels to America so she can further in on her education. However, despite her success on writing blogs about race, she is unhappy and wants to move back to her motherland, Nigeria. Being that this book is written as a 3^rd person narration, readers are able to get a sense of the way each character in differentiates themselves and how their characteristics contributes to the outcome of Ifemelu’s life. So in other words, readers can sum up the story by using the narrators point of view, being that this is an omniscient work of writing. The narrator is able to give us an insight of the mindset of each character. For an example, the main character Ifemelu sends Obinze an e-mail (her childhood love) notifying him that she will soon be returning to Nigeria. Knowing that he is now a married man with children, she calls him “Ceiling”. Ceiling is a nickname she had called Obinze when they were young and in love. In the book it states, “She began to call what they did together ceiling, their warm entanglements on his bed when his mother was out, wearing only underwear, touching and kissing and sucking, hips moving in simulation. I’m longing for ceiling, she once wrote on the back of his geography notebook, and for a long time afterwards he could not look at that notebook without a gathering frisson, a sense of secret excitement.” (pdf 20) This evidences that Ifemelu is still in love with Obinze. Her calling him ceiling was an obvious flirtatious behavior. However, the narrator also lets the readers know that Obinze is not over her as well… In the book it states, “He wrote and rewrote the e-mail, not mentioning his wife or using the first person plural, trying for a balance between earnest and funny. He did not want to alienate her. He wanted to make sure she would reply this time. He clicked Send and then minutes later checked to see if she had replied.” (pdf. 30) Now why should a married man with kids want to keep in touch with his former lover? Is this the starting point of an affair? Will Obinze leave his wife for Ifemelu? As of now questions remain unanswered and soon Ifemelu will come to realization that Obinze still loves her, causing a great amount of distress. This conflict can ruin his social life, ruin his children’s life and also ruin the life of his wife. Most importantly, Ifemelu would be hated from her society when everyone finds out she was his mistress.

As readers we are well aware of the other characters as well. Like Ifemelu’s mother for an example, she’s very religious because she varies from church to church, and doesn’t give up and does crazy things like going bald so she can be welcomed. Another example is Ifemelu’s father, who very much loves his wife, and as readers we know that because he is now embarrassed that he should have just called his boss “mommy” to keep his job. He suffers from depression and doesn’t even talk anymore. Another example is Obinze’s wife, who greats Obinze’s peers with much respect, and goes to things like “how to keep your husband” church. This gives readers an insight that she very much loves him and does not want to lose him as a husband. And lastly, I could say Ifemelu’s aunt who was also a mistress. The narrator allows readers to know that Ifemelu’s aunt had shared similar experience and most likely Ifemelu will reach out to her with what she needs to do.