A Private Experience Essay

A Private Experience by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gives readers the opportunity to experience what it is like to be involved in a riot. The author herself has seen first-hand what riots and wars can do to a city, a family, and oneself. The Nigerian war took everything from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and her family, the war lasted two and a half years ending in Nigerian victory. During the war there was a lot of Igbo Christian's who were murdered by the Hausa-Muslims, on “Black Thursday” there was around thirty thousand Igbo Christians massacred, half were children, this event caused millions of others to flee the country in hopes of escaping the war. This author has clearly been through a lot of traumas regarding religion, and war, so she authored the short story a private experience to tell her side of the story and give more perspective to others on what it really is like to experience the damage from riots. The author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, uses outstanding literary devices in the short story, a private experience. For example, she has used the literary device of irony, the whole riot is the Igbo Christians against the Hausa Muslims, but she has created the two main characters both Igbo and Hausa, and she has made them very close with one another. In an ironic sense, the two women should hate each other because of the riot outside in the street, but they realize that they both want to survive, so they help one another so they can both get out of the riot alive and go see their families. She has demonstrated that humans can be protected and saved by one another, even during a riot. Humans are strong enough to overcome the expectations of society to ensure that other people are staying safe. She indicates this by using a person versus society conflict in her short story a Private Experience. The main conflict in her story is the protagonist, Chika, trying to survive amidst the riot, and the rioters, trying to kill the other race and religion. Coming from her background she has personally experienced the riots and the conflict that she has portrayed in her writing. The characters that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has chosen are opposites, the main character, Chika, is a very rich and privileged Igbo Christian, and the woman helping Chika is a poor Hausa Muslim woman who has learned to survive on her own and take care of her children. Another literary device Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie uses is symbolism, she uses symbolism to showcase the figurative meaning of specific objects in the short story. After the climax of the short story, the protagonist, Chika, cut her leg after she left the safety of the store, then the woman reacts to the blood by giving Chika her scarf to bandage the wound. The woman's scarf symbolizes her religion, at first Chika thinks that the scarf is cheap, but after the womans tends to her wound using her scarf, Chika realizes the true intentions of this woman and understands how much it means to her. The woman lets Chika keep the scarf so that she can always remember the kindness of the Hausa Muslim woman.