The Making of the ' New Man ' in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ' s Americanah

Abstract

AbstractThis paper examines the making of a ' new man ' character in Adichie ' sAmericanah and discusses how such a moulded man integrates himself insociety and deals with other gendered worlds. The discussion shows howmuch Adichie in the representation of ' new man ' character in her novelrejects the naturalisation of the unchangeability of the male subject bydramatizing how much the male ' s enactment of masculine-self iscontingent to the orientation one gets. In this paper, I establish that thatAdichie ' s representation of progressive ' new man ' character in her noveldoes not only serve as a role model for ideal alternative masculinity, butalso re-invents a space necessary for a progressive female character tobelong in hetero-patriarchal setting of the novel. Although thecategorisation of modes of masculinity in this paper begins with Connell ' sbinary of hegemonic and subordinate masculinities, the objective of thediscussion is beyond such fixity. My interest in this paper is precisely onthe sets of masculinity which, although they divert from the hegemony,the difference or the deficit of hegemonic masculinity does not suggest theinferiority. The paper borrows Swain ' s (2006) "personalizedmasculinities" to refer to softer and transgressive modes of masculinitiesthat are rebellious against the naturalisation of heteronormativity.Key words:New-Man, New-Woman, Progressive, Masculinity, Femininityhttps://dx.doi.org/10.56279/ummaj.v9i1.4