Blessed Be The Honest

When I say honest, what type of person comes to mind? Is it a child, whose naïve nature results to honest blunders? Is it an elderly person, whose honesty the younger generation perceives as “having lost their filter”? Or is it a person whose faith consumes them, who lives a “pure” life for the impure intention of a perfect afterlife?

 In the novel Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie challenges this global convention of religion and moral purity equating to honesty by pitting honesty against religion. Using characters who are either honest or religious, Adichie effectively created a contrast between honesty and religiousness, and has in turn challenged globally moral norms.

When it comes to honest characters, Adichie clearly paints them in a positive light, although the characters themselves lie within a ground of moral murkiness. Ifemelu, a character whose journey to and from America was documented for a grand majority of the novel, is an excellent example of a morally ambiguous but honest person. Her blog, Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-American Black, was a true representation of her honest, yet controversial, character. In a blog post titled “What’s The Deal?”, Ifemelu almost supports the notion of racism due to genetic variances by stating “…black people have a worse kind of breast cancer and get fibrosis.And white folk get cystic fibrosis and osteoporosis,” (pg 374). Although this post is honest and does provide specific examples to support her legitimacy as a blogger, her viewpoint is wholeheartedly controversial. However, she is being honest, which leads to success in her blog. Therefore, by being honest and being successful in her endeavors as a blogger, Adichie has promoted honesty as a quality for success. And perhaps the most interesting way that Adichie has used honesty to promote success is by showing the digression of characters when they lean toward dishonesty. Obinze’s mom, the college professor that raised her son to actively look for honesty (which draws him to Ifemelu initially), has this dynamic character shift when she is trying to send her son to Britain. She sends her son overseas by fudging his reasoning for a visa, and when her son is astonished by her even recommending this route she responds, “I understand this type of thing is done nowadays,” (pg 290). Obinze’s adventure in Britain ends with his deportation, and this is fueled by layers and layers of lies. Obinze’s mom’s dishonesty is really the catalyst for Obinze’s misfortune. Adichie is doing this purposefully, as we see the “role model” of honesty, Obinze’s mom, dramatically go against her beliefs only to have it lead to ruin for other characters. Overall, Adichie has emphasized the importance of honesty by correlating it directly to success.

Religion, on the other hand, does not correspond with success directly; religion corresponds with a dishonesty that leads characters to become unsuccessful or unhappy. Ifemelu’s mom, a religious woman who yearned to be part of any religion, fully portrayed the average religious Nigerian woman who attempted to use religion to go ahead in class. When Ifemelu refused to make the wreath for the 419 men in church, her mother was upset at this defiance. “Do not judge. Leave the judging to God!” (pg 63). By relying on God as the moral judge of all, Ifemelu’s mom gave herself a pass for supporting a church that openly supports crime bosses. Conventionally, a church is thought of as a place to help the poor and heal the sick, not to glorify donors and support social class. But since these actions are done under God’s house, many people like Ifemelu’s mom think that it is okay. This is perhaps why Adichie reinforces the disparity that Ifemelu’s family lives in compared to most people of their church, to prove that the dishonesty and corruption within this institution does not benefit anyone. Besides socially and economically losing in the name of religion, Adichie pulls another aspect of human life that is lost through the lens of religion: happiness. Kosi and her marriage to Obinze support this notion through Kosi’s obsessive need to please everyone, especially including God. When Obinze first initially tries to leave Kosi and she reveals that she knows that he has been cheating on her, Kosi proclaims, “You took a vow before God. I took a vow before God. I am a good wife,” (pg 572). She is using this defense of religion to keep her marriage intact, although they are both unhappy. Kosi had been dishonest by not revealing to her husband that she knew he was cheating and by continuing to let him do it. Her religion told her to be a “good wife” and so she obeyed, although it made her extremely unhappy. Adichie has proved her point; dishonesty in the name of religion makes one’s life worse.

Honesty and religion, as proved through Americanah, are not synonymous qualities. In our society, perhaps people are not as transparently honest or religious as the characters of this novel are; people are more in a spectrum of honesty. We are not inherently honest or dishonest, but we can not assume that being religious or endowed in a faith makes us an honest, “good” person. This is perhaps the truth that Adichie alludes to, through giving honest characters success and giving dishonest, yet religious, characters ill fortune. She has proven through the usage of her characters that the global societal standard of moral purity and good fortune towards those who believe is, if I am being honest, untrue.