Bethany Douglas
Early on in Adiche's "Tomorrow is too Far" the reader is faced with the hate felt by the "you" in the story towards Nonso. Then, hate is brought up again as Dozie says he knows "how much you hated [Grandmama]" (192). The main characters feelings towards the word hate are discussed later though, "Dozie's word- "hate"- floats around in your head now. Hate. Hate. Hate. The word makes it difficult to breathe…" (196). This quote expresses the main character's negative feelings toward the word hate, because it obviously strikes some chord within her. I believe that character's hatred died the day Nonso died, she has no room to hate her Grandmama because her hatred for Nonso caused his death and her involvement (and her making Dozie be involved) is something that she has to live with forever. She obviously knows it was wrong and feels shame for it because she tells her mother that it was the Grandmama's fault, and her interaction with Dozie 18 years later also indicates that Nonso's death affected her in a very powerful way.
Early on in Adiche's "Tomorrow is too Far" the reader is faced with the hate felt by the "you" in the story towards Nonso. Then, hate is brought up again as Dozie says he knows "how much you hated [Grandmama]" (192). The main characters feelings towards the word hate are discussed later though, "Dozie's word- "hate"- floats around in your head now. Hate. Hate. Hate. The word makes it difficult to breathe…" (196). This quote expresses the main character's negative feelings toward the word hate, because it obviously strikes some chord within her. I believe that character's hatred died the day Nonso died, she has no room to hate her Grandmama because her hatred for Nonso caused his death and her involvement (and her making Dozie be involved) is something that she has to live with forever. She obviously knows it was wrong and feels shame for it because she tells her mother that it was the Grandmama's fault, and her interaction with Dozie 18 years later also indicates that Nonso's death affected her in a very powerful way.
In this story, love and hatred are two warring forces that collide to cause catastrophe in the lives of this family. The main character's love of her mother and her mother's love of Nonso fuels a jealousy within her that causes her attempt to maim Nonso. Likewise, Dozie's love of her seals his involvement in the death as well. After Nonso's death, the main character waits for her mother to dote on her as she did on Nonso, but her mother is never the same. The hatred that was released towards Nonso affected the rest of the family's ability to love. Most notably, it affects her and Dozie. At the end of the story Dozie is walking away from her and she is dying to tell him about the "pain in [her] chest and the emptiness in [her] ears" but she says nothing and Dozie continues to walk away and she is left "alone under the avocado tree" (197). She is left alone under the tree where Nonso died, leaving her alone with the weight of her actions and the effect that her hatred had on everyone in her family.
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