Palm Oil and the Blood of a Dead Child in Adichie's "The American Embassy"

Short Analysis Four: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s  “The American Embassy”

Debra Moreno Blouch

Palm Oil and the Blood of a Dead Child

            At the end of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “The American Embassy” when Ugonna’s mother is at the American embassy seeking asylum, she decides to leave instead because she refuses to tell the American visa interviewer the story regarding the death of her son. “Her future rested on that face. The face of a person who did not understand her, who probably did not cook with palm oil, or know that palm oil when fresh was a bright, bright red and when not fresh, congealed to a lumpy orange” (141). Ugonna’s mother must prove that her life is in danger from political persecution in order to qualify for an asylum visa. However, she decides that she would rather face death than to use the story of the killing of her son as a sympathy story to an interviewer who knew nothing about her, her life, or the circumstances of life in Nigeria. She would like to ask the interviewer if she thought that a child’s life was worth the story her husband had written, but she realizes that the interviewer knows little about life in Nigeria or about pro-democracy newspapers. How could she discuss that her son was killed and that she was in danger from the government because of the selfish writing of her husband under the guise of bravery and courage to a woman who wouldn’t understand that the cooked palm oil was the same bright red as fresh blood on a dead child.