Structure

The short story “Jumping Monkey Hill” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie follows a chronological structure as it looks at a young Nigerian woman’s time at the African Writer’s Workshop. 

The story opens in medias res as the main character, Ujunwa, describes the Jumping Monkey Hill resort where the writing workshop is held: “The cabins all had thatch roofs. Names like BABOON LODGE and PORCUPINE PLACE were hand-painted beside the wooden doors that led out to cobblestone paths and the windows were left open […]”. 

The narrative alternates between Ujunwa’s time at the workshop and Chioma’s story which Ujunwa is writing. The sections that contain Chioma’s story stand out due to the different formatting as well as the switch from past to present tense narration. In this way, the structure of the story can also be considered to be a frame narrative, as the narrator interrupts Ujunwa’s story whenever she starts writing to show the story Ujunwa is working on, for example:

She sat there for a long time, moving the mouse from side to side, trying to decide whether to name her character something common like Chioma or something exotic like Ibari. 
Chioma lives with her mother in Lagos. She h...