Setting

Physical setting

The events described in the short story “My Mother, the Crazy African” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie take place in Philadelphia, US, where Lin’s family has relocated from Nigeria. When Lin describes her first impression of her family’s house, she claims that she understands why her father has worked hard for three years before sending for her and her mother:

I liked to go outside then and just stare at the house, at the elegance of the stone exterior, at the way the lawn wrapped around it like a blanket dyed the color of unripe mangoes. And inside, I liked the curving stairs in the hallway, the gleaming banister, the quaint marble fireplace that made me feel as though I was on the set of a foreign film. I even liked the clump-clump-clump sound the hardwood...