Structure

By virtue of its origin as an orally delivered speech, this essay’s structure is loose. Rather than abiding by clearly demarcated sections and subsections of analysis, this essay flows from one subject to another with occasional breaks visualized on the page. In general, the essay’s structure advances from the past to the present moment, although the anecdotes it relays are not told in a linear fashion. First, the essay begins with one of the author’s memories from when she was 14. The anecdote sets up the central question of the essay: What or who constitutes a “feminist”? Rather than move immediately forward in time to show how the author has answered that question, the essay moves still further back in Adichie’s life, to a memory from when the author was nine-years-old. The initial structure of the essay thus suggests that feminist issues and examples...