Tomorrow Is Too Far

This study guide will help you analyze the text “Tomorrow Is Too Far” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. We will show you examples of elements in the text that will be relevant for your analysis. In these notes, we will focus on the summary, structure, characters, setting, narrator and point of view, language, theme and message, and help you put the text in perspective.

Presentation of the text

Title: “Tomorrow Is Too Far”
Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Published in: Prospect Magazine
Date of Publication: 2006
Genre: Short story

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (b. 1977) is a Nigerian author educated in the US where she currently spends half her time. She is known as a promoter of feminism and African literature and her works reflect her interest in African society and the position of women. Her most notable works are Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, and Americanah.

Excerpt

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Title

The title of the short story—“Tomorrow Is Too Far”—is intriguing at first because it reveals very little about the plot. The title refers to the Igbo dialect name of a venomous snake: “…and Grandmama told you the snake was called the echi eteka, ‘Tomorrow Is Too Far’. One bite, she said, and it’s over in ten minutes.”

The name of the snake suggests how deadly the reptile is, causing the death of victims within minutes. In the story, the threat of the snake is used by the narrator to scare her brother, causing him to fall from an avocado tree and die. There was really no snake in the tree, the narrator lied...