Cell One

Literature written in the first-person perspective is told by a character involved in the action of the narrative from their own point of view (using the pronouns I/me). In “Cell One,” Adichie writes the story from the first-person perspective of a character who is not the protagonist himself but rather his younger sister. This technique capitalizes on the inherently limited nature of the first-person perspective to maintain some degree of mystery surrounding Nnamabia and the events of the story, contributing to the unsettling ambiguity of what happens in the prison. Since the narrator is not always with Nnamabia, there are gaps in her access to essential information. Prime among these unknowns are the questions surrounding Nnamabia’s guilt and the horrific occurrences within cell one, which the narrator never fully ascertains.

Nnamabia’s inscrutability to the narrator is established early in the story, when she observes, “I don’t know whether Nnamabia felt remorse for stealing her jewelry. I could not always tell from my brother’s gracious, smiling face what he really felt” (Paragraph 9). Here, the narrator’s limited perspective reinforces a disconnect between the two characters and reinforces the notion that the narrator’s understanding of events may not be as complete as she sometimes thinks.