Purple Hibiscus

Plot Overview

Purple Hibiscus is set up in four parts, which are further

subdivided into chapters neither titled nor numbered, and each of them
narrates an important event in Kambili’s life. The story opens with past
events on a “Palm Sunday with the Breaking of Gods”. Thenarrator,
Kambili, recalls that it was the day things start falling apart in her family
owing toher rebellious brother who was no more able to accept the
dictatorial leadership of theirreligiously fanatical father. His refusal to go
to communion disturbs their father who on reaching home flings the
missal at him:

It missed Jaja completely, but it hit the glass étagère, which Mama
polished often. Itcracked the top shelf, swept the beige, finger-size
ceramic figurines of ballet dancersin various contorted postures to
the hard floor and then landed after them. Or ratherit landed on
their many pieces. It lay there, a huge leather-bound missal
thatcontained the readings for all three cycles of the year (7).

The novel set up in cinematic styles is not a straight-forward

narrative. The narrator employs both analepsis and prolepsis to weave the
events around Jaja’s rebellion and the breaking of the family Gods. We
soon discover that the family had an old tradition of rebellion and
violence owing to its orthodox rigidity. The contrast takes concrete shape
with Kambili and Jaja moving to Nsukka to stay with Aunty Ifeoma and
her family. In no time one comes to conclusion that there is something
wrong with the family. The contrastbetween the huge wealth in her
family and Aunty Ifeoma’s poverty, sets up the tone which Kambili
records:

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 I wanted to tell Mama that it did feel different to be back, that our
living room hadtoo much empty space, too much wasted marble
floor that gleamed from Sisi’s polishing and housed nothing. Our
ceilings were too high. Our furniture was lifeless: the glass tables
did not shed twisted skin in the harmattan, the leather sofa’s
greeting was a clammy coldness, the Persian rugs were too lush to
have any feeling (192).

The Nsukka visit leaves the children with a craving for freedom
and self-discipline who by now have been completely docile. The
moment they return home Jaja demands the key to his room from Papa.
Kambili toojoins him in his rebellion and as they, “went upstairs, Jaja
walked in front of me and I tried to placemy feet on the exact spots where
he placed his” (191).

The third part of the novel titled “The Pieces of Gods after Palm
Sunday” narrates how the events lead totheir father’s death by poisoning.
There is oppressive silence in the air in the house as ifsomething is about
to snap:

“There was somethinghanging over all of us. Sometimes I wanted

it all to be a dream – a missal flung at theétagère, the shattered
figurines, the brittle air. It was too new, too foreign, and I did
notknow what to be or how to be” (288).

The calm house has broken into violenceof natureand man-made

objects. Kambili foreshadows his death:

Everything came tumbling down after Palm Sunday. Howling wind

came with anangry rain, uprooting frangipani trees in the front
yard. They lay on the lawn, theirpink and white flowers grazing the
grass, their roots waving lumpy soil in the air.The satellite dish on

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 top of the garage came crashing down, and lounged on the drive
way like a visiting alien spaceship. The door of my wardrobe
dislodged completely. Sisi broke a full set of Mama’s china (257).

The final part of the story discloses an altogether different silence.

Jaja assumes the responsibility for his mother’s crime and is to be tried.
His assuming the responsibility symbolises the act of cleansing the family
not only from the crime but also from the abnormality—violence—that
runs through it.Thereby this is a “different kind of silence, one that lets
me breathe” (305). It is a silence mixed with hope in which Kambili and
Jaja can “talk more often… to clothe things in words, things that have
long been naked” (306).

Narrative Perspective:

African culture frequently employs literary formulations—stories,

dramas, riddles, histories, myths, songs, proverbs, and other
expressions—to entertain as well as educate children at the same time.
Oral histories, myths and proverbs additionally serve to remind the whole
community of their ancestor’s heroic deeds, their past, and the precedents
of their customs and traditions. These archetypes and symbols used by
Achebe play a valuable role indicating the real life of Igbo people—Wole
Soyinka also models his works on the brinks of mythical references
rooted deep in culture. In an interview with Mary David Wole Soyinka
points, “I think it means very obviously that humanity has—civilizations
have—a lot more in common than they profess, than they are willing to
accept.” (Writing Across Worlds, 23)

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichiecontinues the traditional first person

point of view practised in African fiction thenarrator is both an observer
and a participant in the events which are to unfold. Kambili, afifteen-
year-old girl is the naïve narrator unaware of the implications of the

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events, actions, and things are to come. The story is narrated as she
matures and becomes consciousness of herown sexuality and the social
and political scene. She is ambivalent too:

Throughout the novel, we see Kambili’s inability to cope

emotionally with themixed feelings of love and terror for her
father, and adoration and disdain for herpassive, abused mother, all
of which she is unable either to acknowledge rounderstand.
Kambili stutters, chokes on her words, stammers and whispers.
(Cooper,3)

Purple Hibiscus is continuation of the tradition already seen in

Achebe’s cultural works and Obimkaram Echewa’s The Land’s Lord. It
foregrounds the theme of religious into lerance and loss of freedom as a
result of Christian converts’ fanaticism. Where, Achebe’s and Echewa’s
novels present fictive worlds of Christian community struggling to get
rooted amongthe fictive characters, Adichie’s Christianity has already
been rooted amidst characters and is also the source of rift. Adichie in an
interview with Ike Anya says she has an:

“…interest in colonized religion, how people like me can profess

and preach a respect of their indigenous culture and yet cling so
tenaciously to a religion that considers most of indigenous culture
evil.” (2003:11)

The common thread that links the four sections of the novel is the
impulse of violence. This violence correspondencess with the urge visible
in public sphere and witnessed in Nigerian tradition and culture. The
theme in Eugene’s family falls in line with the nation and the university.
Adichie portrays the dictatorial leadership at these threelevels, which
thrust hardship. Beatrice Achike is a self-effacing woman, whose
husband has battered incessantly leaving her with several miscarriages, a

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limp, and a scar on her face. Eugene unleashes the same violence on his
children. Their stay at aunt Ifeoma’s house at Nsukka, brings a shift in the
story. Kambili sympathizes with her aunt and despises hermother as her;
“constriction of her possibilities of self-definition and autonomy, her
subjection to the law of the Father, her subsumption under the name of
the husband, and her giving up her identity as a woman” (Grosz, 181) has
dire consequencesfor her children. The children too could not be absolved
of silence in their father’s brutalities and his eventual death.

The same measure of violence isalso reflected in the nation and it

eventually leads to the Head of State’s violent death. Kambili’s visit after
Aunty Ifeoma and her family have left for the United States of America
reveals, “Most of the lawns on the university grounds are overgrown
now; thelong grasses stick up like green arrows. The statue of the
preening lion no longer gleams” (278). The family which takes Aunty
Ifeoma’s flat tells her there is no power for a longtime. However, it is
obvious as “The blades of the ceiling fan were encrusted with woolly
dust, so I knew there had been no power in a while or the dust would
have flown away asthe fan turned” (298).

Adichie continues Achebe’s practise of using Igbo language and

songs as a part of the Catholic rituals. It is only Eugene who detests
speaking Igbo and prohibits his children from publically speaking in
Igbo, though in his spasms of violence he speaks Igbo. Papa-Nnukwu’s
trickster story reveals the inner working of Igbo world-view at the same
time contradicting Eugene’s extreme and misguided fanatical belief.

Purplehibiscus represents Jaja’s quest for freedom and initiative

against his father’s emasculating hold. There is a time, as Kambili recalls,
when the whole front yard of their house is occupied by the startling red
hibiscuses. Despite the fact that “Mama cut them todecorate the church

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altar and how often visitors plucked them as they walked past to
theirparked cars” (9), they still grow luxuriantly. These red hibiscuses
represent the old order, Eugene’s unchallenged tyrannical and
emasculating hold on the family. As Jaja returns from Nsukka, he takes
some stalks of purple hibiscus which is a symbol of his defiance.

We in no time observe the shoots of rebellion blossoming in Jaja

and Kambili. Kambili’s weaves a relationship between Jaja’s defiance
and the purple hibiscus. As she says:

Aunty Ifeoma’s little garden next to the verandah of the flat at

Nsukka began to liftthe silence. Jaja’s defiance seemed to me now
like Aunty Ifeoma’s experimental purple hibiscus: rare, fragrant
with the undertones of freedom, a different kind of freedom from
the one the crowds waving green leaves chanted at Government
Square after the coup. A freedom to be, to do. (16)

Jaja’s craving of freedom reverberates the notes of upcoming storm

as the “vibrant bushes of hibiscus reached outand touched one another as
if they were exchanging their petals.” (9)

Another major theme in the works of Chinua Achebe’s and

Echewa’s is dispossession, which also happens to be one of the prominent
themes of Purple Hibiscus. The rough beast, in Thing Fall Apart, is the
Evil Forest who claims to kill a person when his life is sweetest to him
(Achebe, 1958). The arrival of the White District Commissioner as an
institute of colonial power divests the powers of Evil Forest and the other
ancestral masks of Umuofia and becomes the new spirit of the day. He
has the power to detain one without trial, try one according to his own
legal system without recourse to Umuofia customs. His coercive power is
so enormous that when Okonkwo kills his head messenger, he decides to
commit suicide instead of being subjected to his authority. However, in

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Adichie’s text the role of rough beast has been taking up by characters
like Eugene Achike, the Head of State and the sole Administrator. Their
actions perplex the doings of all other characters of the story and have
now completely replaced Evil Forest. One thing to be heeded here is that,
though the white man has receded but the evil and its prowess in the form
of Evil Forest still remains active. Even in physical and symbolic terms
the forest may have been replaced by a more sophisticated postcolonial
urban world yet the evil has retained its position and role.

Narrative Perspective and Self

Purple Hibiscus is not only about a girl in her adolescence as she is

the narrator of the story. It lets the reader strike a rapport with the author
in the background of gender identification as well as national
symbolisms. Adichie reinforces these by making the narrator as one who
directly suffers herself at the same time is a witness to sufferings of her
mother. The choice of a first-person point of view in Purple Hibiscus is
therefore a very skilful and strategic move on the part of the author for
engaging the reader’s total emotional as well as intellectual sympathy.

The dramatic structure of the narrative set at the very onset and the
first-person narration achieves author’s aim, “Things started falling apart
at home when my brother, Jaja, did not go to communion and Papa flung
his heavy missal across the room and broke the figurines on the étagère.”
(3)

The same has been built vis a vis theme of rebellion. The reader
soon take side with young Kambili and Jaja against their father’s wrong
doings.The complexity of the narrative develops as we are revealed about
the relationship between the father and the mother. Thus, we come across
a narrator in the opening section of the novel who more or less talks to
herself, being unaware of the external forces acting upon in the story.This

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narrative of self-disclosure gathers moss by what she says. When Jaja
rises into revolt the open rebellion internalises further.Throught his clash
between the external forces and internal strife the first chapter of Purple
Hibiscus sets up a narrative pattern that continues throughout the novel:
the constant oscillations between an internal subjective narrator and an
external objective one.

Henceforth, the narrative has been presented from the view point of
Kambili, what she thinks, opines, deduces and comments. She gives out
both her subjective and her objective opinion about the events and
characters around her. This shift gives the needed impetus to the story
and she narrates the story at least from four perspectives:

- From the father’s perspective,

- The change that comes after rebellion towards the father,
- Then comes through the influence of liberal Father Amadi on
the young girl,
- Narrative marked by the death of the old father,

In the first stage the figure of father looms very large in her world,
the second is the result of her freeing from her father gradually, the third
is marked from the final separation from father the realisation of new
liberal thoughts under the influence of another Father, Father Amadi, and
the fourth is the deliverance of freedom from the old order and the
coming of new order.

Purple Hibiscus is structured in three parts: ‘Breaking Gods’,

‘Speaking with Our Spirits’ and ‘The Pieces of Gods’. The major
characteristic of the first-person narrative is that it affords us direct access
into the mind of the narrator, and we find this aplenty in the novel. This
results in a contradictory world and we find her living in it in the first part
of the novel. Kambili in this part is a mirror image of her father and a

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spokesperson of his thoughts. This changes only when the family goes to
their native village and the children pay a brief visit to their grandfather
on Christmas. Jaja and Kambili see their grandfather, Papa-Nnukwu, for
fifteen minutes because he is a heathen, and hence prohibited by their
father to meet him. Yet the meeting this time draws heavy difference
between the luxurious world that Kambili and Jaja live in and the small
world of grandfather.This short visit gives us a direct insight into the
mind of the narrator and its working.

This view-point is further strengthened when the children visit their

Aunt Ifeoma. Kambili and Jaja had never really known them, and the
way the aunt andher children behave and carry themselves comes as a
rude shock. The contrasts between them and their cousins are so stark that
Kambili and Jaja are fascinated. Throughout this holiday period,
however, Kambili continues to bean extension of her father;
unconsciously seeing with his eyes, judging with his mind, and
consciously seeking his approval of her behaviour. For instance, when the
Igwevisits, whereas Aunty Ifeoma and her children pay their respects in
the traditional manner, Kambili “stood at the door a little longer, to make
sure that Papa saw that I didnot go close enough to the Igwe to bow to
him” (p. 94). All because Papa had said that it was an “ungodly tradition”
bowing to an Igwe.

The familial violence unleashed by Eugene on to his wife and

children has come full circle and the children who are adolescence by
now are no more ready to tolerate this unjust and frantic treatment and the
chords of rebellion have begun to be heard. Father’s violence has
separated hitherto adherent Kambili away from him causing a
catastrophic strife within the entire family. The stay with Aunt Ifeoma has
initiated the real education of Kambili and that too away from the

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shadows of her father. From now on, she becomes less and less an
extension of her father, and more and more her own person. Henceforth
the narration entails her independent thinking freed from her father’s
impact.

Three things define Aunty Ifeoma’s household at Nsukka are

poverty, democratic egalitarianism, and laughter. Since all three are either
non-existent or banished in Kambili’s family, their prevalence in Nsukka
makes a critical impact on Kambili and Jaja. Ifeoma’s house register
powerfully on Kambili’s mind or that the stark contrasts with the ‘palatial
mansions’ and open spaces that her family has in Enugu and Abba cannot
but strike her, it is also that she makes no explicit comparisons. Even the
difference in the food and the plates used to serve it registers too (119-
20). She makes an explicit comparison at night, however, but
immediately feels guilty for makingit (123).

The two returns home completely changed and having realised

what home is and where home is. The strict discipline and rule of the
father is not something needed for education and growth but only to make
puppets. The two realise that true development of free spirit has been
fettered in their own house.

Nsukka, on the other hand is governed by what may be called an

egalitarian-democraticorder. The children, Kambili’s cousins, argue
robustly among themselves and with their mother. Everybody participates
equally in cooking and cleaning (140). They all engage in debates before
arriving at decisions which may in fact overturn the mother’s initial idea.
The importance of the same is reflected in the education that the children
had received at different ends. Though she has a very lively imagination
and keen intelligence, Papa’s repressive rule has left her without a mind
of her own. Nsukka atmosphere makes her reassess herself. This self-

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perception colours the way she thinks about, observes, and comments on
other people and events. This is immediately clear in her relationship with
Amaka. Kambili and Amaka are of the same age, but the difference in
self-confidenceis clear to Kambili right from the start.

The direct access into Kambili’s mind becomes more regular and
fully unmediated with Father Amadi’s appearance. Love is an intensely
private emotion and it is only the lover who knows how she or he feels.
Kambili’s response to Father Amadi is sensuous right from the beginning.
We learn in the course of the events, thatthis is the same young priest
who had visited their church at Enugu and scandalized the congregation
by bursting into song in the middle of a sermon, and singing in Igbo. the
descriptions of the events have come to us revelations in the novel and
are symbolic of things falling apart, though there is no concrete mention
as to what will be the newer order of things, but the happenings
significantly account for the break of old traditional norms in the light of
newer and radical ideas that can no more be averted.

Kambili’s return home comes to an abrupt end, Papa almost kills

her onaccount of bringing home Amaka’s drawing of the ‘pagan’ Papa-
Nnukwu. The second visit to Nsukka is interrupted by Mama’s sudden
arrival; she has been savagely beaten and had again lost her pregnancy.
They all return to Enugu on the Saturday before Palm Sunday. However,
on Good Friday, Aunty Ifeoma calls to say that she has been removed
from university and is heading for America with her children. She also
informs that Father Amadi will soon be departing for Germany. Jaja and
Kambili start for the third and final trip to Nsukka, and we find Kambili
and Father Amadi largely alone together. After rounds of discussions and
private talks Kambili discloses her love to father Amadi (276). The
feeling of love having been awakened and frustrated, it is no wonder that,

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on his last day, it is the physical response that re-asserts itself, this time as
anger (280).

The bulk of the narrative has been written in simple past tense, this
signifies that the events took place in the recent past and hence are more
relevant to the theme and progress of the narrative.This pattern together
with the grammatical structure impart a sense of immediacy to the
happenings in the story. This style works effectively to merge the time
sense of the events which are scattered over a period of three years in
one, portraying as if they took place in very recent times and
simultaneously.

The opening lines “Things started to fall apart …” (1) which

anticipate future events, begin the narrative on a Palm and an echo of the
same words, “Everything came tumbling down after Palm Sunday” and
the section “The Pieces of Gods: After Palm Sunday” works to unify the
time sense of the narrative into one single unit.

The entire narrative takes place in first person form. Purple

Hibiscus does maintain some kind of distance between narrator and
reader, as well as between the narrator and author. This distancing
complies the first person narrative mode of the novel. The distance
between the real author and narrator serves to expose the moral and
intellectual flaws enough to prove that the narrator knows more than she
manifests through her voice.

A close observation of the novel works to reveal the

inconsistencies with the narrative mode and that too in the revelation of
papa’s character. A very fine example of the same is the mention of hot
tea in the opening and closing of the story. The narrative starts with
Kambili mentioning the ritual “love sip” of Papa’s tea as, “always too
hot, always burned my tongue” (8). Finally, when Mama poisoned Papa

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through his tea Kambili will remember the tea as ‘hot’. Through the
repeated use of the word ‘burning’ and ‘scalding’, (290) one can straight-
away recall the horrifying episode of Papa ‘boiling’ of Kambili’s feet in
the bath tub with hot water. Kambili leaves for the readers to link these
scattered episodes and weave them in a knot. This in turn serves to
expose papa’s completely neurotic love for his family.

The complete contriving of Eugene Achieke’s family is a sharp

anomaly to Aunt Ifeoma’s house in Nssuka (140). While Eugene
ostentatiously displays his mansion in country and town Ifeoma maintains
a simple house. Kambili’s large mansion with most of its part unused
reflects the inner working of the mind of Eugene, who has forgotten to
make use of the most needed part of his brain and though has monetary
luxuries yet dwells in intellectual poverty. Kambili rightly broods: the
house is an image of the man who, even in his numerous acts of
generosity, is rigidly impersonal: it is a house that, like its owner, is
forbidden in spite of its luxuriousness.

The narrative voice in the novel provides the reader access into the
narrator’s mind working to reveal her innermost thoughts and feelings.
Though, themajor events in the story happen shortly before the novel
opens, the narrative mode renders as if everything is happening ‘now’.
Except the last chapter, ‘A Different Silence: The Present’, the entire
novel is narrated inthe past tense—the former being in present tense.
These devices bestow the story a sense of immediacy and real at the same
time.

The Dispossessed

Marta Sofia Lopez’s “Creating Daughterlands: Dangarmbga,

Adichie and Vera”, examines three stories, Nervous Conditions, Purple
Hibiscus and Under the Tongue written by young African female writers.

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She shifts from Obioma Nnaemeka’s argument on motherhood stating
that, “motherhood in African texts are based notonly on motherhood as a
patriarchal institution but motherhood as an experience” (1997:5). Lopez
rejects Nnaemeka’s and examines the three texts from the point of view
of daughters.

This trend is visible in African fiction since Chinua Achebe’s

Anthills of Savanah. In this novel a girl or a woman character takes up the
role of the protagonist and/or occupies an authoritative role as a
narrator/author. Thus these novels are narrated from the perspective of a
mother, daughter, or a wife, perhaps the story-telling mode is of a
woman. Lopez argues:

Given the specificity of African family structures, it would be a

crass mistake to ignore the role of women who are not biological
mothers to the main characters in the novels, but whose maternal
authority on them is unquestionable” (85).

In Purple Hibiscus, though Aunty Ifeoma is presented as an

impoverished university lecturer, she is anepitome of freedom. She
refuses to act at the will of higher authorities in the university and prefers
to retain her descriptive and decision making roles. Kambili’s first visit to
her house she along with her children allows Kambili to take part in the
discussions freely and uninterruptedly, “Mostly, my cousins did the
talking and Aunty Ifeoma sat back and watched them, eating slowly. She
looked like a football coach who had done a good job with her team and
was satisfied to stand next to the eighteen-yard box and watch” (120-21).
Kambili fully individualises herself in the company of Ifeoma and frees
herself from the violent and harsh treatment of her father. This realisation
takes concrete from as she refuses to return to her own home form the
hospital anticipating that the return will again subject her to brutalities

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making her powerless like her mother, something she now strongly
detests. Lopez claims that she does so in order to prove that she doesn’t
fall in line with mother’s footsteps, “her mother’s passive acceptance of
her father’s tyranny, Kambili recognizes her own impotence, her inability
to rebel or articulate her rage” (90). Adrienne Rich suggests “her
mother’s victimization doesn’t merely humiliate her; it mutilates the
daughter who watches for cluesas to what it means being a woman”
(243).

Ifeoma is the only female character in the novel that stands for
freedom and emancipation providing a role model for Kambili and Jaja.
She not only manages her house hold with dexterity but also abides by
her free and emancipatory values in external affairs, thus working to
bridge the gap between the social and political happenings of her times
and place. Brenda Cooper’s examines Adichie’s holistic vision in her
novel, a vision which integrates Igbo customs and language with Catholic
ritual. She incorporates men into her gender politics and embraces the
literary traditions of her elders—Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and
Alice Walker. She finds Adichie contriving to represent the syncretised
world through the material culture and everyday realities of life in
modern Nigeria. In doing so she creates a world where the boundaries
between the living and the dead, the animate and the inanimate, the big
and the small, the literal and the symbolic worlds and things are breached.
She argues that what “we witness in the novel is the attempt to re-imagine
objects linked to precolonial rituals, but syncretised with the church and
with European culture and integrated into a global modernity.” (5)

Walker posits that Adichie contradicts herself in the presentation of

Eugene Achike as a man who brutalizes his family at home; yet, a
champion of democracy who wins an international award. She believes

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that this contradiction may be as a result of Adichie’s ‘womanism’
asopposed to feminism, and the influence of Alice Walker. She adds,
‘womanism’ is “committed to survival and wholeness of the entire
people, male and female” (xi). She compares Eugene Achike to
Okonkwo judging that Achike is worse. She maintains that the problem
of Achike arises from traumatic memories of his early childhood. In fact,
Adichie’s struggle equals those whose voices, “encapsulates this
allegorical struggle for freedom in highly symbolic and thought-
provoking images that haunt the reader for a very long time after he must
have put back the novel on the bookshelf. ” (242)

Eustace Palmer’s draws attention to the themes of the novel which

are physical devastation caused by war, particularly its emphasis on
havoc caused on human relationships, and the mental, physical and
emotional torture which women undergo in war situations. Virginia
Olaclaims that war entails “the human and emotional dimensions of war-
broken homes, the fate of widows and widowers, marital infidelity, the
suffering of the orphans, even insanity and general moral decadence.”
(64)

Chinyere Nwahunanya examines in Literary Criticism, Critical

Theory and Post-Colonial African Literature, Nigerian war fiction. He
takes a closer look at the way novelists adopt and adapt materials of pre-
war, wartime and post-warhistory in their fiction. He evaluates the
aesthetics war fiction from two perspectives: the historicism of the words
and the imaginative creation that is carried on alongside historical
recreation.

These critical essays on the war fiction entail the saga of

dispossessed, which falls more in line with Adichie’s Half of a Yellow
Sun. Purple Hibiscus narrates the depiction of the war into social

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atmosphere of Nigeria. Akwanya and Anohu’s essay, they draw a subtle
distinction between the ‘defeat’ and ‘dispossession’ of characters in the
Nigerian novel. They examine the issue of ‘defeat’in tragedy, holding that
the characters experience defeat because of the choices they make. This
defeat lends them the stature of a tragic hero. Okonkwo and Ezeulu in
Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, are associated with
historical and cultural revolutions. They have the greatness of soul and
face ruin in the face of adversity and not because they lack courage. Their
ultimate fate can be better described as ‘tragic reversal.’ The case of
Eugene Achike is different. He feels dispossessed not due to short
comings on the part of courage, but at the part of his character. He
represents the post war age which has witnessed tremendous social
changes and is unable to maintain a concord with the new social order
and give up the trivialities in the old prevailing system. He is a
representative of orthodoxies in the social fabric, to an extent he is
representative of the coterie who has vehemently refused to change and
accept the new and more radical ideals. Their world is shattered as the
new radical standards turn out to be more successful. Thus, Adichie’s
Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow unravel dispossession briefly
outlining its causes and consequences to their social environments.

Intercultural Education in the Novel

Purple Hibiscus is a Bildungsroman, where education and learning

is a prominent theme. Bonnie Hoover Braendlin opines Bildungsroman as
a “more or less autobiographical novel, reflecting an author’s desire to
universalize personal experience in order to valorise personal identity”
(77). In a Bildungsroman the reader follows the protagonist’s gradual
self-development and change of character. Here a protagonist may also

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tell a tale in time consciousness, from past to present and vice versa as
does Adichie in Purple Hibiscus.

The narrative over here progresses from childhood to adulthood

and a realisation as well as aspiration to rightfully claim and acquire a
place for her in the larger social fabric. Purple Hibiscus, written in four
parts, entails in its first part the story of a fettered girl in a staunch
religious environment, where the narrator-protagonist rebels
individualising herself and coming out as a round personality of her own.
The first phase of her life is imitation of the rigid father under the guise
that everything he does is unquestionably good. The second section
describes how an intercultural pedagogy is weaved in the fabric of the
narrative through the characters of aunt Ifeoma and her children. Unlike
Kambili’s home environment Aunt Ifeoma the children are encouraged to
develop their own identities as a result of their independent critical
examination and seek answers to questions that are radical. Aunt Ifeoma
stands as a symbol for intercultural education in the novel. She
encourages her children to think critically and breeding individualism in
their hearts. She also is a teacher at the University of Nsukka.
Universities are known for their radical environment which is reflected in
her and her children. Free thinking and logical reasoning is the hallmark
of higher education which results in true freedom of both body and spirit.

Ifeoma asserts throughout the novel that she is a strong proponent

of these values, and her conviction is ultimately what gets her fired, as the
state starts to interfere in the university’s business. Bundled with ethical
values and respect for others in a society is imminent in Ifeoma’s
advising her daughter, “Amaka, you are free to have your opinions, but
you must treat your cousin with respect” (142). Kambili’s inability to
socialise with her and her friends makes it difficult to continue the rigid

44
familial setup of her father and drives her to register some changes in her
character that are to change the future events of the story. Ifeoma
impinges Obiora: “I do not quarrel with your disagreeing with my friend.
I quarrel with how you have disagreed. I do not raise disrespectful
children in this house, do you hear me?” (245) The novel establishes the
need and importance of respect towards other people so as not to infuriate
them. These two incidents exemplify the different educational thought
maturing in the same society just a few miles apart. Amaka and Obiora
enjoy the freedom to cherish their individualised opinion but at the same
time have to ethical in their conduct by showing grace and respect for
other people, their religion and their way of thinking. These two words
respect and tolerance buzz through the rest of the narrative making the
characters voice the differences in their opinion in an amiable manner so
as to lead to betterment and development of the society as a whole.

This freedom comes as an amazement and confusion in the minds

of Kambili and Jaja. They cannot resist themselves to pertinently note the
undeterred voices in this new home and at the same time carry severe
influence of the same upon their thought process and themselves their
value system. Their cousins Amaka and Obiora engage in political
discussions where they show that they have created their own views by
critically examining the world and getting insight in different
perspectives and worldviews. When they tell Kambili about a
conversation between Ifeoma and one of her colleagues at the university
about the administrative degradation at the university where the
university has put Aunt Ifeoma on a list of disloyal personnel as some one
who speaks boldly against government control being exercised over the
university. Kambili´s responds to their argument is: “Aunty Ifeoma told
you that?” (224), and adds up:

45
 I asked stupidly not even sure of what I meant, because I could not
think of nothing else to say, because I could no longer imagine life
without Aunty Ifeoma’s family, without Nsukka. (224)

It is at the end of the novel that Kambili realizes the importance of

free education that Aunt Ifeoma has given her children so as they may
come up to be responsible future citizens of the country and the world.

Kambili soon realizes that her cousins have developed

individualised character and will take up greater responsibility as they
grow older and questions the validity of the education that she and Jaja
had received.They have always been perplexed by fear, a fear of getting
punished if they do not achieve first position in their class. Kambili´s
cousins are active learners whereas Kambili and Jaja are seen as passive
learners subjected to conditioning. This quote reflects what Warnick calls
process-oriented imitation (Warnick 69). In process-oriented imitation
the goal is that the learner imitates a process by which someone has
produced something. This means that a new writer tries to imitate an
experienced author in the writing process, but still writes a book with
his/her own ideas and comes up with something new. Ifeoma’s teaching
enables her children to create their own unique identities converging into
a fully rounded character. She shows the children a path; they imitate her,
and as a result turn out to be independent individuals. Her education is
also an epitome of real learning where children learn gradually coming
into contact with the world and are not bounded by chains limiting them
to a restricted sphere. Adichie rightly point that they scale a rod and
develop gradually until they come up with a new “product” (226).

Ifeoma’s liberal education involving laughter as opposed to

Eugene’s replicates the freedom that Hélen Cixous talks in Ecriture
Feminine. She teaches Kambili to use her voice and stand up for herself:

46
“Aunty Ifeoma´s eyes hardened—she was not looking at Amaka, she was
looking at me. O ginidi, Kambili, have you no mouth? Talk back at her!”
(170). It can be said the other way round so as to keep pace with the
development of the narrative that Kambili succeeds I grasping this
education from Ifeoma. Kambili restarts her learning at Aunt Ifeoma’s
house and at the same time finds the same more soothing then the
traditional rigid learning atmosphere of her father. Adichie here seems to
support the modern fun-way theories of learning preached by more
radical educationists.

This mode of learning has been further pressed by the coming of

Father Amadi. Father Amadi is an advocate of a rather reformative view
of religion which is progressive at the same time and a break-way from
the old rigid attitude of the old converts who are stiff and reject newer
changes coming into society. He also stands as a symbol of cultural
hybridity responsible of bringing the indigenous culture to his Masses by
singing Igbo hymns and he shows solidarity and understanding towards
the traditional Nigerian religion and culture. Though his views are
questioned, yet he efforts out to stand by and justify them.

A fine example of the confrontation between the old and new

religious thought is apparent in Amaka’s refusal to adopt an English
name. (272) She even enters into a quarrel with Father Amadi refusing to
adopt an English names for baptizing and confirmation, instead she
questions traditions. Despite aunt Ifeoma’s request she refuses to adopt a
Christian name and is not confirmed, this leads to final culmination into a
fully developed character of hers. She has framed an independent
subjective identity allowing her to choose her own way of life. Here she
turns out to be a true opposite of Kambili, at least what Kambili initially
at the beginning of the story is.

47
 Eugene’s house in the narrative is symbolic of imitative education
and aunt Ifeoma house demonstrates intercultural education in the novel.
Kambili who initially learns to imitate her father’s values and submits
wholeheartedly to father’s teaching, when reached Aunt Ifeoma’s house
encounters an intercultural upbringing of children leading to the
development of critical thinking. This intercultural education accounts for
difference forming a unique personality based on active and critical
exploration of the world. Amaka questions Catholicism and follows it.
This contrast in the character is the giving of intercultural and radical
education that Ifeoma upholds in the narrative.

Language and Ideology

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie deploys language to foreground the

ideological dispositions of gender and power amounting to a critique of
the society in Purple Hibiscus. Language, here becomes, an essential tool
for expressing ideology and directly serves to express author’s opinion on
the issues of gender, power relation, social and cultural dogmatisms, and
exploitation. The ideological implications of the external world have been
reflected through the inner working of an extremist father Eugene
exercising violence over his own family members. In Purple Hibiscus,
Kambili, who initially, is a great admirer of her father despite the brutal
treatmented out to her and her family members and even takes great pride
in his character. (53, 94, 137, 260)

Ideology is not something imposed on us, we enjoy our ideology.

(Zizek: 2013) Kambili’s compulsion to please Eugene and to certify that
his thoughts aremore concrete reveal an inner working of the narrator’s
mind. His submission is willing and voluntary. When this submission
comes into clash with the external world it is shaken and Kambili
reasserts herself, this time denouncing the thoughts and impositions of

48
father. She does both the acts willingly and not merely out of some
external force. Her submission at one time and her defiance of the same at
another time brings out the fact that it is she who innovates her own
ideology, pursues it gives it a concrete shape herself at both the
occasions. Karen Bruce rightly points out that, “Kambili has internalised
her father’s authority to such an extent that it has become an
unquestioned part of the way she experiences and interacts with the
world” (n.d.). Karen Bruce maintains that:

…silence is not merely a “form of oppression” in Purple

Hibiscus—in the sense that Kambili’s speechlessness can be
attributed to “her father’s abuse”—but it also becomes “a mode of
resistance.” The crux of the matter probably lies in the
simultaneous presence of these opposite functions in single
instances where words are left unspoken. (n.d.)

Adichie’s portrayal of the world of fifteen year old protagonist is

congruent with the socio-political scene in Nigeria. Her acceptance of the
violence at home and accepting it as internalised values of his revered
father stands in direct contrast with the political history of a war torn
Nigeria. Critics like Debra Beilke, Heather Hewett, and other contrasts
the violent atmosphere that pervades the home of the novel’s fifteen-year
old narrator, Kambili Achike, and the climate of fear maintained by the
ruthless Nigerian military regimes of the late twentieth century. Marta
Sofia Lopez examines the novel from a feminist perspective as well as the
alternatives to patriarchal oppression found in the narrative. (Lopez 89-
92)

An analysis of Adichie’s use of indirect speech reveals several

layers of the narrative in Purple Hibiscus.When Kambili reports the
convictions and judgements that Eugene teaches his family:

49
 [Papa] looked sad; his rectangular lips seemed to sag. Coups begat
coups, he said, telling us about the bloody coups of the sixties,
which ended up in civil war just after he left Nigeria to study in
England. A coup always began a vicious cycle. Military men would
always overthrow one another, because they could, because they
were all power drunk.

Of course, Papa told us, the politicians were corrupt, and the
Standard [Eugene’s newspaper] had written many stories about the
cabinet ministers who stashed money in foreign bank accounts,
money meant for paying teachers’ salaries and building roads. (24)

She means to represent both the direct and the indirect speech
which voices the free speech in the novel, one that represents the thoughts
and perceptions of the author itself. The psycho-linguistic phenomenon
whereby the syntax implies an interpretation that turns outto be wrong.
Importantly, although the impression of having encountered free indirect
thought is corrected, the original effect is not entirely subsumed (Leech
and Short, 267).

Analysis of speech in the above lines questions many points of

verbal analysis. The statement, “A coup always began a vicious cycle.
Military men would always overthrow one another, because they could,
because they were all power drunk;” represents the state of author’s mind
rather than of the fifteen year old narrator. Adichie finely blends the
speech and voices in the narrative, which serve to divulge the mental state
of the author more than it does for the character. Analysing the opening
lines of the very next paragraph, quoted above, these speeches account
for Nigeria’s state of both political and social anarchy after the civil war.
The manipulation of speech presentation blurs the boundaries between
Kambili's and her father’s words.

50
 This stylistics enables the narrator to internalize Eugene’s views to
an extent that they become narrator’s own. She thus presents a state
where she has no critical difference between her views and her father’s
opinion. Adichie’s art makes it difficult to segregate her views from
Eugene’s, at least at the surface level of the text.

Eugene’s shadow impends over the narrative and is not restricted to

passages in which Kambili reports her father’s speech. His influence
works more insidiously and is apparent while portraying a catholic Mass:

The congregation said “Yes” or “God bless him” or “Amen,” but

not too loudly so they would not sound like the mushroom
Pentecostal churches; then they listened intently, quietly. Even the
babies stopped crying, as if they, too, were listening. (5)

It matters little if the noun “mushroom” reflects Kambili’s opinion

it is representative of the entire congregation’s view. Here at least
Kambili embraces the belief that Pentecostal churches are spreading like
parasites. The same is visible again when the young priest, singing “the
sermon like a Godless leader of one of these Pentecostal churches that
spring up everywhere like mushrooms.” (29)

Eugene uses the word “Godless” tocharacterize Evangelistic

leaders and is intolerant of Pentecostalism. He terms traditional Igbo
religious beliefs not only have “Godless” but contrasted it to Nigeria’s
military rulers as “heathen” and “pagan”. He paints the practises of Igbo
religion as sinful and followers of the traditional movement as idol
worshipers. Eugene’s contemptuous attitude towards traditional Igbo
religion has no better enactment, then the way Eugene treats his own
father Papa Nnukwu, sympathizing and condemning of Nigeria’s military
rulers at the same time.

51
 Eugene’s condemnation of the traditional Igbo culture forms the
very basis of his own faith. His disdain for these ungodly creatures is
accommodated by his daughter, and it is this conduct that results in
formation of Eugene’s faith. It can be said that his religious view are
representational of the inherent fears that the Christian community of
Nigeria lives with and is regularly thwarted with. Kambili unable to
distinguish between his father’s political stance and his scrupulous
religious dogmatism blinds herself with the teachings bestowed by his
father up till a time she is challenged with more logical questions. She
emphatically evocates her father’s rhetoric, among which “it was sinful
for a woman to wear trousers” (80), calls “Papa-Nnukwu is a pagan” (81)
and initially rejects Aunty Ifeoma, “How can Our Lady intercede on
behalf of a heathen, Aunty?” (166)

Kambili’s first visit to father Nnukwu just supports Eugene’s

religious bigotry: “I examined him [Papa-Nnukwu] that day, too, for
signs ofdifference, of Godlessness. I didn’t see any, but I was sure they
were somewhere. They had tobe”(63). Though there is no concrete
evidence to support her claim yet she cannot resist herself being attracted
towards the neutrality of her grandfather’s faith:

The bench held me back, sucked me in. I watched a gray rooster

walk into the shrine atthe corner of the yard, where Papa-
Nnukwu’s god was, where Papa said Jaja and I were never to go
near. The shrine was a low, open shed, its mud roof and walls
covered with dried palm fronts. It looked like the grot to behind St.
Agnes, the one dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes. (66)

The above description presents the seeds of rational changes in

Kambili’s behaviour and added neutrality that she is heading to. Her
immobility has been the result of the prevailing environment around her.

52
Her visit to grandfather’s home and to his shrine intuits her with a
knowledge of religious tolerance and coexistence which hitherto has been
absent in her own home, which has been the colony of Eugene Achike’s
undisputed and unchallenged rule. , “that sometimes what was different
was just as good as what was familiar, that when Papa-Nnukwu does his
itu-nzu, his declaration of innocence, in the morning, it was the same as
our saying the rosary.” (166)

Though Kambili doesn’t comprehend her aunt’s view and still calls
her grandfather heathen and a pagan, yet she kindles her curiosity about
the traditional Igbo culture and its believers.She nourishes her curiosity
for traditional Igbo culture rapidly. After looking at a mmuo and then
averting her gaze asher grandfather tells that women are prohibited to
watch it, she nearly enjoys Eugene considers “devilish folklore” (85) and
adds further: "It was sinful, deferring to a heathen masquerade. But
atleast I had looked at it very briefly, so maybe it would technically not
be deferring to aheathen masquerade" (86). This elaborate description of
the mmuo preceding suggests that Kambili has carefully observed the
masked figure.

The day grandfather dies in aunt Ifeoma’s house, she expresses her
grief in her perceptibly changed priorities:

Jaja bent down and covered Papa-Nnukwu’s body with the

wrapper... I wanted to goover and touch Papa-Nnukwu, touch the
white tufts of hair that Amaka oiled, smooth the wrinkled skin of
his chest. But I would not. Papa would be outraged. I closed my
eyes then so that if Papa asked if I had seen Jaja touch the body of
a heathen—it seemed more grievous, touching Papa-Nnukwu in
death—I could truthfully say no, because I had not seen everything
that Jaja did. (184)

53
Kambili’s narration of having seen but not seen the proceedings of father
Nnukwu’s dead corpse is an indictment of oral implications. She is a
witness of the seen but her refusal to accept the same is symbolic of her
breaking away from her own father’s religious dogmatism. This
development may not be a certificate of change in Kambili, yet it
foreshadows the coming changes that are about to take concrete shape in
near future.

Her statement, “Papa would be outraged” clarifies that she was

now freeing herself from the familial and outrageous clutches that she
had been in so far. Kambili’s speculations about her father’s behaviour
are interesting to note. It can be straightaway said that Kambili’s
conjecture of Eugene’s words are not the rendering of her own analysis.
These indications contribute to the formation of a pattern where at the
centre of her discourse is disapproval and the reflections on judgements
and beliefs echo the ideological shift that is taking place in the mind of
the protagonist-narrator.

Kambili gradually undergoes a shift in her ideological beliefs about

the tradition and culture and initiates her own decision making abilities
supported by the home of Aunty Ifeoma. This questioned hegemonised
thinking when comes into contact with Father Amadi’s more rational
thought shatters into pieces. The same reaches its climax with Kambili
falling into love with Father Amadi:

I was always a penitent when I was close to a priest at confession.

But it was hard to feel penitent now, with Father Amadi’s cologne
deep in my lungs. I felt guilty instead becauseI could not focus on
my sins, could not think of anything except how near he was. “I
slept in the same room as my grandfather. He is a heathen,” I blurted
out.

54
 He turned to me briefly, and before he looked away, I wondered if
the light in his eyes was amusement.

“Why do you say that?”

“It is a sin.”

“Why is it a sin?”

I stared at him. I felt that he had missed a line in his script. “I don’t
know.”

“Your father told you that.”

I looked away, out the window. I would not implicate Papa, since
Father Amadi obviously disagreed. (175)

This completes Kambili’s development of character and her

disposition of judgement, which hitherto has been marred by his father’s
view-point.

The ideas of sinfulness and the concept of guilt, both of which had
preoccupied the narrator’s outlook, disappear from free thought and
vanish permanently.She no longer mirror the traditional Igbo culture as
“heathen” and “pagan”, except once when Eugene is driving children
back home from Nsukka:

I could not let them stay an extra day, Papa said, looking around
the living room, toward the kitchen and then the hallway, as if
waiting for Papa-Nnukwu to appear in a puff of heathen smoke.
(188)

Kambili arguably question her father’s view-point though she still

unable to openly denounce the same and up hold the newer and more
radical thought. The coming pages bring to light the clash that is taking
place in her mind and her sudden outburst when Eugene calls her, later

55
when she is at Ifeoma’s home. The lines finely draw the strife that was
taking place in her mind:

I did want to talk to Papa, to hear his voice, to tell him what I had
eaten and what I had prayed about so that he would approve, so
that he would smile so much his eyes would crinkle at the edges.
And yet, I did not want to talk to him; I wanted to leave with
Father Amadi, or with Aunty Ifeoma, and never come back. (268)

The narrator’s unresolved feelings persist beyond the moment of

her father’s death, and expresses a sense of relief when she reports that “a
different kind of silence, one that lets her breathe… the silence of when
Papa was alive” (305), about which she still has nightmares.

Kambili finally has distanced herself from her father’s stern views
she still dreams of her father and prey’s for him, which is paradoxical to
the entire setting of the story:

I have not told Jaja that I offer masses for Papa every Sunday, that
I wanted to see him in my dreams, that I want it so much I
sometimes make my own dreams, when I am neither asleep nor
awake: I see Papa, he reaches out to hug me, I reach out, too…
(305-6)

There is one remarkable point that Kambili though rejects the old
fatherly dogmas but did not completely uproot herself from her old ties,
and still remembers her father unlike Eugene who has complete turned
his back towards Papa Nnukwu.

The best part of the narrative lies in the honesty with which
Kambili entails her initial loyalty and final denunciation of Eugene’s
oppression. The narrative is also indicative of the newly found freedom
both at the political and social fronts. The cosmic world of the teenage

56
narrator is an epitome of the larger political scene prevalent in Nigeria.
This development, unlike the old one, comes out with better promises and
hints at a better social order. The textual evidence suggest that the morals
and conduct of the old traditional beliefs are neither to be completely
looked down and nor it will be so. Kambili’s, rather Adichie’s, realisation
of the complexities of the Nigerian society and its working needs to be
explored afresh so as to strike a better concord between the old and new
order. It also suggests that, perhaps here in lies the key to a more peaceful
coexistence.

Thus Purple Hibiscus encloses in it the differences and

commonalities between traditional and the more radical social groups of
Nigeria, and seeks to establish that they have to learn to harmonise
themselves forever and for the betterment of the country. Eugene’s claim
that his father worships the deities that are mere “gods of wood and
stone”(47), than ideally for Papa Nnukwu, Christ does not represent
anything more than “the person that hangs onthe wood outside the
mission” (84). Adichie avers that the country—Nigeria—has been
trapped betwixt these two dogmas and both of which claim that they are
superior. She adds that it is here that a greater concord is imminent.

Lawal M. Olusola and Lawal, Fatai Alabi in their study titled

Language and Ideology conclude that:

By implication, there is a lot of deployment of linguistics

adroitness and ideological disposition by Adichie in Purple
Hibiscus, most especially, as it has been expressly discussed here,
in the ideological aura of gender and power together with the area
of using critical discourse to critique the society which is
apparently entrenched where language and ideology come to play.

57
 The first-person narrative voice in the novel affords us direct
access into the narrator’s mind, making the narrative seem like an
overheard extensive monologue in which she reveals her innermost
thoughts and feelings to us. The present tense employed in the narrative
depicts reader’s growing knowledge of the narrator is simultaneous with
her own growing self-knowledge, both of which happen as the story
unfolds. Although the author does not create an overt distance between
herself and Kambili, it is clear that most of the time, hers is a young mind
with great intuition, a mind that knows without knowing that it knows.

Adichie’s text scores on a lot of different variables that can be

analysed lexically as has been done by Ebi Yeibo and Comfort Akerele in
their essay. They further opine Adichie constructs the text consciously
and deliberately in the sense that any meaningful linguistic construct is a
product of a deliberate patterning of lexical choices within specific
contextual frameworks. Hence the linguistic style adopted in a particular
work of art encapsulates how the various resources of communication
cohere in the text. A study of linguistic patterns in Purple Hibiscus
analyses a specific extract in terms of narration and point of view.

58
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