Adichie Practice Exam Question

Postcolonial literature, as several scholars have argued, is concerned with the experience of
colonialism and its ongoing effects. Of equal concern is the rewriting of colonial scripts of ‘African
barbarity’.

Use these comments as a starting point to explore a reading of Adichie’s novel as an example of
postcolonial literature. Your discussion should focus on the two examples of ‘body writing’ given
below.

Papa, wearing a long, gray robe like the rest of the oblates, helped distribute ash every year. His line
moved the slowest, because he pressed hard on the forehead to make a perfect cross with his ash-
covered thumb and slowly, meaningfully enunciated every word of “dust and unto dust you shall
return.”
Papa always sat in the front pew for Mass, at the end beside the middle aisle, with Mama and Jaja and
me sitting next to him. He was the first to receive communion. Most people did not kneel to receive
communion at the marble altar, with the blond life-size virgin Mary mounted nearby, but Papa did. He
would hold his eyes shut so hard that his face tightened into a grimace, and then he would stick his
tongue out as far as it would go. Afterwards, he sat back and watched the rest of the congregants troop
to the altar, palms pressed together and extended like a saucer held sideways as Father Benedict had
taught them to do. […] Father Benedict had changed things in the parish, such as insisting that the
Credo and kyrie be recited only in Latin; Igbo was not acceptable. Also, hand clapping must be kept
to a minimum, lest the solemnity of the mass be compromised. But he allowed offertory songs in
Igbo; he called them native songs, and when he said “native” his straight-line lips turned down at the
corners to form an inverted U.

****
“Chineke! Bless me. Bless my daughter, Ifeoma. Give her enough for her family.” He shifted on the
stool. His navel had once jutted out, I could tell, but now it looked like a wrinkled eggplant, drooping.
“Chineke! Bless my son, Eugene. Let the sun not set on his prosperity. Lift the curse you have put on
him.” […] Papa-Nnukwu smiled as he spoke. His few front teeth seemed a deeper yellow in the light,
like fresh corn kernels. The wide gaps in his gums were tinged a subtle, tawny colour. […] When
Papa-Nnukwu rose and stretched, his entire body, like the bark of a gnarled gmelina tree in our yard,
captured the gold shadows from the lamp in its many furrows and ridges. Even the age spots that
dotted his hands and legs gleamed. I did not look away, although it was sinful to look upon another
person’s nakedness […] Between his legs hung a limp cocoon that seemed smoother, free of the
wrinkles that criss-crossed the rest of this body like mosquito netting. […] His nipples were like dark
raisons nestled among the sparse grey tufts of hair… He was still smiling as I quietly turned and went
back to the bedroom (167-169).
Groenkloof

According to Ato Quayson, ‘postcolonialism... involves a studied engagement with the experience of
colonialism and its past and present effects. […] The term is as much about conditions under
imperialism and colonialism proper, as about conditions coming after the historical end of
colonialism’.

Use the passage that follows to explore a reading of Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus as an example of
postcolonial literature. You should include discussion of the characterisation of Papa Eugene and
the significance of the first-person narrative perspective.

Papa was walking toward Jaja. He spoke entirely in Igbo now. I thought he would pull Jaja’s ears, that
he would tug and yank at the same pace as he spoke, that he would slap Jaja’s face and his palm
would make that sound, like a heavy book falling from a library shelf at school. And then he would
reach across and slap me on the face with the casualness of reaching for the pepper shaker. But he
said, “I want you to finish that food and go to your rooms and pray for forgiveness,” before turning to
go back downstairs. The silence he left was heavy but comfortable, like a well-worn prickly cardigan
on a bitter morning.

“You still have rice on your plate,” Jaja said finally.

I nodded and picked up my fork. Then I heard Papa’s raised voice just outside the window and put the
fork down.

“What is he doing in my house? What is Anikwena doing in my house?” The enraged timber in
Papa’s voice made my fingers cold at the tips. Jaja and I dashed to the window, and because we could
see nothing, we dashed out to the verandah and stood by the pillars.

Papa was standing in the front yard, near an orange tree, screaming at a wrinkled old man in a torn
white singlet and a wrapper around his waist. A few other men stood around Papa.

“What is Anikwena doing in my house? What is a worshipper of idols doing in my house!”

“Do you know that I am in your father’s age group, gbo?” the old man asked. The finger he waved in
the air was meant for Papa’s face, but it only hovered around his chest. “Do you know that I sucked
my mother’s breast when your father sucked his mother’s?”

“Leave my house!” Papa pointed at the gate.

Two men slowly ushered Anikwena out of the compound. He did not resist; he was too old to,
anyway. But he kept looking back and throwing words at Papa. “Ifukwa gi! You are like a fly blindly
following a corpse into the grave!” I followed the old man’s unsteady gait until he walked out through
the gates
Aegrotat Question

‘As I begin to recognise that the Negro is the symbol of sin, I catch myself hating the Negro. But then
I recognise that I am a Negro. […] The Negro’s behaviour makes him akin to an obsessive neurotic
type, or, if one prefers, he puts himself into a complete situational neurosis. In the man of colour there
is a constant effort to run away from his own individuality, to annihilate his own presence (Fanon,
Black Skin, White Masks, 1952 p. 43)

Use the above quotation and the passages below as a starting point to explore the paradoxical
characterisation of Eugene Achike. You should position this analysis within a broader discussion of
the novel as an example of postcolonial literature, one which is centred on the trauma of the
colonial past.

“Everything I do for you, I do for your own good,” Papa said. “You know that?”
“Yes, Papa.” I still was not sure if he knew about the painting. He sat on my bed and held my hand. “I
committed a sin against my own body once”, he said. “And the good father, the one I lived with while
I went to St. Gregory’s, came in and saw me. He asked me to boil water for tea. He poured the water
in a bowl and soaked my hands in it.” Papa was looking right into my eyes. I did not know he had
committed any sins. “I never sinned against my own body again. The good father did that for my own
good,” he said.

***

As we drove home, Papa talked loudly, above the “Ave Maria.” “I am spotless now, we are all
spotless. If God calls us right now, we are going straight to Heaven. Straight to Heaven. We will not
require the cleansing of Purgatory.” He was smiling, his eyes bright, his hand gently drumming the
steering wheel. And he was still smiling when he called Aunty Ifeom soon after we got back home,
before he had his tea.