Farah Rashid English-255
Prof Fiona Lee Blog.
The Purple Hibiscus Written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi is indeed very bold. It mentions in dept about issues such as domination, oppression, fear, domestic violence etc. Papa being the dominating figure often abuses Jaja, Kimbili and Mama. In the novel the Purple Hibiscus, the author told the story from a women perspective unlike the novel Things fall apart written by the same author from a male prespective. What fell apart in this novel is the household. Not only that, there is a political unrest in the country and in their household too. In this male dominating arena, women are often ignored resulting in silence and oppression. This novel doesn’t only bring out the women point of view, but also is an intelligent attempt to bring out into the surface what is often purposely ignored, unheard and unseen. One f such example is domestic violence. In Purple Hibiscus, we get a strong sense of silence. Various aspect of silence is introduced here in the text. Therefore we can say that the novel carefully and indeed cleverly explores the theme of silence. Through out the novel we see that Jaja and Kimbili are both victims of violence and are equally silent. However Jaja later becomes very vocal about his own opinion and expresses repression against their abusive father. Unlike Kimbili and Mama, he stood up for himself. The notion of silence could also be described as a consequence of a trauma so deep that it is indeed very hard for one to come out of it. Thus silence slowly observes what cannot be said. Fortunately with time Kimbili slowly unwinds and expresses herself. Unlike before where she silently underwent violence, she now realizes the facts. Another such strong theme in this novel Purple Hibiscus is the notion of freedom. Freedom is indeed very hard to accomplish. In this text Jaja, Kimbili and Mama gets freedom from the abusive Papa. At the end of the novel Mama poisons Papa thus obtaining the much desired freedom. Even thought she frees herself from Papa’s oppression, is she really free ?. According to me, I strongly feel that freedom can not be obtained under any condition it is repetitive. Freedom is therefore a constant cycle, not only that for the rest of their lives they have to live with the hard fact that their Mama killed their Papa. Is this any less then mental torture ? I feel that if one is free he/she is definelty bonded to something else. One such example is Mama. Even through she got freedom from her abusive husband she lost her only son who took up the blame for her to jail. Her son is the price she paid. In conclusion, at the end of the novel we notice that each member of fammily is free but they did pay a heavy price for it. Jaja is imprisoned, Mama loose her son and lives with the mental torture that she herself poisoned her husband and finally Kimbili through whom we see the story is "shattered, broken into pieces and can never be fixed". We also learn that it is possible to love the person who abuses and oppress you.

Is freedom giving birth to another Tyrant?

In the novel "Purple Hibiscus", the author has shown the various shifts in the lives of Jaja and Kambili. The transformation that takes place when they go to Aunty Ifeoma's house and when they come back, they had realized that there was a world outside their house which was full of joy and happiness. The author also gives us an idea that they achieve freedom after Mama had killed Papa. But the question that I want to ask is that wasn't Jaja transforming into his own father? There were a couple of incidents where he was beginning to show signs of dominance and dictatorship. The fact that when his father was ill , he tells him that kambili and him were going to their Aunt's house after they had received the news of their Aunt applying for the visa at the American Embassy. The fact that his father was ill which was a sign of weakness and Jaja was portraying the same characteristics as his father did when he was healthy. Papa used to dominate the weak, Jaja and Kambili, in the sense that they never raised their voice. In fact, their mother never questioned his authority inspite of all the miscarriages that she had. Also the fact that when Kambili and Mama go to visit Jaja, he tells Mama to tighten her scarf and she does it very quickly. When Kambili had said the same thing to Mama, she tells Kambili that it was tight enough. So, I'm wondering was it because Jaja had taken the blame for her mother or was it because he was slowly transforming to take his father's place as the dictator?

Mr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Papa reminds me of Jekyll and Hyde. He shows the world that he is civilized and very passionate about speaking up about things that are wrong, like the government, yet when he goes home he becomes this abusive monster. The fact that he keeps his family on a short leash is showing that he can’t trust them at all. He doesn’t take well to rebellion. He feels that if they rebel in anyway it’s due to them being swayed by sin.
When we meet his sister Aunt Ifeoma, who was born and raised the same way as him, has a different approach to keeping her kids in line and it’s not by abuse. You can’t even blame papa’s upbringing because the book shows the two siblings in contrast with each other. The fact that he is a product of colonization is answer enough. He has adopted everything that the British have taught him. Religion is the biggest factor.
I feel that papa is portrayed in this light because it’s to show the reader that you should never judge a book by its cover. No one would believe that he lifts his hand to his wife and children because he gives money to charities, he goes to mass everyday and he’s loaded. Why would he need to beat his family? You can’t help but see him as a bad person throughout the novel. I want to see him as a somewhat good character but just because you give money to a charity does not make you a good person. If he was a good person at all, why would his wife kill him? Why would Jaja have animosity towards him? For Kimbali the loss of papa is a big deal because at the end of the day it was still her father. He raised her to be who she is and yes he did abuse her yet she didn’t despise him for it otherwise she would not feel the loss so much.