REPRESENTATION OF VIOLENCE ON WOMEN IN

CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE’S PURPLE HIBISCUS

Ruth Neema Nzegenuka

Master of Arts (Literature) Dissertation

University of Dar es Salaam

July, 2014
 REPRESENTATION OF VIOLENCE ON WOMEN IN

CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE’S PURPLE HIBISCUS

By

Ruth Neema Nzegenuka

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

Degree of Master of Arts (Literature) of the University of Dar es Salaam

University of Dar es Salaam

July, 2014
 i

CERTIFICATION

The undersigned certifies that she has read and hereby recommends for acceptance by

the University of Dar es Salaam a dissertation entitled: “Representation of Violence on

Women in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus” in partial fulfilment of the

requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Literature) of the University of Dar es

Salaam.

………………………………………………..

Dr. Mpale. Y. M. Silkiluwasha

(Supervisor)

Date: ………………………………
 ii

DECLARATION

AND

COPYRIGHT

I, Ruth Neema Nzegenuka, declare that this dissertation is my own original work and that

it has not been presented and will not be presented to any other University for a similar or

any other degree award.

Signature: …………………………

This dissertation is copyright material protected under the Berne Convention, the Copyright

Act of 1966 and other international and national enactments, in that behalf, on intellectual

property. It may not be reproduced by any means, in full or in part, except for short extracts

in fair dealing, for research or private study, critical scholarly review or discourse with an

acknowledgement, without the written permission of the Directorate of Postgraduate Studies,

on behalf of both the author and the University of Dar es Salaam.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First I thank God for the precious life he has given me and for continuing to bless me in

my life. My M.A study is among the blessings the Almighty God has granted me. My

sincere gratitude goes to Dr Mpale Yvonne Silkiluwasha for accepting to work with me

throughout my dissertation. Her close supervision and correction of my work

constructed what I have in hand, a concrete dissertation. Second, I sincerely thank

Professor Richard Kangalawe for his assistance when I was in need.

I also pass my appreciation to all members of the Literature Department:

Dr A.H. Korogoto, Dr. E.K.S.Gwajima, Dr. M. Andindilile, Prof. W.D.Kamera,

Dr. E.S. Mwaifuge, Dr. L.T.Osaki, Mr. Respol John, Mr. Yunus Ng’umbi,

Ms. Elizabeth Kweka, Ms. Neema Eliphas, Mr. Davis Nyanda, Asha Changai for their

great academic efforts, advice, and materials which enhanced the value of this study.

I cannot forget to express my appreciation to my fellow students in the 2011-2013 class:

Kilatu Emmanuel, Msagasa Mukoi, Boniface Emmanuel, Bettysheba Nyamhanga,

Deosancus Mtenga, and Edson Wikedz. I learnt a lot from them academically and

socially adding great achievements to my life.

Eventually, completion of this dissertation is owed much from my family:

Dad, Charles Tito, Mum Justina Sembe; Sisters Dotto, Pendo and Rachel; and brothers

Japhet, Joseph, Emmanuel, Kulwa and Tito. They supported me morally and materially.

Their prayers enabled me to reach where I am.

 iv

DEDICATION

To

My mother, Justina Sembe, for her devotion and inspiration to my success.

And

My husband, Samuel Omar Zuberi. Your love, sacrifice, advice, encouragement and

dedication to me granted me the energy to complete my studies.

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ABSTRACT

This study examines how Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus interrogates

the problem of violence on women. The study shows how violence is represented

through characters who due to violence condoned by male characters they are affected.

It establishes how the novel portrays religion and patriarchy as two ideologies that men

exploit to enforce violence on women and subject them to submission. In the portrait,

family is represented as the focal point where violence is nurtured before it largely

extends to a wider society. Generally, violence on female characters is manifested in

men’s viciousness which in turn causes much suffering whose domino effects have far-

reaching implications for both individual characters and the society as a whole. Male

characters perpetuating violence on female characters find themselves trapped in the

process while the wrath of female characters, triggered by silence, ultimately threatens

to destabilize the society.

This study thus demonstrates violence on women a serious problem that affect the entire

society.
 vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certification.......................................................................................................................i
Declaration and Copyright..............................................................................................ii
Acknowledgement...........................................................................................................iii
Dedication........................................................................................................................iv
Abstract.............................................................................................................................v
Table of Contents............................................................................................................vi

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION............................................................................1

1.0 Background to the Problem..........................................................................................1

1.1 Statement of the Problem.............................................................................................6

1.2 Objective of the Study..................................................................................................7

1.3 Definition of Terms......................................................................................................7

1.4 Research Question........................................................................................................9

1.5 Significance of the Study.............................................................................................9

1.6 Literature Review.........................................................................................................9

1.7 Theoretical Framework..............................................................................................14

1.8 Research Methodology...............................................................................................18

1.8.2 Conclusion.............................................................................................................19

CHAPTER TWO: “THINGS STARTED TO FALL APART AT HOME”:

FEMALE CHARACTERS AS VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE......................................20
2.0 Introduction................................................................................................................20

2.1 Kambili’s Plight over her Father’s Violence..............................................................20

2.2 Beatrice’s Excessively Battered Life.........................................................................31

 vii

2.3 Market Women Victimized by Soldiers.....................................................................37

2.4 Ifeoma Violated her Reforms.....................................................................................40

2.5 Conclusion..................................................................................................................43

CHAPTER THREE: FAR-REACHING IMPLICATIONS OF VIOLENCE ON

MEN.................................................................................................................................44
3.0 Introduction................................................................................................................44

3.1 Eugene, a Victim of his Own Violence......................................................................45

3.2 Jaja’s Defiance of Patriarchy and Violence...............................................................54

3.3 Conclusion..................................................................................................................59

CHAPTER FOUR: “THEY ARE NOT LIKE THOSE LOUD CHILDREN”:

SILENCE AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE.....................................................60
4.0 Introduction................................................................................................................60

4.1 Kambili’s Uncertainty in Silence...............................................................................60

4.2 Dilemma in the New silence......................................................................................68

4.3 Conclusion..................................................................................................................71

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS.........................72

5.0 Introduction................................................................................................................72

5.1 Conclusion..................................................................................................................72

5.2 Recommendations for Further Studies.......................................................................73

WORKS CITED.............................................................................................................74
 1

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Background to the Problem

Violence on women is sometimes referred to as gender-based violence as

Marijke Velzeboer, Mary Ellsberg, Carmen Clavel Arcas and Claudi Garcia-Moreno

point out. It is a worldwide assault that occurs in communities. Such violence includes

harmful practices such as physical, emotional, sexual, economic and psychological

abuses. These harmful practices are often carried out by family members and, sometimes

by strangers (Velzeboer, Ellsberg, Arcas and Garcias-Moreno 4). Ose Aihie reports,

“violence on women is shockingly high with two thirds of women’s population

subjected to physical, sexual, and psychological violence by husbands, partners and

fathers” (2). These reports show the extent to which women are subjected to violence by

men. Similarly literary writers on different occasions have represented such violence on

women to expose and interrogate the tragic situation women face in societies.

Heather Hewett, Okuyade Ogaga, Madelaine Hron, Elizabeth Giglio and

Helen Chukwuma, Daniel Westman and Christopher Werimo Ouma have written

analytical articles on the representation of violence such as how religious hegemony

silences characters; discovery of women’s voices; measures women take to free

themselves from male perpetuated injustices; the need to free oneself from dictatorship;

and the legacy of colonialism in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus.

However the issue of violence on women and its effects to characters has not received as
 2

much critical attention hence allowing me to conduct this research. There is a need to

critically analyse the extent to which the novel not only represents violence on women

but also gives it prominence as a dominant theme.

Documentation and reports generally provide statistical analyses of violence

committed on women across the world. Adichie is reported to have interviewed some of

witnesses of the Biafra war, read reports on violence on women hence being driven to

write about it in her novels Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun (Foreword

Half of a Yellow Sun 2). Stories narrated about violence inspired her writings. For

example, Ose’s study on the practices of violence on women conducted in Nigeria

underscores the prevalence of violence on women in Nigeria as represented in Adichie’s

Purple Hibiscus even though no direct intertextuality has been established 1. In Adichie’s

mentioned above novels, female characters are represented as the major victims of

violent practices in homesteads, in war camps and in the streets.

Adichie is one of the contemporary Nigerian writers whose writings offer a

promising discussion in postcolonial literature. She was born in Lagos and grew up in

the University of Nsukka campuses where both her parents worked, her father as a

professor of statistics and her mother as a registrar. Adichie published Purple Hibiscus

in 2003 and Half of a Yellow Sun in 2006, a collection of short stories

1
Data from detailed description of reports on violence on women in Nigeria, Egypt and

India. The data reveals categories of violence, where violence is likely to occur and the

implications afterwards on women either Islamic or Christian, working, or non-working,

educated and no-educated.

 3

The Thing Around Your Neck in 2009 as well as Americana in 2013. Adichie’s works

offer an insight of defining and analysing women’s writings. She let her female

characters tell stories she wants her readers to hear. For instance, in her two novels

Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun, the reader hears stories narrated by female

characters. These narrators represent various issues on violence against women. The

second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, specifically discusses the traumas of the Biafran

war, ethnic conflicts and religious antagonism in Nigeria. Both of Adichie’s novels,

Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun as well as her collection of short stories,

The Thing Around Your Neck, are useful in understanding how the mistreatment,

deprivation, suppression, and humiliation of women are varyingly represented in African

women’s writings through “a marginalized eye or a worm’s view eye” as Ouma asserts

(13). Here the “worm’s eye” refers to a suppressed person who observes and provides a

detailed narration of a story.

The current study concentrates on Purple Hibiscus by examining how Adichie

treats the theme of violence and its attendant effects in the novel. Purple Hibiscus allows

for the examination and analysis of violence on women in a society occupied by

Catholics, traditionalists and also dominated by patriarchal system. Adichie’s

Half of a Yellow Sun treats themes which are closely related to Purple Hibiscus but with

a different orientation because of its content and associated traumatic experience.

The Thing around Your Neck has stories which cannot allow for a sustained analysis of

violence on women in the manner that Purple Hibiscus does.

 4

Since the merging of African writings, there have been diversities in the

presentation of matters concerning women. The concern is to adjust the appearance of

women in literary works through female characters. It has been observed in the past

years how male writers presented male characters with more focus than female. As

Carole Boyce Davies and Anne Adam Graves contend, ‘‘women are usually made

peripheral to all of that and function either as symbols or as instruments for the male

hero’s working out of his problems’’ (3). In the analysis of characters, male characters

mostly seem superior to female characters in most male writings. While assessing male

writings, a scholar should critically analyse, the role assigned to characters male and

female, language given and their ranking. Davies and Graves argue that in

Things Fall Apart, Nwoye’s mother serves as a good example of an appendage as she is

treated as an object by Okonkwo. She has to respond to what she is commanded to do

without asking any questions and, hence, subjecting her to silence. Similarly,

Horne Banyiwa examines how female characters are depicted in African women literary

works and admits that women writers depict female characters with a great deal of

insight and meaningful interaction with their environment (qtd. in Davies and Graves

120). Thus to contribute to the discussion, I would argue that female writers have tried to

divert, in some ways projection of female characters in literary works. Though the

portrayal and assignment of roles to characters does not differ much from male writers,

Adichie projects female characters as abused, voiceless, but also as voiced, assertive,

powerful, and determined.

 5

Moreover, it is important to observe that Adichie’s characters have been portrayed as

suffering from violence. Bell Hooks argues that violence on women is generally

sanctioned by men to exert control over women and their families (61). Both Hooks and

Ose argue that violence on women is mainly sanctioned to create dependency of women

on men and to ensure subordination. The contention is worth taking note of, since

studies indicate men’s behaviour of dominating women under the patriarchy, a system

through which women find themselves in violent relationship in families, streets and in

social institutions. Furthermore, Ose notes that “domestic violence functions as a means

of enforcing conformity with the role of women within the customary society” (2). It

seems obvious that society and its superstructures give men credit to enforce force on

women. The current research is informed by Ose on the grounds that traditional African

societies tends to take women as men’s servants and so women are obliged to serve men

and society even through the use of force2. Moreover, corporal punishment against

women is condoned by customs of the society hence the problem of violence on women

winds up to be widespread. In the analysis of violence to women in Purple Hibiscus

such superstructure as government and religious institutions witnesses violence but still

take minimal actions to stop it. From this view then, I argue that society’s social

constructions are the most difficult systems a feminist will have to contend within a

patriarchal society.

2
Aihie N Ose’s report on the prevalence of domestic violence in Nigeria, the statistics

show that violence on women is a behavior accepted as a custom and normal to shape

women and children’s mistakes through sever punishments.

 6

Even more importantly, I view Adichie as one of the contemporary writers who

have contributed a lot to literature. Writing from a society peopled by both Christians

and Moslems, generally in politically unstable Nigeria, she largely represents the

suffering of women in Nigeria. In her speech titled, “The Danger of a Single Story”

Adichie discusses the need to hear the second part of the story. She urges readers to

examine the second part of the story to get a different perspective rather than rely on a

single narration which is always biased. Hence, I consider the speech very useful since it

offers important guidelines, particularly when discussing the representation of the

female voice in writings by female writers as opposed to male writings. Through telling

the other part of story, Adichie has the power to express some of the repressed thoughts

of women by giving a young girl such as Kambili the narrative voice to reflect what

surrounds her. Kambili, a young girl, let readers learn about her thoughts and her

character as well those of other characters.

1.1 Statement of the Problem

Scholars such as Hewett, Okuyade, Hron, Giglio, Chukwuma, Westman, and

Ouma, have critically examined Adichie’s first novel Purple Hibiscus. They have

discussed various issues such as women’s quest for rights, finding their voices, changing

borders and creating voices, journeying through silenced familial spaces, and

postcolonial effects on characters. These issues in some ways support the current study

which is violence on women. These critics however, have paid little attention to the

dominant theme of violence on women. In fact, focus on the representation violence on

 7

women shows how the effects extend beyond and the way it undergirds various issues

related to the narrative. In other words, a key dimension of the novel that helps to shed

light on major thematic expressions has been neglected. This study, therefore, examined

how Purple Hibiscus represents violence on women to highlight its implications for the

entire Nigerian society.

1.2 Objective of the Study

The objective of the study is to examine how Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus

interrogates various types of violence on women to underscore varied implications of

such violence on the wider society.

1.3 Definition of Terms

In this study, violence and abuse are taken to have similar meaning because these

two terms are near synonymous. In fact, in the studies undertaken by scholars the terms

have been used interchangeably3.

Abuse is defined as physical, sexual, emotional, economic or psychological

actions or threats of actions that influence another person. These include behaviours that

frighten, intimidate, hurt, humiliate, blame, injure or wound someone (“What is

Domestic Violence?” 1).

3
Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa Rey’s Violence Against Women provide examples of

violent acts against women and description of their occurrence.

 8

Violence can be defined as an act of harming someone either physically,

emotionally, psychologically and sexually.

Although violence is most considered gender-based, it is not also the case. Sometimes it

can occur perpetuated by individuals of the same sex.

Physical violence is the behaviour of striking someone with a fist, slapping,

kicking, pushing, battering, threatening with a weapon or using a weapon against a

person (Somach and Abouzeid 5).

Sexual violence refers to sexual abuse occurring when a person insults another

person of the opposite sex, humiliates and harasses sex of that person, having non-

consensual sex, insulting other by calling names such as whore and other names which

denigrate them (What is Domestic Violence?” 1).

Emotional violence is the behaviour of calling somebody names, insulting,

criticising, isolating them from family or friends, monitoring wherever they go,

threatening to hurt them, and humiliating in any way ( “What is Domestic Violence?”1).

Psychological violence is another type of violence related to all abuses, whether

effected on a woman or a man, which affects mentally so much that some even lose their

mind and suffer from neurotic cases (Somach and Abouzeid 5).

1.4 Research Question

To realise the primary research objective, the study was guided by the following

question:
 9

How does Adichie’s fictional representation interrogate the issue of violence on

women to illustrate how its implications extend beyond the confined individual, family,

or domestic violence to the wider society?

1.5 Significance of the Study

This study is expected to largely contribute to existing knowledge on gender and

female representation in different African socio-cultural contexts. The study also aims to

facilitate understanding of the way African women authors reveal matters affecting

women such as violence through female characters.

1.6 Literature Review

Different scholars have analysed Purple Hibiscus and discussed various issues

regarding women and their representation in fictions. My study focuses on a number of

scholars who have touched on concepts related to women’s oppression and problems

they encounter.

Helen Chukwuma examines how women fight for their rights in institutions such

as religion, government, education and society. She contends that “the whole idea is to

give women a voice and locus in their own affairs especially within the marriage

institution and in other affairs that concern them directly,” (6). Chukwuma implores

women to react against violence from men focusing on how different female characters

respond in their fight against violence and patriarchy to have access to their denied

rights. Chukwuma gives examples of female characters who opt to kill their assailants to
 10

free themselves from male authority. That is, Firdaus in A Woman at Point Zero kills

Marzouk “the dangerous menacing pimp with a knife in self-defense” (95); Zakeya in

God Dies by the Nile kills the mayor Sheikh Hamzawi who had tortured women and

men in his corrupt reign in the village of Kafr El Teen (172-173); and Beatrice in

Purple Hibiscus kills Eugene Achike by poisoning his tea (Adichie 291). Chukwuma

believes that both El Saadawi and Adichie consider killing violent men as one of

solutions to acquiring rights as presented in their novels. This claim, to some extent, is

given prominence in this research largely because of the irresponsibility of some legal

systems when it comes to enforcing justice in society. Under such corrupt justice

systems killing assailants may seem to be a logical solution for women to fight against

violence, but it may also be used as a weapon to condemn women and their relatives into

criminal cases since the law cuts both the victim and the accused. Chukwuma’s

concentration on women to fight for their rights leaves the question of the kinds of

violence done to women and the outcomes of both violence and revenge in society. She

does not discuss the impact of actions taken by women whereas this study shows how

such a solution (killing) negatively affects the society like a revolver vomiting bullets

towards the whole society in Purple Hibiscus. This study, thus focus in analysing

violence widely and its implications to characters both male and female. In other words,

in my study I analyse how violence affects victims as well as perpetuators.

Another issue raised by critics in the analysis of Purple Hibiscus is the concept

of silence of characters in the story. Silence in Purple Hibiscus has been explored by

Hewett, Okuyade, Hron and Ouma to emphasise the dictatorial leadership of Eugene in
 11

his family. Hewett, in “Finding Her Voice,” examines how Eugene manouvres his

political standing at the public and his Christian ideology onto his family and, thus,

subjecting the family to a sphere of the silence (10). Based on the above citation, I see

Eugene to be more than a political figure that uses his popularity and his Standard

newspaper to speak democracy for Nigerians. Eugene is a male figure, like the Head of

State of Nigeria, who uses violence to suppress women, men and children for their own

benefits. In, my study I observe psychological violence on characters as a result of

violence. I argue that silence is always reciprocal: whoever perpetuates silence is bound

to be silenced in return. Hence silence is violence in words, inflicting pain to someone

either physically or psychologically.

In “Changing Borders and Creating Voices,” Okuyade pushes the issue of

voicelessness and voicing of the characters in Purple Hibiscus a step further to

emphasise the need for change in family and country dictatorship. Okuyade observes

that “crisis which runs throughout the novel” engenders the “voicing” of Kambili and

Nigerian citizens, which is important (246-257). Further building on the issues of

torture, humiliation, and voicelessness of Kambili and Beatrice, my study suggests that

violence that occurs at home is also witnessed in public places with effects that implicate

the entire society. Okuyade also explains the struggles characters in Purple Hibiscus

undergo to survive in homes and nation of Nigeria where dictatorship thrives. Okuyade

in “Trying to Survive,” provides an analysis of the experiences Kambili goes through to

survive in a violent environment by “first resenting her geography”, second awakening

her consciousness along the company of women, third “redefining her identity into
 12

adulthood” and lastly “reaching maturity and independence with the assistance women

who guide her” (10). I argue that in the process of fighting against violence, a lot can

happen, either success or failure. In analysing violence on in Purple Hibiscus, I observe

trial and outcome of the struggle to get rid of violence.

In addition to the literary studies on Purple Hibiscus, several studies,

documentations and reports on violence help elaborate the intensity of the problem.

These studies include those by Helwan El Zeraay, El Maadi, Abraham Gyuse,

Aihie Ose, O E Abdullahi, and Ibrahim F Kharboush. The study undertaken by

El Zeraay and El Maadi on violence on women in Egypt indicates that women are more

at risk to violence and death in the hands of police and the government organs than their

male counterparts4 (1). In my study, similar cases of violence committed by the

government of Nigeria explain the injustices the market women face when demanding

for their rights. When reporting violence committed on them women are intimidated

since the organs of government are useless to the people. From Zeraay and Maadi’s

study I observe that, one of the most severe forms of violence committed to women in

Egypt is Female Genital Mutilation (FMG) with percentage of that problem ranging

from 90-97% of women affected. FGM affects the reproductive ability of the women

and affects women mentally, emotionally, physically and psychologically. The practice

4
The Egypt Center for Women’s Rights reveals a serious problem on violence women,

police and government cementing the crimes thus no action is taken to stop violence.

Ose reports on the similar case in Nigeria.

 13

is conducted in many African countries and is traditionally connected to purity of

women.

Second, while discussing violence on women, pregnant women are not excluded.

For instance in the analysis of violence against Beatrice, effects of violence from

husband extend beyond her to her unborn child. Gyuse in his study of pregnant women

in the Evangelical Church of West Africa Hospital in Jos, Nigeria, observes the

prevalence of verbal abuse against pregnant women followed by physical, sexual and

emotional abuse (343-345). This report reinforces the view that violence on women

represented in Purple Hibiscus is not simply figments of imagination. I take note of the

risk of losing the pregnant women’s lives in the violent actions. Moreover, Gyuse

reports high incidences of violence on housewives and self-employed women 5.This

report on pregnant women adds more weight to the analysis of Beatrice’s life and her

numberless miscarriages in the hands of Eugene.

In the same discussion on violence on women, Ibrahim F Kharboush, Farzaneh

Roud-Fahim, Hanaa M Ismail, Heba Mamdouh, Yasmine Muhammad, May M Tawfik,

Omnia G El Sharkawy and Hassan N Sallam examine the devastating effect a country

faces when it loses the women power in production. They argue that spousal violence is

an alarming threat to the nation’s development economically (1). Similar to Gyuse and

Ose, Kharboush, Roud-Fahim, Ismail, Mamdouh, Muhammad, Tawik, Sharkawy and

5
The study undertaken in ECWA in Jos Nigeria on pregnant women indicates that,

women who are in the wed-locks are more vulnerable to violence, employed and the low

waged women who have no earning than to depend on men for survival.
 14

Sallam also see the problem to be more intense among the “less privileged Egyptian

women” where health problems are greater (2-6). Whenever violence is committed, the

impacts are many including internal injuries and external injuries.

Fictional representation is an attempt to alert readers on matters such as violence

on women and intensity of the problem at large. From these studies, I have been able to

identify the gap that, research on violence has been conducted mostly on women and

how they suffer. Men as perpetuators of violence as well as victims are neglected. Thus,

this study aims to analyse how violence affects both.

1.7 Theoretical Framework

The theories selected are largely complementary in an attempt for the study to

come up with a concrete and satisfying analysis of the representation of violence on

women in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. Theories are Postcolonial, Feminism and

New Criticism.

Postcolonial theory as propounded by Gayatri Spivak, guides this study. Spivak

belongs to Postcolonial scholars as well as to Feminist scholars. In short, Spivak is a

Postcolonial feminist. Since pre-colonial era up to postcolonial, voices of women have

been minimal to the extent that they are not heard. I chose Spivak’s essay

“Can the Subaltern Speak?” to explore how women can speak despite being silenced by

a patriarchal system and also to examine violent practices of men as they impose the

patriarchal system and being subjected to violent acts. The Oxford Advanced Learner’s

Dictionary (7th Edition) defines a “Subaltern” as any officer in the British army who is
 15

lower in rank than a captain. Spivak has adapted the terminology in her essay to explain

the subordinate position Indians occupied during the British rule. The subaltern then is a

person of low rank, the poor, uneducated, and the silenced or the colonised. Before and

after colonialism women have occupied the lowest rank in every socio-economic and

political aspect in the post colonies such as India and Nigeria. Women’s subservient

positions as subalterns or low ranked individuals still exist to-date, despite the changing

social formations, women are largely categorized as second class citizens. Spivak’s

essay describes women mostly in postcolonial countries who cannot speak or work and

are dominated by men hence conditioning them to the position of low rank/subaltern.

Spivak, as a postcolonial critic, advocates giving voice to “the other” who are all women

in the postcolonial countries6 (Spivak 245). Spivak’s idea works on the premise that

voice gives power to female characters that are mostly marginalised in fictional texts.

The idea is that, voice gives women power to act and react according to situations they

encounter. In this regard, voicing female character raises consciousness of the characters

and frees them from patriarchal bondage. For instance, when reading Ifeoma’s story and

Beatice’s story, a reader sees differences in terms of voicing.

In Spivak’s essay “the other” involves the examination of how women are even

more “othered” than men in reality and in fictional representation. Edward Said also

observes the inferiority complexes men have designed for women through their

definition of themselves as the superior and stronger sex. In this regard, the othering of

6
“The Other” is a terminology applied by Edward Said in Orientalism, the Western form

of dominating, structuring and having authority over the Orient.

 16

women presents them as weak, with no voice or power to question the system created by

men (Said xiv). Spivak sees postcolonial studies playing the role of liberating “the

other” in discourses taking into consideration that “the others” in this study are the

female characters in literary works. Women have found themselves silenced in all

spheres of life and the article “Can the Subaltern Speak?” enhances understanding of

both the postcolonial and feminist approaches as Spivak quoted in Leitch examines the

violence condoned and perpetuated by men on women (Leitch 2194 ). Spivak posits

“traditionally women have never been at the edge that is privileged to speak or heard and

during colonial era the situation was stiffer with marginal position offered to women”

(Leitch 2193). The implication is that the subordination of women is not a recent

problem but is also historically determined. Thus, addressing the problem in the present

postcolonial era entails revisiting the past to construct a future freed from the blemishes

of the present and the past. Since women in any patriarchal society are considered as

second class-citizens, Spivak considers women as more othered than men whereby

violence is used as a weapon to subject women to the subaltern status. Spivak urges the

society to listen to women’s voices which have been silenced for years taking note that

violence is a method used by men to prepare women to be submissive and obedient to

men (Leitch 2196). The study takes Spivak’s ideas further by considering how the faint

whispers, gestures and mimes speak even louder than the released voices since they

draw attention to grasp the unheard voices. My study view faint whispers, gestures and

mimes as ways of communicating messages to the readers, particularly in the case of

Kambili in Purple Hibiscus.

 17

Also, the study makes use of the American New Criticism in close-reading the

text by paying close attention to words, sentences and paragraphs in the novel.

Cleanth Brooks as quoted by Searle, asserts that literary work should be keenly analysed

to come out with meaning of the content. Brooks adds that it is completely wrong to

reduce meaning of a literary work unless a critic has paid attention to the work by close

reading (Searle5). This approach enabled the interpretation and analysis of the novel by

close reading which involves scrutinizing violence as represented in the novel and its

effects on female and male characters. This approach gives basis for interpreting

Purple Hibiscus by scrutinising different types of violence and their effects on female

characters and the entire society in the novel.

Feminist criticism is often traced to the late 1960s, when women struggled for

recognition of cultural roles, social and political rights (Abrams 93). Hooks defines

feminism as the movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression (Viii).

Hook’s definition urges both sexes to participate in ending sexism. Feminist critics such

as Spivak share concerns with other feminist critics such as Elaine Showalter, Virginia

Wolf, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar addressing the needs of women and counter the

entrenched patriarchal social system which has not only given men power to control

women but it also shapes women to embrace it as part of culture (Abrams 4). Feminists

examine the way patriarchy shapes male texts portraying human male characters as

superior and female characters as inferior. Their proposition is to value works of female

writers as much as those done by male writers and pay attention to female characters

with voice and power to react to social-cultural problems in society. Hooks notes that
 18

feminists first agenda is to fight against domestic violence on women and children (62).

The agenda proposed by Hooks in discussing domestic violence is important in my study

for my concern is to examine not only the representation of the effects of violence on

women but also on men and children.

1.8 Research Methodology

Since this is a literary study, a qualitative research methodology is employed.

Kothari defines a qualitative research as a research method concerned with qualitative

phenomena, phenomena relating to or involving quality or kind (4). The aim of

qualitative research in this study is to explore the representation of various types of

violence and the effects of such violence on women as well as the entire community in

Purple Hibiscus. Purple Hibiscus is chosen purposively for the study and other related

materials such as journals, articles, literary book; dissertations, documentaries, films and

critical essays in line with the study’s primary purpose. Collecting data, gives a

researcher a room for interviewing the author. For instance, it could have been of great

help if I could have interviewed Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for her insight on matters

related to my studies. However, I could not interview the author due to time limited

given to finish my studies and due to lack of financial resources.

1.8.2 Conclusion
To sum up chapter one, I re-visited studies on violence on women to situate the

study in the discourse of violence on women. The study works on the assumption that
 19

violence on women is a universal problem hence collecting articles from countries such

as Nigeria, India, Egypt, and South Africa as relevant to understanding issues raised in a

novel set in Nigeria. The introductory chapter introduced Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as

a writer and justified my focus on Purple Hibiscus rather than her three books,

Half of a Yellow Sun, The Thing Around Your Neck, and Americana. It has also reviewed

the work of Heather Hewett, Ogaga Okuyade, Christopher Ouma among others to

establish what others have already done on Purple Hibiscus to contextualize and

establish the gap that the study sought to fill.

The chapter has also stated the objective of the study which is to examine how Adichie

interrogates various types of violence on women and analyse implications of such

violence on the whole society. It has also established and explained how Postcolonial,

New Criticism and Feminism approaches have been applied in the study.
 20

CHAPTER TWO

“THINGS STARTED TO FALL APART AT HOME”: FEMALE CHARACTERS

AS VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE

2.0 Introduction

This chapter analyses how the novel portrays male characters as perpetuators of

violence on female characters in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. The

novel uses a female character Kambili who is the main character to tell the story. Other

key female characters are Beatrice, (Kambili’s mother), Ifeoma, (Kambili’s aunt), and

the market women. Kambili, Beatrice, Ifeoma, and the market women provide the

portrayal of women who, are affected due to violence committed in their lives. The

chapter takes a close examination of the violent practices women encounter at the hands

of men who use their powers to act violently. In the discussion of male characters

violent acts towards female characters, Eugene Achike who is Kambili’s father and

husband to Beatrice manipulates Catholicism to justify his violent conduct. In the

analysis religion will be referred to as Catholicism because the story is set in a society

occupied by Catholics and traditionalists.

2.1 Kambili’s Plight over her Father’s Violence

Kambili is a fifteen year old girl when the story begins who later on grows older.

Second born to Eugene and Beatrice and a sister to Jaja. Kambili has been raised in a

Catholic background, is very obedient to her father, submissive, and attentive to

whatever is happening in her life, her brother’s life, and mother’s life, as well as other
 21

people’s lives. Although she lives in Enugu, Kambili gets to know, during Christmas,

some of her relatives in Abba, for instance, Ifeoma her aunt, her cousins Amaka, Obiora

and Chima, and Papa-Nnukwu, her grandfather. In Enugu, Kambili falls prey to her

father’s violence and witness’s violence on her mother as well as violence on her

brother.

Kambili begins the story with the phrase, “Things started to fall apart at home,”

(Adichie 4). The phrase signals that something which was intact is about to disintegrate,

thus drawing the reader’s attention to finding out why “things started to fall apart at

home”. Through flashbacks the reader is told of the past in relation to the present. What

is about to fall apart in Eugene’s family is the family, falling from the recurrent violence

perpetuated by Eugene. Elements of intertextuality in Purple Hibiscus are evident due to

allusions to Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart. In Purple Hibiscus, the phase,

“Things fall apart” is a guide in the analysis of how violence contributes to the falling

apart of Eugene’s family and the societies of Enugu and Nsukka and it also forces the

reader to think about what could have been. Eugene, like Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart

moulds his families from his own perspective and is insensitive to the needs of others.

Both Eugene and Okonkwo have power over their children and want to shape them into

what they think is good. For instance, Okonkwo’s son Nwoye is expected to become

strong and fearful whereas Eugene expects his children Jaja and Kambili to be faithful

servants of Catholicism who excel at school. In the process of moulding children’s

future, Eugene uses violence to force Kambili and Jaja into following religion as a

reference for a decent life.

 22

Inyama, N. F, asserts that, “childhood is an experience soured by extreme

parental authority, that of the father; more concerned with the enhancement or projection

of his own ego and image and victimizes the child in the pursuit of such an objective”

(37). Inyama examines Okonkwo as a man who desires high recognition from his

society of Umofia. To avoid showing any sign of weakness Okonkwo rules his family

with “a heavy hand”. As a father and husband to three women he frequently beats his

family to exert his power over them. Okonkwo is obsessed with getting rid of the weak

image of his father Unoka whom Okonkwo likens to a female. Unoka could not wrestle,

farm nor did he have a title in the clan. Ruling with “a heavy hand,” Okonkwo does not

only destroy Nwoye’s life but also drives him away; the gulf between him and his son

cannot simply be bridged. The way Okonkwo rules his family is similar to Eugene’s.

Heather Hewett in “Coming of Age” sees a similarity between Okonkwo’s violence on

his family and Eugene’s violence on his family. Hewett observes how, Things Fall

Apart and Purple Hibiscus explore societies suffering from patriarchy and religion (80).

Consequently Kambili is observed suffering at the hands of her violent father who

expects maximum obedience from her.

Kambili, while telling the story provides scenes which are fraught with suffering.

Her first experience of pain is associated with “tea” a beverage she is normally given by

her father. Eugene shares the drink with his family often because it creates a special

bond among them. But the tea Kambili gets is very hot and burns her tongue though she

enjoyed it too. Kambili and Jaja are asked to have “a love sip” and yet the love is full of

violence. Burning of her tongue can be deduced as violence as she laments. Tea has been
 23

used as a metaphor of violence to showing a close connection between love and

violence. Kambili narrate as follows:

Have a love sip, he would say, and Jaja would go first. Then I would hold

the cup with both hands and raise it to my lips. One sip. The tea was

always too hot, always burned my tongue, and if lunch was something

peppery, my raw tongue suffered. But it didn’t matter, because I knew

that when the tea burned my tongue, it burned Papa’s love into me (8).

Kambili’s acceptance of the burning tea, conditions her to accept violence perpetuated

by her father as she misinterprets it as her father’s love for her. Similarly, the incidence

of breaking the Eucharist fast is a manifestation of violence in the family (121).

According to the Catholic Church tradition “faithful” worshippers are not allowed to eat

before mass on Sunday until an hour later after they return home from worship. Eugene,

being a faithful servant, strictly follows the rules of the church. As head of his family, he

does not expect to witness his family violating any of the church rituals. Thus, Eugene is

astonished when he finds his daughter eating cornflakes a few minutes before mass. He

mercilessly whips Kambili, Jaja and his wife Beatrice. Eugene’s barbaric acts makes

Kambili compare him to the Fulani nomads. Kambili remembers how Fulani nomads

whip animals, “Papa was like the Fulani nomad-although he did not have their spare, tall

body-as he swung his belt at Mama, Jaja and me, muttering the devil would not win,”

(102). The implication is that Eugene treats members of his family like beasts of burden.

I argue that Eugene, as a father should have listened first to the reason of her

breaking the Eucharist fast before irrationally punishing members of his family. Kambili
 24

suffers from stomach cramps and needs parental care, which she does not get from her

father. Eugene as the perpetuator of violence on Kambili is blind to his flaws as a

character. Eugene’s inhuman actions inadvertently destroy his daughter’s freedom and

socialisation prospects.

Kambili is also mercilessly scalded by her father Eugene when he finds out that

his children had stayed in the same house with a pagan (Papa-Nnukwu), who happens to

be Kambili’s grandfather. The children, Kambili and Jaja had gone to greet their aunt

Ifeoma in Nsukka when Papa-Nnukwu is brought by Ifeoma from Abba so that Papa-

Nnukwu can receive medical attention. Eugene, with fury, rides to Nsukka to pick his

children to protect them from heathenism. Back home, Eugene tortures Kambili by

soaking her feet in hot water which he spill onto her feet. Kambili narrates, “He poured

the hot water on my feet, slowly as if he were conducting an experiment and wanted to

see what would happen” (194). Daniel Westman likens Eugene to a colonial superior.

By scalding his daughter’s feet Eugene is “legitimizing his acts of terror against, the

other” (Westman 14). The others in this case are non-Catholics whose sins must be

washed by hot water. Ironically, his own biological father, Papa-Nnukwu is treated as

“the other” for being a traditionalist. Edward Said uses “the other” to refer to how

Europeans viewed non-Westerners, particularly Middle East as essentially different.

Said argues that the Europeans considered their race as superior and pure and the

Orientals as inferior and exotic. I have adapted the concept of “the other” to explain how

Eugene uses power to show that he perceives himself better than members of his family.

I have appropriated this terminology purposely to show how Eugene identifies himself
 25

as godly and other characters as ungodly. Although Eugene justifies his violence in the

name of religion, he ironically remains “the other”. He also misleads members of his

family to irregularities as part of the norm. Kambili explains, “The pain of contact was

so pure, so scalding; I felt nothing for a second. And then I screamed” (195). Kambili

suffers not only from physical injuries but also psychologically for fear is what she feels

for her father.

By scalding his daughter’s feet, Eugene is mimicking the coloniser’s punishment

he received when he committed a sin against his own body7. Eugene recalls, “I

committed a sin against my own body once, And a 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” (196). Thus by pouring hot

water over Kambili Eugene believes that he is wiping away his daughter’s sins. Fear

takes control of Kambili’s mind; she describes it new and always fresh: “Fear. I was

familiar with fear, yet each time I felt it, it was never the same as the other times, as

though it came in different flavors and colors,” (196). Fear is associated with the

violence Kambili suffers. In fact whenever she encounters violence it is more painful

7
Mimicry and ambivalence are terminologies commonly used in postcolonial literatures.

Homi K Bhabha in The Location of Culture explicates the great impact of colonialism

on the colonies in terms of mimicry and ambivalence. Mimicry means copying the

elements of cultures of colonialist and ambivalence means the dilemma the postcolonial

countries are subjected to when they find themselves trapped in Western cultures.
 26

than before. Kambili’s description of fear shows that, though she is accustomed to

violence, she does not get immune to it.

No sooner has Kambili been scalded with hot water than she encounters heavy

beatings, stinging, kicking of her body until she faints. This incident happens soon after

her feet have healed. Eugene’s fury manifest itself when he sees his children holding

Papa-Nnukwu’s half painting. Amaka, Kambili’s cousin gives Kambili Papa-Nnukwu’s

half painting when Eugene came to pick them from Nsukka (190). The painting is given

to Kambili as a memory of Papa-Nnukwu. Back at home, Eugene is furious when he

spots Kambili and Jaja examining Papa-Nnukwu’s painting lovingly. He brutally beats

up Kambili like he is hitting a log particularly when she clings to the painting. Kambili

continues to firmly cling to Papa-Nnukwu’s painting passionately, an action which

triggered even more violence on her from Eugene:

The stinging was raw now, even more bites, because the metal landed on

open skin on my side, my back, my legs. Kicking. Kicking. Kicking.

Perhaps it was a belt now because the metal buckle seemed too heavy.

Because I could not hear a swoosh in the air. A low voice was saying,

“Please biko, please.” More stings. More slaps. A salty wetness warmed

my mouth. I closed my eyes and slipped away into quiet (211).

The pain felt by Kambili is unbearable. For instance, when she describes stinging as raw

she draws the reader to imagination of torture when someone’s flesh is torn. Beatices’s

plea of “please biko, please” fall on deaf ears on Eugene considering his uncontrolled

anger. As Kambili later tell her mother at the hospital, “My whole body is on fire” she is
 27

equating violence as fire (211). Kambili suffers from “internal bleeding” and some of

her bones might have broken as a result of her father’s beatings (212). As a result of

violence, Kambili opts to stay on in the hospital and even does her exams at the hospital

bed under the supervision of the young Reverend Sister she is given as a tutor (215). She

appears to finds the hospital more accommodating than her home where she is

suppressed by her father. Kambili refusal to go home is a sign of defiance against

Eugene’s authority. With the help of her defiant aunt Ifeoma, Kambili travels to Nsukka

for fresh non-violent air.

Kambili decision to accept Amaka’s paint of Papa-Nnukwu is also a symbol of

defiance to her father and his Catholicism. I argue that, Papa-Nnukwu’s half painting

represents a voice and assertive character Kambili acquires in Nsukka, the long deprived

voice and strength she has to suppress in her father’s household. Kambili holds onto

Papa-Nnukwu’s painting although it has been torn to pieces by Eugene in defiance to

show the extent to which she is fed up with her father’s violence. Eugene’s tearing of

Papa-Nnukwu’s half painting can be construed as a botched attempt to banish

traditionalists from Enugu. Again, Eugene’s act of tearing Kambili’s present displays his

character of violence to his daughter. Prior her Nsukka experience, Kambili’s voice is

muffled and uses maximum gestures to explain her thoughts. Kambili, a victim of her

father’s violence defy his cruelty as she learns the difference between Eugene and his

father.

Violence is normally accompanied by suppression of the victim’s voice.

Although Kambili tells the story, she has no voice to argue and speak against the
 28

violence in her life. Kambili is unheard with the exception of faint the whispers she

produces when talking to her brother Jaja. Thus Kambili’s whispers assume an important

dimension in the narrative. In fact, as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak points out, whispers

of the subaltern are instrumental in grasping their hidden thoughts. These whispers

become means for identifying the wrongs of the society. For instance, from Kambili’s

whispers a reader is able to comprehend about her tortured experience. During her visit

to Aunt Ifeoma in Nsukka, Amaka, Kambili’s cousin, is astonished by the “abnormality”

in her cousin’s life. This forces Amaka to ask Kambili, “Why do you lower your voice?

You lower your voice when you speak. You talk in whispers” (117). Kambili’s

voicelessness is a result of the suppression of her life by her father. At home in Enugu,

Kambili, Jaja and Beatrice do not speak nor whisper; instead they devise a means for

communication including using their spirits and the eye language “asusu anya” (16).

Jaja, who witnesses Eugene’s violence on Kambili, understands her language even in

silence.

Before her maturation in Nsukka, Kambili accepts her father’s commands

together with those of the church without questioning the non-use of Igbo. Kambili

describes how Igbo is replaced by Latin during mass in St. Agnes Church. Kambili

narrates, “Father Benedict has changed things in the Parish, such as insisting that the

Credo and Kyrie be recited in Latin; Igbo was not acceptable,” (4). Credo and Kyrie are

a set of essential beliefs recited by Christians in churches. What Kambili and her society

are facing is linguicide as the imposed languages, including English, taking centre stage.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o discusses how Africa was conquered and its languages made to
 29

vanish from world’s map, “Africa in the diaspora and on the continent, were soon to be

the recipient of this linguistic logic of conquest, with two results: linguicide in the case

of the diaspora and linguistic famine, or linguifam, on the continent” (12). The

colonialists purposely imposed their languages, with missionaries playing a key role of

killing indigenous African languages. Father Benedict, for example acts as conqueror of

Igbo and Eugene, his loyal servant implements his commands without question.

Father Benedict also begins the retardation of the people’s language in the

church by imposing a foreign language, this time a “dead” language, as a religious

requirement. Since Eugene is Father Benedict’s right-hand man in the church, Eugene

holds the power to proceed further in depriving and killing Kambili’s voice at home.

Eugene is empowered when he is referred to as Pope by Father Benedict. As Kambili

says, “Father Benedict used Papa to illustrate the gospels” (5). Father Benedict praises

her father, Eugene for standing up against the government’s dictatorship. Eugene uses

this recognition and power to manipulate the church and his family. For instance, when

her mother is beaten by Eugene in her parent’s bedroom, Kambili and her brother are

forced to go the next day to Father Benedict and recite novenas asking for their mother’s

forgiveness (35-36). Not only does Kambili suffer from voicelessness here, she is later

on adjusted to suffer from severe mental and psychological violence when she drops

from the first position in her terminal examination.

As a student of Daughters of the Immaculate Heart Secondary School, Kambili

cannot separate her life, as a student, from that of being Eugene’s daughter. Kambili

describes the school walls as similar to her home. Eugene chooses the school because
 30

the walls “swayed him and discipline was important,” (45). The implication is that,

Kambili feels trapped at home as well as at school. She is simply not free at all. It

happens that Kambili comes second in the terminal exams, and the first position is taken

by her classmate Chinwe. Eugene humiliates his daughter in front of the class when he

asks her “How many heads does she have?” referring to Chinwe who has taken over

Kambili’s usual first position in the exams (46). To regain the first position, Kambili

resorts to cramming, a load which overburdens her, as she laments:

I remained a backyard snob to most of my class girls until the end of the

term. But I did not worry too much about that because I carried a bigger

load-the worry of making sure I came first this term. It was like balancing

a sack of gravel on my head every day at school and not being allowed to

steady it with my hand. I still saw the print in my textbooks as red blur,

still saw my baby brother’s spirit strung together by narrow lines of blood

(52).

Kambili’s mental development is disturbed by the heavy duty of studying extra hard,

thus affecting her psychologically. Kambili’s classmates call her “a backyard snob”

because she is considered wealthy but anti-social. Kambili manages to ignore her

classmates because she is already psychologically tormented by violence at home, and

the load she has to carry in a term is too heavy to bear. Adding salt to a wound, Kambili

remembers the traumatic experience when her mother was battered by her father.

Kambili counts the number of heavy thuds as her father punches her mother (33). Her

count indicates suffering too wishing to stop her father’s violence. The “trickles of
 31

blood” as Kambili and Jaja clean the floor stick to her head and become part of the

unconscious, how she is affected psychologically. She silently observes her mother’s

blood spill like “a leaking jar of red water color”. Whenever Kambili is studying, she

remembers the violence on her mother (33). This incidence creates fear to her father thus

cramming become her first option. As a result, fear becomes part of her character, fear

of failing, and fear of violence. Witnessing her mother’s suffering, Kambili is tormented

psychologically and has to bear with the pain. Kambili fed up with her father’s violence

is evident at the climax of violence when she resists her father. Kambili telling her

father, she wants her aunt Ifeoma which means she wants to depart from violence and

thus Enugu is not her option. Kambili’s departure to Nsukka shows how her father fails

as a guardian, thanks to Ifeoma’s intervention.

2.2 Beatrice’s Excessively Battered Life

Beatrice is a mother to Kambili and Jaja, a wife to Eugene and sister-in-law to

Ifeoma. Beatrice, as a wife, is obedient to her husband, Eugene. She follows her

husband’s religion (Catholicism) as a member of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal

prayer group who meet for prayers in Beatrice’s house. She is a protective mother

although powerless before her husband. She always makes sure the house help, Sisi, has

prepared her family’s meals in time and arranged their uniforms nicely (19-21).

Beatrice’s concern for her house is to make it shiny and beautiful, and thus she decorates

her home with figurines, which she polishes daily. Since being married to Eugene,

Beatrice endures untold suffering at the hands of her husband. Beatrice’s sister-in-law,
 32

Ifeoma, consoles Beatrice morally and the two mothers share many stories although

Beatrice is an uneducated house-wife. Beatrice and Ifeoma, as sister-in-laws and

mothers, also develop a connection with their children so that they can know each other

and enjoy teenage life. When the narrative opens, Beatrice’s figurines are broken by

Eugene’s heavy missal in his attempt to hit their son, Jaja, for not partaking communion

at the church during the Palm Sunday. The value of Beatrice’s figurines is evident as the

narrator says, “I used to wonder why she polished them each time I heard the sounds

from their room, like something being banged against the door” (10). The breaking of

the figurine and scattering them on the floor resembles Beatrice’s miscarriages due to

Eugene’s domestic violence:

He picked up the missal and flung it across the room, toward Jaja. It

missed Jaja completely, but it hit the glass étagère, which Mama polished

often. It cracked the top shelf, swept the beige, finger-size ceramic

figurines of ballet dancers in various contorted postures to the hard floor

and then landed after them (7).

Eugene’s rage which breaks the figurines and scatters them on to the floor shows not

only his violence but also how its effects extend beyond the intended target. The missal

misses Jaja but breaks Beatrice’s figurines. The missal can stand for his Catholicism and

its violence concealed in the name of religious rituals such as communion. The figurines

are special to Beatrice; she protects them daily. As such the pieces of the figurines can

also symbolise the unborn children killed by Eugene’s brutal hand (34). Indeed there is a
 33

connection between the scattering of the figurines to Beatrice’s battery and miscarriages

as the narrator says:

I sat down, closed my eyes, and started to count, counting made it seem

not that long, made it seem not that bad. Sometimes it was over before I

even got to twenty. “There’s blood on the floor,” Jaja said. “I’ll get the

brush from the bathroom. We cleaned up the trickle of blood, which

trailed away as if someone had carried a leaking jar of red watercolor all

the way downstairs. Jaja scrubbed while I wiped (33).

The number of thuds Kambili hears in her parents’ room can be connected to the way

Eugene hits the figurines and breaks them. The blood she loses accounts for her

numerous miscarriages after being pummeled by her husband. Eugene sadistically

ignores the pain and suffering of his wife.

Said demonstrates how masculinity defines itself from femininity. In the view of

“the other”, female characters are abused because of their femininity (xiv). Eugene’s

violence on Beatrice is partly attributed to his assumed male superiority over his wife

and is carried out to emphasise his masculinity. Eugene abuses the power violently on

those he views as weak such as his wife and children. In consequence, Beatrice loses a

lot of blood, her movements become unstable, and she loses children she longs for to

save her marriage (248). Eugene aspires to be recognised as a strong, wealthy, religious

and feared man in Enugu. His obsession also blinds him to his excesses; he acts

violently to his wife regardless of the destruction he causes in her life. Eugene believes
 34

he is a good husband, without observing his deeds. As a Catholic, he cannot even marry

another wife but he blinds Beatrice to accept battery as a normal part of her existence.

Beatrice is conditioned by her husband to always wait for his daily needs despite

the abuses she experiences. Eugene does not assist his wife to hold a business, thus

subjecting her to a life of servitude. She remains isolated and can only share her pain

about Eugene’s violence with Ifeoma. Beatrice is afraid to report her husband’s violence

to the authorities, making her more prone to battery because Eugene is not reprimanded

by anyone for his actions. Marijke Velzeboer, Mary Ellsberg, Carmen Clavel Arcas and

Claudi Garcia-Moreno note that, “in most occasions when physical violence is inflicted

on a person and mostly women, the possibility of multiple acts of violence over time are

likely to happen” (5). Beatrice has suffered many batteries in her marriage. For example,

Beatrice is telling her daughter of her pregnancy, “You know after you came and I had

the miscarriage, the villagers started to whisper” (20). The village members (umunna)

discussing Beatrice inability to bear children, are blinded by the way how patriarchy

operates. Patriarchy always favours men to justify its existence onto women’s lives. On

the whole, the violence Beatrice suffers at the hands of Eugene are horrific and in human

as they are inescapable. The narrator says the following:

It was at nineteen when the sounds stopped. I heard the door open. Papa’s

gait on the stairs sounded heavier, more awkward, than usual. I stepped

out of my room just as Jaja came out of his. We stood at the landing and

watched Papa descend. Mama was slung over his shoulder like the jute of
 35

rice sacks of rice his factory workers bought in bulk at the Seme Border

(33).

Eugene’s violence on Beatrice dehumanises her for instance when the narrator say

“Mama was slung over his shoulder like the jute of rice sacks” it is obvious Eugene does

not value his wife. Due to violence, she loses blood and the unborn child suffers from

violence too. Beatrice frequent suffering from battering her husband plants a seed of

revenge in her mind as the story reaches climax.

In a report given by the Evangelical Church of West Africa on pregnant women’s

frequent visits to the hospital, Abraham Gyuse says that, “It is to be noted that

pregnancy is not protective against violence as would have been thought or wished.”

(Gyuse 345). The report on violence on women in Jos, Nigeria, is extreme. The report

indicates how pregnant women risk miscarriages if their spouses are violent. Beatrice’s

hospitalisation is due to the number of miscarriages she suffers under Eugene’s violent

conduct. Almost all of Beatrice’s miscarriages happen at the early weeks of the foetus

development. Thus Eugene’s violence affects Beatrice and the unborn child.

Beatrice, unlike Ifeoma her sister-in-law, is depicted as less assertive and too

weak to fight for her rights. Kambili feels the burden, loss, deformities her mother

suffers in her marriage to Eugene. The narrator describes Beatrice on her arrival from

hospital “Her eyes were vacant, like the eyes of those mad people who wandered around

the roadside garbage dumps in town, pulling grimy, torn canvas bags with their life

fragments inside” (34). From the quote, Beatrice appears to have no direction in life.
 36

Beatrice also appears lifeless because whatever she had in her womb is gone thus

despaired.

Although she is severely battered by Eugene frequently, Beatrice tries to defend

her husband’s doings, claiming that he has a lot on his mind; he is working for the press,

for the people. But these reasons do not justify his rage. Seeking Beatrice’s humility,

submissiveness and inability to act, Ifeoma advises her sister-in-law to run away from

Eugene but Beatrice refuses to listen to Ifeoma’s “university talks,” implying that

universities do not prepare girls for marriage (75). Beatrice’s allusion to “university

talks” implies that an educated person is far-removed from the practical realities of a

traditional marriage which her husband ignores with contempt. Beatrice as a traditional

woman believes a wife ought to listen to her husband regardless of mistakes he makes.

Beatrice tells Ifeoma, “Where would I go if I leave Eugene’s house? Tell me where

would I go?” (250). Beatrice implies that Eugene is everything to her. Beatrice finds

herself trapped in a violent marriage unable to let it go simply because she has nowhere

to go.

Beatrice also suffers greatly when she witnesses Eugene’s violence on her

daughter, Kambili. Beatrice watches Eugene sprinkle hot water onto her daughter’s feet.

She suffers, as a mother, physically, emotionally and psychologically. Beatrice carries

her daughter for medication; she applies on the wounds gritty salt mixture with cold

water for quick recovery (195). At end of the narrative, Beatrice suffers from a mental

breakdown after poisoning her husband. Beatrice is psychologically disturbed after

 37

committing the worst possible offense of killing her husband. After poisoning her

husband, Beatrice is devastated. She becomes a neurotic case, as the narrator observes:

Mama shakes her head, and her scarf starts to slip off. She reaches out to

knot it again as loose as before. Her wrapper is just as loose around her

waist, and she ties and reties it often, giving her the air of the unkempt

women in Ogbete market, who let their wrappers unravel so that

everyone sees the hole-riddled slips they have on underneath (295).

It is evident that Eugene’s extreme violence and insensitivity to the needs of other

members of the family has driven them to the edge of murder. Following assassinating

her violent husband, Beatrice publicly writes in her letters stating that she has killed her

husband (298). The traumatic effect on Beatrice’s life is severe as the narrator notes, “I

doubt that she can hear anything. Most times, her answers are nods and shakes of the

head, and I wonder if she really heard” (298). As the narrative ends, Beatrice does not

believe she has committed murder. On the whole, her act of killing her husband is a

culmination of physical, mental and psychological tortures which have taken a toll on

her mind.

2.3 Market Women Victimized by Soldiers

Market is an important place in any society. It is a setting that has inspired many

Nigerian writers such as Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and Adichie. A market is

generally an area for people to acquire their needs such as food and clothing. In

Purple Hibiscus, a market is a place which brings together people from different socio-
 38

economic backgrounds for instance, the Achike, the beggars, the market women, the

soldiers, the mad men, and the hawkers. These people go to the market with different

needs and purposes. Market women in Purple Hibiscus represent working women at the

market. It is also a scene where injustices are committed by soldiers on helpless women.

The marketplace is introduced when Kambili, Jaja, and Beatrice have gone shopping

with Kevin their driver, “a ritual” which is maintained at the beginning of every school

term. At the market, there are half-naked mad people near the rubbish dumps, and the

poor who ask for food or money. The narrator observes these women trying to secure

needs and those of their families regardless obstacles ahead them. These women are

devoted to their work to earn a living (43-44). In the meantime, soldiers arrive and

surround them in a process of destroying “illegal structures”, as Kevin tells Beatrice and

her children. The soldiers on government orders destroy the market women’s business.

The soldiers’ presence intimidates everybody at the market subjecting them to

violence. They deprive the women of their businesses, abuse and torture them. As

Madelaine Hron points out “the struggle of Nigeria must fight is against patriarchy and

much violence perpetuated on Nigeria, military coups, executions on television,

whipping of the market women by soldiers as well as the educational and socioeconomic

challenges that face Nigeria” (34). Similarly the struggles of the market women

presented in Purple Hibiscus are manifestations of violence and injustices inflicted on

them by the military government of Nigeria. Soldiers are abusing their power to ruin the

market women’s lives. These women have nowhere to run for aid, or anyone to defend
 39

them. In other words, the women suffer from violence outside marriage in their struggle

to earn a living as Beatrice suffers in marriage as she solely depends on her husband.

One of the market women gathers strength to spit on the soldier in a manner of

resisting violence (44). As the narrator presents, “I saw a woman spit at the soldier, I

saw the soldier raise a whip in the air. The whip was long. It curled in the air before it

landed on the woman’s shoulder. Another soldier was kicking down trays of fruits,

squashing papayas with his boots and laughing” (44). The contempt the woman shows

towards the soldiers is also a sign of her defiance to oppression. The scene shows how

much women’s positions remain untenable as “subalterns” unable to get justice they

deserve and can only protest in kind. The narrator is sympathetic to the woman who has

been whipped, “I thought about the woman lying in the dirt as we drove home. I had not

seen her face, but I felt that I knew her, that I had always known her. I wished I could

have gone and helped up, cleaned the red mud from her wrapper” (44). This humiliation

is in itself a statement of suffering of the women as a “subaltern”. She may lie sprawled

in dirt but her voice has been heard in silence and how she demonstrated contempt

towards the soldier. In other words, the narrator sees parallels in the tortures women

experience whether at home, where her mother and herself suffers from violence too.

Where the soldiers humiliate the woman with violence, the narrator, herself even as a

child is not safe from such violence since she ends up fainting after being brutalised by

her father.
 40

2.4 Ifeoma Violated her Reforms

Ifeoma is a female character who acts defiantly to Eugene her brother, to her

father Papa-Nnukwu and to the government. Ifeoma is a mother to Amaka, Obiora and

Chima. She also plays the role of breadwinner, when Ifediora her husband dies, in taking

care of her children. As a concerned mother on the wellbeing of the children,

academically and socially, she allows the children to discover their dreams by visiting

places such as the university. She is a lecturer at the University of Nsukka, who has

worked for many years without being promoted. Ifeoma is strong and courageous

enough against anyone who insults her; she once almost stuffed sand into the mouth of

one of the women from her husband’s umunna when the woman accused her of killing

Ifediora (74). Her reaction to this woman reveals her strength in fighting for respect and

acceptance. She defends herself, letting her in-laws know that she is loving and that she

values her husband despite their ill-treatment towards her.

Ifeoma shows great concern over her brother’s children and the treatment of her

sister-in-law, Beatrice. She often calls Beatrice “Nwunye m,” which means my wife in

Igbo. By calling Beatrice “my wife,” Ifeoma assumes her brother’s power position over

Beatrice (77). Ifeoma considers Beatrice to be under her care and this is evidenced when

she advises Beatrice to leave Eugene and flee extreme violence. She also teaches her

children and her brother’s children house chores. Ifeoma also teaches Kambili how to

cook, fetch water, sport and socialise (120-124). As a woman, Ifeoma is aware of the

violence women come across in their lives including the frequent battery of her sister-in-

law at the hands of her brother Eugene.

 41

The issue of the quest for democracy in the whole novel is connected to violence

at home and outside. Ifeoma as a university lecturer speaks out for her niece and nephew

when she realise that her brother’s children lack democracy. She is also defiant, to some

level, against her brother and the university administration. The narrator describes her,

“Aunty Ifeoma was as tall as Papa, with a well-proportioned body. She walked fast, like

one who knew just where she was going and what she was going to do there” (71).

Ifeoma is powerful, with plans for the future and determination for success for her

family unlike her brother who wants to be identified by his male chauvinism. Ifeoma is

voiced, and makes decision which Eugene cannot decline such as letting the children go

to Aokpe on pilgrimage when her motive is to take Eugene’s children to traditional cites

of the mmuo (86). Ifeoma also advises her sister-in law Beatrice uttering an Igbo

proverb of, “When a house is on fire, you run out before the roof collapses on your

head” (213). She is advising Beatrice to act before it is too late. In the sense she is

prophetic because of the tragic end of the lives of both Eugene and Beatrice herself.

Ifeoma’s reaction to Eugene’s violence is a concern of many feminists. She

devises ways of escaping violence and suggests measures for a woman’s safety such as

single parenting. Ifeoma strongly advises Beatrice, “Nwunye m, sometimes life begins

when marriage ends,” (75). Although Ifeoma speaks of her life as a single parent, she is

agitating for the revisiting of some of the society’s constructions. For instance, Ifeoma,

urges women not to hold on to marriage as if it is life, meaning divorce is a viable

alternative in violent marriages. Ifeoma is also deconstructing patriarchy in the Achike

family, and suggesting that matriarchy is just as potent as patriarchy. Ifeoma’s reformist
 42

agenda is broad, and as can also be observed at the University of Nsukka where she and

her fellow lecturers go on strike demanding for changes in terms of salaries and

promotions. Ifeoma is underpaid. She is later sacked while fighting for lecturers’ rights.

Ifeoma says, “They have given me notice of termination, For what they call illegal

activity. I have one month. I have applied for a visa at the American Embassy” (261).

From this quote, Ifeoma is left with one option which is vacating the university campus

for her own safety. The government of Nigeria opposes Ifeoma’s ideas. Just like other

females, Ifeoma becomes a victim of violence psychologically for she has to vacate her

house and her employment is gone. Nsukka is her town, but now it turns to be a camp

soon to be deserted.

Ifeoma’s reformist ideas and radical movements, make authorities rather

uncomfortable. The university administration sends the “security unit” and they search

Ifeoma’s house without a warrant. What they do is to intimidate and scare Ifeoma so that

she slows down or ends her radical movement against the Federal Government. Ifeoma

in aghast asks the invaders, “Do you have any papers to show? You cannot just walk

into my house” (231). The man with tribal marks responds harshly to Ifeoma, “Look at

this yeye woman oh! I said we are from the special security unit!” Ifeoma is pushed by

the man and they proceed to search her house (231). The narrator says the following:

They overturned all the boxes and suitcases in Aunty Ifeoma’s room, but

they did not rummage through the contents. They scattered, but they did

not search. As they left, the man with tribal marks said to Aunty Ifeoma,
 43

waving a stubby finger with a curved nail in her face, “Be careful, be

very careful” (231).

Ifeoma is intimidated and warned never to weigh government’s power. Since the

government is more powerful than any organ in the country, Ifeoma realises that her

presence and that of her family in Nsukka will be threatened. Hence she applies for visas

so that they go to a democratic and peaceful land of America even as second class-

citizens (244). Ifeoma, as a lecturer is looking for greener pastures and finds a job in

America. This opportunity enables her to leave the humiliation and violence in Nsukka.

Ifeoma has choices that Beatrice, an uneducated woman, lacks because her education

enables her to leave the oppressive life and seek for refuge in America.

2.5 Conclusion

This chapter has examined violence on female characters, Kambili, Beatrice,

Market women and Ifeoma. The discussion led an argument that, violence is pioneered

by religion mainly Catholicism and the patriarchy ideology. The chapter suggests that

such violence on women has far-reaching consequences for women and other members

of the society. Male characters, as perpetuators of such violence, also sow the seeds of

vengeance in women who endure pain.

 44

CHAPTER THREE

FAR-REACHING IMPLICATIONS OF VIOLENCE ON MEN

3.0 Introduction

The previous chapter focused on analysing how Purple Hibiscus interrogates

violence committed on women by men at both domestic and public levels. It examined

how violence varyingly subjects female characters; Kambili, Beatrice, Ifeoma, and the

market women to a subordinate and subservience position. As the title implies, this

chapter examines how violence has far-reaching implications on men. A study

conducted by Kai Thaler in South Africa established that perpetrators of violence are

victimised in the process. Thaler was interested in examining the relationship between

violence, the perpetrator and the victim of violence, and concluded that the carriers of

weapons and perpetrators of violence face a higher risk of being victims of violence

themselves (19-20). Thaler’s study supports the discussion of this chapter as it examines

how male characters such as, Eugene Achike as a culprit and victim of violence and Jaja

who is Eugene’s son falls victim of his father’s violence in the process countering his

father’s chauvinism. In other words, violence cuts both ways.

I will start my discussion by exploring the dynamics of families in the story, for I

consider the family as a setting where men see themselves as god-sent rulers over

women. Families construct norms and traditions under patriarchy to support male

chauvinism. Edward Said asserts, “in any society not totalitarian, then, certain cultural

forms predominate over the others, just as certain ideas are more influential than others”

(Said, Introduction 7). Said refers to cultural forms as families, schools, and state
 45

institutions which in either way a society falls unto them unwillingly. For instance,

patriarchy is constructed in the society for men’s sake. Religion then becomes an agent

for controlling people’s minds. Indeed, the family is an organ which creates “cultural

forms which predominate the other” hence granting men power which they exert over

their families (7). What is often neglected is that when men embrace violence they also

affect those around them and themselves either directly or indirectly as Purple Hibiscus

demonstrates.

In fact, the family in the novel serves as a metaphor of the nation, for what the

narrator observes to be happening at home, is also happening at the national level. A

family serves as a centre for violence on women and men, for the powerless and those

with power but with effects affecting both. The narrator tells the story projecting Eugene

as the head of the Achike family who perpetuates violence but ends up getting hurt in

the process of causing untold suffering to his family.

3.1 Eugene, a Victim of his Own Violence

Eugene is a devoted Catholic as manifested by his deeds, utterances and strict

commands. He blindly embraces religion as the foundation of his family by observing

rules and regulations too strictly. He cannot tolerate anyone who does not adhere to

Catholic rituals and norms. Catholicism is engrained into Eugene’s mind, body, and soul

such that he cannot see the bigger picture and ends up exerting violence on his family.

Eugene does not realise religion is hypnotic and it has turned him into a victim of his

own violence. Eugene worked very hard at the missionary in his teenage and also
 46

worked as gardener for the priest. In his teenage, Eugene was punished severely after

being caught masturbating. Being independent at an early age makes the adult Eugene a

successful businessman and publisher of newspapers. As such, he becomes wealthy,

privileged; but religion is focal point of his beliefs.

I argue that, sharing the same religion among members of family does not mean

consensus because of different interests. Religion becomes a source of violence in the

case of Eugene as he expects a lot from his family. He wants his family to set an

example to the society by complying with all religious demands. Contrary to Eugene’s

expectations the family breaks religious traditions that drive him to violence. For

instance as mentioned earlier, Eugene whips his family members when they break the

Eucharist fast (101-102). When Jaja refuses to go for communion there is a

misunderstanding. Jaja tells Eugene, “the wafer gives me bad breath” (6). The quote

implies that Eugene’s religion is not suitable to his son. Eugene becomes angry and

violent, charging that to stop receiving the sacrament means death. Eugene blindly uses

religion to gain power and identity without thinking about what is socially relevant for

his family and society.

Sharing my views on religion, Christopher Werimo Ouma posits that, “Religion

is the focal point around which the family members unite and collide,” (26). Religion

embraced by Eugene, brings together the family during prayers or other Catholic rituals.

Moreover, I argue that religion embraced by Eugene is for self destruction. He does not

seem awake enough to realise he is wrong sometimes. For instance, the incident with

wafer (communion during Palm Sunday), Eugene considers himself as God when he
 47

tells his son he will die for sure. Robert H Brom notes that in the church, after a sin has

been committed, there must be punishment either before or after confession. Such

punishment removes the guilt of the sinner and, sometimes, delivers the rest of the

population from sins. Brom alludes to the scripture as the source of punishment since the

time of the Biblical first man Adam. Eugene acts to punish in the name of God, since

God himself punished human beings. And yet Eugene overlooks the fact that he has also

sinned against God by throwing the sacred book. Eugene using the sacred book as a

weapon to punish Jaja, means that Eugene is not afraid of God although he views other

members as ungodly.

Moreover, Eugene suffers when he believes his commands to his family fall on

deaf ear. He does not believe that his authority is being challenged as the narrator puts it,

“Papa looked around the room quickly, as if searching for proof that something had

fallen from the high ceiling, something he had never thought would fall,” (7). First, this

defiance signals the fall of Eugene’s power in his family. He had exerted maximum

violence to ensure everyone kneel before him, but not anymore. Second, Eugene is

suspicious someone from his family is undermining his authority. The disappointment

and torture is evidenced in Eugene’s appearance: “Papa’s breathing was always noisy,

but now he panted as if he were out of breath, and I wondered what he was thinking, if

perhaps he was running in his mind, running away from something” (15). Eugene’s

breathing changes because he now sees how his violence is ruining him and to escape it

is impossible. Eugene cannot believe defiance can come from his son. He is affected
 48

physically and psychologically. The scene of powerlessness is a new experience for

Eugene. Eugene decides to opt for prayers to regain his authority.

Eugene uses prayers to seek protection for his family from the traditionalists

(pagans). For example, Eugene beats up his wife so badly that she miscarries, he tells his

children to pray for their mother’s sins but he is the one at fault here (36). Prayers are

also used to suppress his family when he forces them to pray for forgiveness after

punishing them. These prayers also act as a shield used by Eugene and Father Benedict

to conceal their agendas. For instance, Father Benedict prays for Eugene during the mass

after Eugene has made big donations to the church (5). The donation is designed to

favour Eugene from Father Benedict when need arises. As was the case when he

punishes his family, Father Benedict would warmly accept him. Eugene also uses

prayers to hide his true colours from the people. Eugene is also corrupt for giving huge

sums of money to Father Benedict in return for favours. Whenever Eugene commits

violence on his family, he holds on to the novenas and prayers claiming that he is doing

God’s will to redeem the lost shepherd. In this regard, Eugene exploits prayers to exert

his male chauvinism on his family

Eugene without realising how he has been hypnotised by religion, ironically

curses himself through his prayers when he prays for twenty minutes for food, for

Nigeria wishing that the people could use his prayers to have a better man and not a big

man with ‘spindly legs of a child’ (11). Eugene is referring to Nigeria and its leaders

who are not responsible enough for the well being of citizens. Ironically, Eugene is

unwittingly describing himself in the prayer as he is unstable like a spindly legged man.
 49

He fails to maintain peace and democracy in his family just like the Nigerian ruler.

Eugene’s wishes for Nigerians are similar to those of his family which is suffering from

his tyrannical rule. The prayer in other words demands Eugene to step down from his

position as head of the family for failing to fulfil what he prays for.

Even more importantly, Eugene’s violence and its justification are wrongly

rooted in religion. Eugene has misconstrued Catholic rituals and is insensitive to

people’s needs. He whips Kambili, Jaja and Beatrice mercilessly for what he believes

amounts to wrong-doing; He wants to be faithful to religion without thinking about the

implication of his violent deeds, which also affects him. Soon after the whipping,

Eugene asks his daughter, “Did the belt hurt you? Did it break your skin?” (102).

Eugene appears aware of the severity of his violence on his children but he seems unable

to control himself. His blind love for the Catholic religion drives him mad and makes

him unreasonable. Eugene’s face is crumpled, his eyes sagging as he demands an answer

from his family for walking in sin. Eugene is also suffering and by acting violently

towards his family he is ruining himself too. The whole family is forced to confess to

Father Benedict and after confession Eugene considers himself spotless and ready to

ascend to heaven, oblivious to the implications conduct. The narrator says, “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. We will not require cleansing

of Purgatory” (107). Eugene believes that through confession automatic his name is

already written to the list of saints in heaven. The irony is that the reader cannot absolve
 50

him for his ruthless acts that continue even after seeking forgiveness and repentance. He

is trapped in his own sinfulness.

Eugene’s tiresome and tortured experience in his childhood has much impact on

his adult life and his family. What he experiences at the Missionary school, the

punishments and oppressive conditions translated him into violence on his family. He

wants others to experience the suffering he went through and does not want to settle for

second-best. Eugene exclaims, “Yes, a houseboy. Nobody dropped me off at school. I

walked eight miles every day to Nimo until I finished elementary school I was a

gardener for the priest while I attended St. Gregory’s Secondary School.” (47). What he

does not realise is that his earlier life contributed to the inner pain which outwardly

translates into uncontrolled violence.

Eugene’s painful past, particularly the abuses he experiences at the Missionary

school, nurtures the violence in him. Eugene scalds his children’s feet because they

happen to have shared a room with a heathen who happens to be his own father, and

their grandfather in Nsukka. The narrator says:

His voice quavered now, like someone speaking at a funeral, choked

with emotions. You should strive for perfection. You should not see sin

and walk right into it. He lowered the kettle into the tub, tilted it towards

my feet. He poured the hot water on my feet, slowly, as if he were

conducting an experiment and wanted to see what would happen. He

was crying now tears streaming down his face (194).

 51

Eugene is equally affected by his violence. The narrator says “his voice quavered like

someone speaking at a funeral”. Eugene’s voice quavers because he cannot believe the

fact that his energy is being wasted and failing to maintain authority on his daughter. He

wants his children to be obedient Catholics a quest which doesn’t materialise. In other

words, Eugene’s cries imply that he is in pain because he knows how painful it is to be

scalded and outcomes of the abuse. Eugene’s experiment is linked to his religious

doctrine, the Catholic rituals of purifying the bodies and souls whenever contaminated

by sin. Eugene’s punishment to his children resembles the missionaries’ scalding his

hands for masturbating (196). Indeed, the corporal punishments on young Eugene

conducted by the Father at St. Gregory Seminary for the redemption of his soul from

hell fire, becomes a basis for acting violently. Although Eugene remembers what

happened to him at the missionary school, he believes that punishment is appropriate for

whoever opposes him and his beliefs in his family. A study conducted by

Rowell Huesmann, Leonard D Eron and Eric F Dubow on children and their later adult

life shows that there is a relationship between the earlier abused life and of the abusive

adult life8. Eugene’s acts of violence at the very least amount to criminality for which he

deserves to be punished, not only by the divine but also in a court of law. Unfortunately

it seems that institutions such as court do not judge his conduct against his family.

The saying that Anikwenwa, an old man and a friend of Papa-Nnukwu, utters

helps to capture Eugene’s character as a Catholic. Upon arrival at Eugene premises

8
See Rowell Huesmann, Leonard D Eron and Dubow in “Childhood Predictors of Adult

Criminality: Are all Risk Factors Reflected in Childhood Aggressiveness?

 52

Anikwenwa says: “Ifukwa gi! You are like a fly following a corpse into the grave!” (70).

Eugene is the fly and the corpse is Catholicism, the white man’s religion which is

driving him to his death (grave) without realising it. His devotion to religion and

irresponsible acts of violence culminates into the hubris which seems to be driving him

to his grave.

Eugene witnesses his violence when he stays beside his daughter’s bed the whole

night when she is hospitalised; he remains awake the whole night without even a wink of

sleep following his ruthlessness that injures his daughter. Eugene is tortured

psychologically, as he cannot withstand watching his daughter on a death bed he has

engineered. As the narrator explains; “Papa’s face was close to mine. It seemed so close

that his nose almost brushed mine, and yet I could tell that his eyes were soft, that he

was speaking and crying at the same time.” Eugene in pain says, “My precious daughter.

Nothing will happen to you. My precious daughter” (212). Eugene seems to be

regretting his abuses. Even after doing so much harm to her, he cannot come to terms

with the fact that his obedient daughter can willingly defy him once her mind has been

broadened.

Ironically, Eugene stands up against the Nigerian government’s tyranny,

forgetting that he does not provide a democratic atmosphere to his family which is also

under his tyranny. Eugene and his editor Ade Coker are banned from publishing their

newspaper, the Standard, and later on the editor is killed by a bomb he receives from the

Head of State (206). The effect of such violence on Eugene is evidenced as the narrator

presents, “Hollows appeared under his eyes during those weeks, as if someone had
 53

sunctioned the delicate flesh leaving his eyes sunken in” (207-208). Eugene is dismayed

at the state-sponsored violence oblivious to his own violence on his family. After

witnessing violence on his editor, Eugene suffers economically and mentally as he is

tasked with the duty of taking care of two families: Ade Coker’s and his.

Finally Eugene’s series of violence on his family comes to a halt at the hands of

Beatrice, his wife, who becomes fed up with his extremism. As Eugene’s foremost

victim, Beatrice gathers strength to put an end to Eugene’s religiosity and violence.

Beatrice admits her crime: “I started putting the poison in his tea before I came to

Nsukka. Sisi got it for me; her uncle is a powerful witch doctor” (290). Beatrice has a

motive to kill Eugene. She is, for example, battered by Eugene who uses a small table on

which they keep the family Bible until the table terminates her pregnancy (248).

Eugene’s death constitutes a form of poetic justice and a fulfillment of the adage

that he who lives by the sword dies by the sword, that violence begets violence. It is

apparent that Eugene has blindly copied foreign values without thinking about their

implications. Beatrice is driven to commit murder in a way to avenge for all the

injustices Eugene has committed in her life. Adichie and Nawal El Saadawi share

strategies in the feminist’s stand on how female characters defend themselves against

excessive patriarchal violence and tyranny. I argue that, violence as the only means to

end injustice adds more destruction of the society. For instance, in Nawal’s

God Dies by the Nile, Zakeya is imprisoned for life (174); in Woman at Point Zero

Firdaus is sentenced to death by hanging (101-103); in Purple Hibiscus, Beatrice’s son

Jaja is jailed for admitting to the murder of Eugene to save his mother (291). Eugene’s
 54

untold violence to his family drives his son into a choice of saving his mother. And yet,

his mother Beatrice continues to suffer as she loses her mind. Nevertheless as a

rhetorical strategy, the killing of the villain does send a chilling message on the evils of

violence on women. The readers can think about them and consider what is wrong with

patriarchal dictatorship that promotes violence on women.

3.2 Jaja’s Defiance of Patriarchy and Violence.

Jaja is an iconoclastic character who criticises his father’s beliefs when no one

would. Jaja criticizes his father’s religious beliefs right from the beginning of the story.

Jaja is Eugene and Beatrice’s first child, and a brother to Kambili. To trace Jaja’s

defiance of his father’s violence, the reader is told, through flashbacks how Jaja begins

to defy Eugene. The narrator begins the story with Jaja refusing to take the communion

claiming that it is not to his taste (6). Jaja’s rebellion to his father’s religiosity threatens

Eugene’s power as the leader of the family. Eugene encounter unexpected rebellion from

his son which disturbs him so much that he flings his heavy missal across to hit Jaja who

ducks, it ends up striking Beatrice’s figurines (3). Jaja’s ducking explains his readiness

to defend himself from his father’s wrath; he shows how strong he can be by displaying

his defiance against Eugene. When Eugene tells him that the communion is life and to

stop receiving it means death Jaja simply retorts, “Then I will die” (6). Jaja is

determined to stand up against his father’s dictatorship and violence. Also, at the table,

Jaja refuses to share a drink with his father. Such defiance makes Eugene doubt himself.

As the narrator explains, “There was a shadow clouding Papa’s eyes, a shadow that had
 55

been in Jaja’s eyes. Fear. It had left Jaja’s eyes and entered Papa’s” (13). Ironically,

Eugene, the most feared person in his family, is now trembling with fear of his son.

Jaja’s defiance can also be observed from his decision to protect his mother and

his sibling from his abusive father. For example, Jaja shows concern for his mother and

his unborn sibling, when he tells his sister, “We will take care of the baby; we will

protect him,” (23). This quote indicates how Eugene’s violence is affecting Jaja when he

claims responsibility of shielding his sibling from violence. While watching his father

abuse his mother, Beatrice, and sister, Kambili, forces Jaja to rise and take action first by

defending his mother and his sibling.

Jaja’s defiance begins from childhood. Told in retrospective, Jaja is punished

severely by Eugene until the left little finger on his left is hanging at the age of ten. Jaja

is punished for missing two questions on his catechism tests and failing to be named the

best in his Holy Communion (145). Jaja lives with a scar reminding him of his father’s

cruelty. In the process he learns how to counter his father’s cruelty. At elementary level

Jaja and his sister are punished using the sticks they had collected from the family

compound. Jaja soaks the sticks to reduce the intensity of penetration of pains into his

skin to stave off his father’s violence. Violence destroys Jaja psychologically and

physically too in addition to hardening him. For instance, though Jaja would like to have

all the fingers intact like everybody else, he lives with that mark all his life. When asked

by Chima (Ifeoma’s youngest son) about his deformed finger, he does not reveal what

happened to him instead he pitifully looks at his fleshless finger (145). The pain Jaja
 56

experiences from childhood to teenage forces him to negate his father extremism. In this

sense, Jaja is Eugene’s nemesis.

Moreover, Jaja’s defiance is heightened by his trips to Nsukka. In Nsukka, Jaja

and his sister taste the fruits of being independent and secure from violence. Jaja

becomes more courageous and ready to defy his father’s authority. For instance, soon

after arriving from Nsukka, Jaja boldly asks his father to hand him his bedroom keys

demanding privacy (192). Asking for his room keys is a manifestation of Jaja’s

determination to be free from his father. He is determined to break from his father’s

draconian rules in the house. In one of the flashbacks, Jaja refuses to come out of the

room after Palm Sunday: “Jaja did not come out of his room even though Papa asked

him to. The first time Papa asked him, the day after Palm Sunday, Papa could not open

his door because he had pushed his study desk in front of it.” (258). Jaja is resolute in his

determination to negate Eugene’s despotic leadership in the house. Jaja humiliates his

father by defying his request. Sequentially, Jaja notifies his father of his and his sister

departure to Nsukka. “We are going to Nsukka. Kambili and I, We are going to Nsukka

today not tomorrow. If Kevin will not take us, we will still go. We will walk if we have

to” (261). Jaja’s resoluteness catches his father off balance. Jaja is fed up with his

father’s tyrannical rule and violence. The departure from Enugu for Nsukka is the best

therapy Jaja and his sister needed to recover from a violent life.

Jaja’s defiance can also be traced from the title of the novel. Upon entering

Ifeoma’s garden of purple hibiscus plants in Nsukka, Jaja is drawn to the purple hibiscus
 57

plant. As the title suggests the purple hibiscus has a wider meaning in Jaja’s life. As the

narrator explains:

Jaja’s defiance seemed to me 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).

The purple hibiscus represents the freedom Jaja seeks from his father. The seeds of

freedom start to flourish in earnest away from home, available to Nsukka in his aunt

Ifeoma’s compound. Ifeoma, unlike his brother Eugene combines both modernity and

traditional life alignments.

The hibiscus plant is grown in the two Achike families. Whereas the red hibiscus

plant is found in Eugene’s compound, the purple hibiscus is grown in Aunty Ifeoma’s

garden, a distinction that is evident in their forms and where they are found. The red

hibiscus that blooms in Eugene’s home by its colour signifies prevalence of violence and

intolerance “Those red hibiscuses, considering how often Mama cut them to decorate the

church altar, But even the government agents, two men in black jackets who came some

time ago, yanked at the hibiscus and left” (9). Eugene’s home, the church and the

military government are the three units in the story that are replete with dictatorship and

maximum violence. Red is also the colour for blood. At one level, the flowers symbolise

the bloodshed in Eugene’s home. These institutions home, church and government are

also responsible for the violence Jaja and other characters experience either directly or

indirectly. In the absence of peace and freedom at home, Jaja is drawn to the purple
 58

hibiscus when he asks Ifeoma, “That’s a hibiscus, isn’t it, Aunty?” (128). He wants to

draw the parallels and differences between the two versions of the same plant. Jaja

realises that the hibiscus he sees in Ifeoma’s garden is different from that of his father’s

compound when he begins to see love and has many choices in Ifeoma’s house.

Jaja also figures out freedom in Ifeoma’s house, a freedom and future which does

not require the wealth of his father. Jaja observe the plant, “I didn’t know there were

purple hibiscuses” (128). The difference here is significant whereas red denotes horror

and violence, purple denotes peace and freedom. Jaja is longing for freedom and the

purple hibiscus represents that hope (197). Jaja examines the stalks he plans to plant and

waters them regularly for germination. The plant’s care is under Jaja, thus Jaja must

stand to acquire freedom from his father. Contrary to his high expectation of freedom

and future, the purple hibiscus plant is not planted after Jaja admits killing his father to

save his mother. This appears to represent death to the much hoped freedom.

Jaja finally takes the blame of murdering his father to free his mother from jail.

Upon admitting his mother’s crime, his plans for future automatic comes to a halt. Jaja

seems unaware that a wrong cannot be rectified with another mistake. As Beatrice’s son,

Jaja has experienced and witnessed the torture, violence, humiliation, miscarriages, and

silencing of his mother in his father’s household (33). When the police comes to

interrogate his mother, “Jaja did not wait for their questions; he told them he had used

rat poison, that he put it in Papa’s tea. They allowed him to change his shirt before they

took him away” (291). I see, Jaja’s readiness to defend his mother stems from his

understanding of his mother’s traumatic experience. Jaja sacrifices himself to save his
 59

mother from being executed and experiencing further tortures in the hands of men’s

authority. Moreover, Jaja’s life in prison is another trying experience he has to deal with.

He is devastated as the narrator illustrates, “his shoulders which had bloomed in Nsukka

are sagging, the silence is more tense than before because even the ‘asusu anya’ (eye

language) are no more” (300,305). Jaja’s life falls in the hands of another violent

institution, the prison, which acts under the laws of the military government. Adding

more on effect of violence on Jaja, I comment that violence has shifted from the family

compound to the prison cell. Although, the prison is for the convicts, Jaja becomes a

victim of childhood violence which situates his entire life into a prison cell for

numberless years.

3.3 Conclusion

The discussion of this chapter centred on the analysis of how male characters, as

perpetrators of violence, are equally affected by the violence they foment. It has

examined how violence condoned by male characters affects them and society at large.

Male characters, Eugene and Jaja, the latter the nemesis of the former, represent the rest

of male characters and the extent of suffering they are subjected to due to the problem of

violence. Eugene being violent is also a victim. This chapter concludes by showing how

female characters can be even more violent than male characters in the course of

defending themselves from men. Thus, violence has far-reaching implications on the

society to both perpetuators and victims.

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CHAPTER FOUR

“THEY ARE NOT LIKE THOSE LOUD CHILDREN”: SILENCE AND

PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE

4.0 Introduction

In the previous chapter I discussed how male characters’ actions can result into

violence which may affect them, female characters, children and the whole society. I

explained how religion is manipulated by Eugene to control his family. In chapter three I

also examined how female characters can become violent when pushed to the edge. In

this chapter I focus on psychological violence in the Achike family by comparing two

families of the Achike in Enugu and Nsukka, that of Eugene and his sister Ifeoma

respectively. I examine the prevalence of silence in Eugene’s family, how silence affects

the lives of Kambili, Beatrice and Jaja before and after Eugene’s death. The chapter also

examines how Ifeoma’s family differs from Eugene’s. I argue that silence constitute a

speech act for Kambili, the narrator who observes events around her, for Jaja and

Beatrice.

4.1 Kambili’s Uncertainty in Silence

Silence is a word which carries various meanings as far as the discussion of

violence on women is concerned. Silence is related to oppressive issues such as tyranny

in the postcolonial countries especially in relation to cries of women. Silence in

Purple Hibiscus, however, does not mean lack of voice since the narrator is also

supposed to be observing events in silence. I argue that, silence suppresses one’s voice
 61

or actions, either by using physical or verbal abuse. Silence can also mean keeping quiet

willingly and ignoring what is happening or acting dumb. According to

Pauline Ada Uwakweh a text serves as a weapon towards removing silence of women by

telling about the conditions of women trapped in silence under the patriarchy (75).

Similarly, Atina Grossmann reports that anti-Nazi soldiers, who fought Nazi Germany,

abused the German women. Grossmann contend that, silence of victims of such sexual

violence ought to be broken for the tradition, which treats sexual violence as normal,

ought to be debunked (45). Writing is one way of giving a voice to the voiceless. I argue

that the story Kambili tells is not only about violence but silence in her family as well of

other characters. Since silence is an outcome of violence, the narration breaks that

silence as Kambili tells the reader of her family that thrives under maximum silence.

Kambili, Jaja and Beatrice remain quiet, and sometimes speak with their bodies in fear

of Eugene’s violence (16). Although violence deprives Kambili, Jaja and Beatrice of

their right to speak in silence, the narrator pays attention to what is happening without

being disturbed. I argue that silence is a vital instrument that helps Kambili to detail

violence for the readers thus readers think about violence without interruptions.

From Kambili’s life, the reader learns several kinds of silence; around her life,

Jaja’s, and her mother’s. When Kambili describes silence during lunch time she says,

“We all reached for the salt at the same time. Jaja and I touched the crystal shaker, my

finger brushed his gently, then he let it go. I passed it to Papa. The silence stretched out

even longer” (12). This silence can be described as a silence of fear. Both Kambili and

Jaja struggle to please their angry father by competing for the salt crystals after Jaja has
 62

broken the taboo of the Holy Communion. In this silence, Kambili has no idea what will

happen following Jaja’s defiance. I can term it as silence of dilemma as the family

observing Eugene’s fury.

Silence enveloping Kambili and Jaja is a consequence of their father’s violence.

Eugene believes silence makes his children godly, as he interprets silence as obedience

to and glorification of God. Indeed, when Ade Coker (Eugene’s editor) asks Eugene why

Kambili and Jaja are so quiet, Eugene says, “They are not like those loud children

people are raising these days, with no home training and no fear of God” (58). Silence in

Kambili and Jaja’s lives seems appropriate to Eugene. Their silence is equated to

obedience to God. But this silence is deceptive as it conceals the actual truth. Eugene

silences his children to conceal his viciousness. Communities in Abba are ignorant about

Eugene’s violence on his family. As a result Eugene is given the Omelora title thus,

silence protects Eugene, but it reveals a lot to the reader.

Whereas Eugene’s household in Enugu operates in silence, Ifeoma’s house in

Nsukka is democratic. Kambili and Jaja’s shift from Enugu to Nsukka started drifting

them from silence. In Ifeoma’s company, silence has no place in their lives; they observe

her courage, assertiveness, democracy and laughter. As Kambili observes, “Aunty

Ifeoma was whispering, too, but I heard her well. Her whisper was like her-tall,

exuberant, fearless, loud, larger than life” (95). Unlike Kambili’s mother, whose voice

is barely heard, Ifeoma’s voice becomes a source of renewed hope. Thus, Kambili

realises how important it is to be heard. From her aunt, Kambili learns and acquires what
 63

Father Amadi (a priest in St. Peters church in Nsukka) calls “questioning skills” (72).

She sees how different her family is from Ifeoma’s.

Kambili learns about Papa-Nnukwu’s stories. Amaka and Obiora, Ifeoma’s

daughter and elder son respectively ask questions, laugh and contribute to the narratives.

As Kambili observes, “Oh, I did not know that Papa- Nnukwu liked to go on and on. I

did not even know that he told stories” (72). Eugene, on the other hand, has denied his

children an opportunity to listen to such stories since he has severed ties with his heathen

father. Kambili discovers the absence of stories and the skill of questioning in her life;

thus she holds on to Nsukka as a motherland that breastfeeds her like a baby clinging to

her mother’s breast. The mother provides all kinds of nutrition and protection against

diseases just as Ifeoma and Nsukka provide nourishment to Kambili and Jaja.

Kambili’s realisation of the existing silence in her home creates a longing for a

non-silent environment where she can reveal her suppressed dreams. Ogaga Okuyade in

“Trying to Survive,” explains Kambili’s growth in terms of “transcending to different

geography in the process of maturity and development,” (10). Kambili’s growth requires

movement and shift of residence from one geographical place to another. I argue that,

Nsukka for Kambili is more than a physical place. It represents a moral and spiritual

space that helps to shatter Kambili’s and Jaja silence.

Moreover, it is in Nsukka that Kambili and Jaja begin to experience democracy.

Nsukka thus becomes vital for Kambili’s hope of delivery from her silence. As Kambili

narrates, “Nsukka started it all; Aunty Ifeoma’s little garden next to the verandah of her

flat in Nsukka began to lift the silence,” (16). Kambili observes Ifeoma’s silence-free
 64

family. In Nsukka, skills such as washing plates, peeling potatoes, fetching water, and

cooking are acquired under the coach-ship of Ifeoma. Kambili narrate as follows:

I listened to every word spoken, followed every cackle of laughter and line of

banter. 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 (121).

Ifeoma allows the children to interact and play together as they learn house chores.

Kambili shows how much she appreciates her aunt to the extent that she nick-names her

a coach which could imply that Ifeoma has a duty to shape and polish her team for a

victorious match against violence. Ifeoma’s home acts as a shield for Kambili and Jaja

from Eugene’s violence, abuse and silence.

Thus, Kambili is able to distinguish the two families, one small but full of air

while the other lacks air for family members. Kambili desires the former environment, a

non-violent home: “Laughter always rang out in Aunty Ifeoma’s house, and no matter

where the laughter came from, it bounced around all the walls, all the rooms,” (140). In

the latter home silence prevails: “the compound walls, topped by coiled electric wires,

were so high I could not see the cars driving trees from the driveway” (9). Her home is

enclosed by high suffocating wall fences, trapping those inside from the outside hence

maximum silence. On the whole, the absence of freedom and interaction in Kambili’s

home, the electrified wall fence are not protecting them but simply helping Eugene to

silence his family amid his violence. As hinted earlier, family is a metaphor of a nation.
 65

Thus I argue that Eugene’s family represents the nation of Nigeria where citizens are

silenced.

In Nsukka, Kambili and Jaja experience a lift from silence and start to grow in

Ifeoma’s home. As Kambili narrates, “His shoulders seemed broader, and I wondered if

it was possible for a teenager’s shoulder to broaden in a week” (154). In one week, her

brother undergoes a transformation. Kambili starts experiencing being a woman when

she falls in love with Father Amadi who manages to retrieve Kambili’s hidden smile:

“Then I felt the smile start to creep over my face, stretching my lips and cheeks, an

embarrassed and amused smile. He knew I had tried to wear lipstick for the first time

today. I smiled. I smiled again” (177). In other words violence represses growth. In

Ifeoma’s household Kambili discovers discover joy in her life, and opens her emotions

to her first love. From Father Amadi Kambili learns the meaning of religion that, freed

from the shackles of colonial mentality unlike from Father Benedict who cements

psychological violence of his congregation. The reader observes two Fathers one who

perpetuates silence through imposition of foreign language while the other assists on

preserving indigenous language.

Kambili sees a clear difference between, Father Amadi and Father Benedict

although both are Catholic leaders. Father Amadi encourages the use of the Igbo

language in St. Peters Church and allows applauses in worshiping God (28).

Father Benedict, on the other hand suppresses the use Igbo during mass with maximum

silence of the congregates (4). From Father Amadi, Kambili learns to love, she feels

free, and she develops running skills. As Kambili narrates about what she feels around
 66

the company of Father Amadi, “I looked away. I had never heard anything like that

before. It seemed too close, too intimate, to have his eyes on my legs, on any part of me”

(176). Father Amadi assists her to learn more about her body as she extends her stay in

Nsukka. Kambili imagines and experiences how light her chest becomes after laughing,

smiling and running (180). Her psychological state becomes evident in her physical

body. For example, when Father Amadi tells Kambili, “Tell me about the nothing, then,”

Kambili is being injected with questioning and speaking skills (226). Kambili is allowed

to express her inner thoughts, a skill which enhances her assertiveness.

When she arrives in Nsukka, Kambili is faced with the challenge of breaking the

silence in her life, which is torturing her. Kambili narrate as follows:

I could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall, the one with the picture of the

Pope leaning on his staff. The silence was delicate. Aunty Ifeoma was scraping a

burnt pot in the kitchen, and the kroo-kroo-kroo of the metal spoon on the pot

seemed intrusive. Amaka and Papa-Nnukwu spoke some-times, their voices low,

twining together. They understood each other, using the sparest words. Watching

them, I felt a longing for something I knew I would never have (165).

The “delicate” silence turns out to be silence of isolation since she notes how her cousins

and her Papa-Nnukwu chat, exchange glances, laugh and joke. She feels like an outsider

peeping inside with the desire for something her father had taken away from her.

Kambili sees how her cousin and their grandfather are twinning their voices together

eventually Kambili is able to speak in Ifeoma’s house, hence breaking the yoke of

silence.
 67

Kambili ultimately breaks the silence when Amaka chides her for her inability to

prepare orah . She shouts at Amaka, “You don’t have to shout, Amaka, I don’t know

how to do the orah leaves but you can show me” (70). For the first time everyone hears

Kambili’s voice. She realises her stuttering had come to an end. Kambili has been

waiting for a long time, to hear herself respond to insults. Generally, Kambili’s silence

raises the questions about the “unheard voices”. Later on Kambili decides to imitate her

cousin’s courage and assertiveness by wearing her lipstick (174). Kambili wears

Amaka’s lipstick to copy her cousin’s traits: boldness, inquisitiveness and defiance

albeit, like the lipstick only temporary. Since, lipstick wears easily, so is Kambili

assertiveness which she thinks can be permanent like her cousin’s.

Christopher Werimo Ouma observes how Kambili journeys out of silence in

Ifeoma’s household when he posits: “The presence of music keeps them in touch with

the outside world but also because the kind of music that Kambili is exposed to is

culturally conscious and the most importantly politically conscious music that informs

her of the political happenings in Nigeria” (57). The music Ouma is stressing here is the

voice of a renowned African musician the late Fela Kuti. Fela’s music played by Amaka

displays her democratic and socialised life. From their interaction, Kambili discovers her

singing and freedom alongside Amaka. As Amaka tells Kambili, “You were just singing

along with Fela” (277). Kambili is now in a free and open relationship with Amaka

through it Kambili starts to understand democracy. Furthermore, Fela’s music becomes

an umbilical cord between Kambili and Amaka. Even when Amaka departs for America
 68

at the end of the story, Kambili still remembers the bond and continues playing the

music to remind her of democracy and the importance of breaking silence.

4.2 Dilemma in the New Silence

A new kind of silence is introduced to the reader after the deaths of two

important people: Eugene and the Head of State of Nigeria. The deaths of Eugene and

the Head of State are both celebrated by some of the family members and by the public.

Whereas Jaja and Beatrice celebrate Eugene’s death, Nigerians celebrate the Head of

State’s death. The parallel deaths of Eugene and the Head of State of Nigeria are not

coincidental. Both silently die at the hands of women. Eugene, as already discussed in

chapter three, is poisoned by Beatrice and the Head of State dies on top of a prostitute.

The parallel deaths link the fates of the family and the nation. In other words, one cannot

think about family dictatorship without thinking about national dictatorship. The two

tyrants in the story are strong men who rule by force and inflict harm on people. The

new silence after these deaths is accompanied by lots of chaos and confusion after

assassinating Eugene, Beatrice’s life becomes unstable as Kambili narrates:

Last month, when I told her I was going to Nsukka, she did not say anything,

either, did not ask me why, though I don’t know anybody in Nsukka anymore.

She simply nodded. Celestine drove me, and we arrived around noon, just about

when the sun was changing to the searing sun I have long imagined can suck the

moisture from the bone marrow (298).

 69

Beatrice’s silence reflects her mental disturbance. Her husband is dead and now her son

is behind bars for the crime she has committed. Although physical violence is absent in

the present life, she suffers from psychological violence, the aftershock of everything

she has gone through.

In the new silence, freedom is paid for and so is justice. Though the old regime

no longer exists at family as well as state level nothing much has changed. This means

that violence will prevail even under the new regime: because, among other things, the

existing government is still corrupt, meaning the struggle against violence has to

continue. Kambili observes the number of times she and her mother have offered bribes

to free Jaja: “There is so much more that Mama and I do not talk about. We do not talk

about the huge checks we have written, for bribes to judges and policemen and guards”

(297). Kambili and her mother do not talk about the bribes they offer the judges

probably because they feel embarrassed about going against their democratic principles

and as good servants of God. It is also possible that Kambili and Beatrice do not talk

about the bribes because they feel their efforts have not yielded the desired outcome

considering that they know the real culprit in Eugene’s murder. In this corrupt kind of

silence, Kambili is also involved in corruption. She is embarrassed for buying rights and

undermining democracy. In fact she is not different from her leaders.

Silence as a means of subordinating female characters still continues to affect

both male and female characters physically, psychologically, economically and

mentally. Although silence at the beginning of the story differs from the silence at the

end of the story, both silences are painful to bear. Silence perpetuated by Eugene
 70

continues to haunt Beatrice, Jaja, and Kambili. Kambili and Beatrice, for example, have

been silenced by Eugene and that silence still runs their lives to the extent that they do

not even talk about the money Eugene had left after his death. Kambili and Beatrice are

also unable to say anything about Eugene’s things like Eugene’s charities to the

motherless babies (297). Their silence is out of fear for Eugene and his power. The

continuation of silence implies that healing is a slow process and needs working on for

the much desired hope to be realised.

Kambili’s visit to Nsukka at the end of the story shows how the past cannot be

rekindled. She comes across dust, undone gardens, and new faces in Ifeoma’s house.

Nsukka now fails to provide her hope and her future as it once did and as she longs for.

Present life in Nsukka is filled by silence too. As Kambili narrates, “Most of the lawns

on the university ground are overgrown now; the long grasses stick up like green arrows.

The stature of the preening lion no longer gleams” (298). The peace and laughter once

experienced in Nsukka has evaporated, meaning she has to find a new direction in life.

The stature of the preening lion at the University of Nsukka can be seen as a symbol for

Ifeoma, a senior lecturer, firm, defiant, courageous and an icon for success in Nsukka.

The lion stature does not gleam because violence has blackened the stature, and thus can

no longer be as active as it used to be.

Although Kambili’s hope for her brother’s release from prison remains a distant

dream, she does not lose hope: “We should go to Nsukka when Jaja comes out, I say to

Mama as we walk out of the room. I can talk about the future now” (306). As a family

once again, without the domineering and paralysing figure of Eugene, the symbol of
 71

violence, Kambili has reason to continue to hope to cling to a dream of breaking the

second cycle of violence.

4.3 Conclusion

This chapter has focused on the discussion of silence as a reflection of violence

that affects the characters. Chapter Four has advanced the discussion of how physical

violence translates into enduring silence whose effects cannot be dismissed with a

magical wand. It has examined the effects of silence under Eugene’s regime which

continues to haunt his family after his death. It was observed that, through violence male

characters enforces silence. But in Kambili’s silence, readers are able to learn a lot about

the effects of violence under family dictatorship, which becomes an extended metaphor

for dictatorship, or lack of democracy in Nigeria, as reinforced by the parallel deaths of

Eugene and the Head of State, two strong men who inflict untold violence on members

of the family and the nation, respectively.

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CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.0 Introduction

This chapter presents conclusion of the study and suggestions for further studies on

Purple Hibiscus.

5.1 Conclusion

So far the analysis was concerned in examining how Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus

interrogates violence on women through female characters: Kambili, Beatrice, Market

women and Ifeoma. It was discussed that violence on these female characters destroyed

their lives by suppressing their voices, injuring and developing vengeance thoughts to

the victims. This study also examined how male characters are victimized by their

violent actions which thereafter wind up destroying the entire society in the process of

vengeance against the perpetrators of violence. Another important matter analysed in

this study was silence. Silence as a weapon of violence and also as shield from violence.

The concept of silence was seen to be a double edged sword, cutting both sides. In other

words, silence was examined to be similar to violence which means even in the process

of using either silence or violence; the perpetuator is also victimized in return.

Therefore, the study suggests that violence affects everyone in the society. Impacts of

violence are witnessed in the lives of the characters thus determining their blurred

futures. Generally, Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, not only represents violence on women in

the families and in the streets, it also interrogates its devastating impacts on society.
 73

5.2 Recommendations for Further Studies

This study has analysed the representation of violence on women as perpetuated

by men in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. It has shown how this violence on women has far-

reaching implications. Another study can be conducted on exploring how effective

Adichie is using figurative language in Purple Hibiscus. Again another study can be

conducted on Purple Hibiscus exploring the use of oral materials an essential element in

African literature.
 74

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