Purple Hibiscus Essay

The fact that “Purple Hibiscus” is a coming of age novel, the narrator Kambili finds herself having to mature and grow faster then she imagined. The Tyrannical and abusive lifestyle that her father inflicts upon her and the rest of her family, leaves Kambili with lasting effects from the violence. This idea is the same in “The Perils of Indifference” speech where it’s easy to see that there are profound lasting effects from World War 2 on those who survived, due to the horrific violence that Hitler inflicted.

These two texts are connected through the idea of the profound effects of violence and abuse and. In “Purple Hibiscus” Adichie creates Kambili as a young passive girl, who constantly strives to please her father in order to save herself from punishment if she makes a mistake. However, as the novel progresses and she starts to question her father’s tyrannical ways, she is inflicted with more and more abuse. Not only does the idea apply to the narrator Kambili, but also to her mother who

is affected severely by the lifetime of abuse from the father. Kambili’s mother has multiple miscarriages after she is beaten by her husband, witnesses her children being severely beaten all until one day she decides to take a stand and slowly begins to poison her husband until he dies, at the end of the novel. After this, she falls into a state of disillusion and disconnects herself from the world and everyone around her, completely shutting down. The violence, caused her to make a decision she never imagined herself making, and she is left with long lasting effects afterwards. Kambili, is the same as she is left with violent memories that she wishes she could forget, creating long lasting effects on her also.

Wiesel's speech also holds the same idea behind it, as the effects of World War 2 have left such vivid memories on him, due to the horrific violence and the vast amounts of death that came with it. He begins his speech with the day he was liberated by American soldiers in which he states “..a young jewish boy from a small town in the Carpathian Mountains woke up, not far from Goethe’s beloved Weimar, in a place of eternal infamy called Buchenwald. He was finally free, but there was no joy in his heart. He thought there never would be again.” The vast amounts of violence that he saw during this time, is enough to last anybody a lifetime, and at the time it was enough to make Wiesel feel that he would never feel happiness again. Just like Kambili and her Mother, Wiesel has been left with long lasting effects from the violence that they have all lived through. Wiesel has such vivid memories and is still able to tell his story 50-60 years on.

After reading all four of these texts, it becomes evident that all of them are connected through a bigger theme of Political Oppression.

Each Author has used their text to portray the violence and struggles that come with being Politically Oppressed, and how easy indifference and violence can follow on from it. After reading all four of the texts, the reader is left with a lasting impression, as the attitudes taken by the authors is that of great passion and strife. Each author has lived through a lifetime of indifference and violence, (in a country where extreme politics and or Dictatorship raged) and therefore has a purpose of showing the reader an insight into what they have had to live through. When we read these texts, we are left questioning ourselves and what we would do if we were ever put in a situation like what these four authors have had to live through, and also how so many people could just turn a blind eye to the indifference that clearly happens in this

world.

In” Purple Hibiscus” Kambili was just a young impressionable child when the violence and abuse started , probably leaving her with some serious psychological issues as she got older, leaving the reader to question whether her father was punishing her for her “sins” or because he has was taking after the political violence and Gen. Sanni Abacha’s dictatorship. The authors have used their texts to not get sympathy from the reader (although the reader does come away feeling this) but to show the world what it really was like, and give a first hand account, whether it’s through novels with substituted names or speeches of survivors, they all allow an insight and the truth to these horrific and violent political times.

The use of imagery in all four of these texts, also adds to the lasting impression as all of the authors tell their recollections in such a vivid manner, that it allows the reader to clearly picture what it would have been like.