Critical Analysis Of Purple Hibiscus

¨We stand there, together, at the peak of one mountain and the foot of another, facing the rising sun.¨ Coming from MK Asante´s memoir, Buck, the main character, Malo, faced personal struggles similar to the main character in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 's novel, Kambili who had to overcome personal struggle to define herself in Purple Hibiscus. Kambili’s beginning adversities disproves Horaces’ argument and don’t elicit any talents she never knew she had until the middle and end when she gradually begun to define herself mentally and emotionally as a female and a human being. Kambili’s personal struggle consist of her father’s brash personality and the actions shown towards her and the members in her family, her religious beliefs, and consuming feelings for Father Amadi. The Roman poet Horace wrote, “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.” In Purple Hibiscus, Adichie utilizes the character Kambili to prove this idea to be true but only when one expands their horizons’ mentally and emotionally to turn the negative into the positive.

In the beginning of Purple Hibiscus, Kambili’s adversities don’t elicit talents she never knew she had, which disproves Horaces’ argument that adversity leads to positive change. In Purple Hibiscus the main character, Kambili, father is Papa, who is known to be solely strict with his family and children academically and religiously. Before page 40, Kambili has come home from