Patriarchy In Purple Hibiscus

Purple Hibiscus follows the life of Kambili and Jaja, who both live in Enugu, Nigeria. Kambili and Jaja come from a wealthy family, and their father is highly regarded in the society. From the outside, they appear to be a perfect family; however, they fall short of that expectation. The public is not aware that Papa, Eugene, is an abusive father. He believes if you don’t follow the Christian life-style, you should be punished for your sins.

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” a short story written by Flannery O’Connor, a contradiction within itself. By reviewing this short story, we can learn about justice, religion and what it means to be a good man. If we look at how O’Connor represents the conflict of interest in the characters, we will see that this short story warps the idea of humanity, which is important because internally every person has a darker side. These characters just so happen to be wearing that darker side on their sleeves as they go about their daily life.

In the story "Excerpt from the winter hibiscus" There is a girl named Saeng. Saeng just failed her drivers test and on her way home she enters a flower shop. When she enters the shop she is reminded of when she used to live in Laos which she moved from 4 years ago to move to the United States. Saeng starts to look at all the different flowers and she finds A plant that used to grow around where she lived. This made her think about her home and it also brought up some sad emotions.

While the focus is Purple Hibiscus is admittedly the national, the transnational dimension represents an important narrative bypath. This is the case with Purple Hibiscus as well: in Ouma’s words, the novel is “informed by the experiences of movement and contact with other words”(49). kambili’s father’s sister, aunty Ifeoma, works as a lecturer at Nsukka University, where the country’s flaws are flagrantly visible: unpaid salaries, authoritarian management, and career stagnation are driving staff members into exile. The idea of leaving raises diverse feelings in kambili’s cousins. The oldest cousin, Amaka, feels that leaving means running away, and she asks her brother whether the problems of the crisis-ridden country cannot be fixed. “Fix what?” (232), reads the brother’s ironical,

Author Adichie uses both languages that is, she handles most of her views in English and she touches Igbo language. She uses both languages like Chinua Achebe, for her benefit. As a Nigerian born novelist, she gives both hands who are in their mind to raise Nigerian identity with its ritual for the world. She does not neglect Catholic and she neglects the way of approach to preach by opposing traditional religion and its values. She never likes to destroy her own traditional religion in front of her eyes. She does not like the dominant culture under the other’s culture and religion. In her Purple Hibiscus, she does not like Papa- Eugene’s schedule life and Father Benedict’s restrictions upon African culture and Kambili’s school Sisters neglects Nigerian language like the readers of her novel. She creates awareneness of her nation identity and her patriotism and her culture and her views everything through her characters Papa-Nnukwu.

Inequality is faced daily by people of all races, religions, and genders. Women, for example, are still faced with the crisis of equal pay in the workplace and constant sexism from employers and a growing pop culture. The inequality is seen in the book Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell. Through a highly patriarchal community, the women in the book, especially Ree, are brought against harsh conditions, both physical and mental. Through the analysis of female characters in the novel Winter’s Bone, Daniel Woodrell, through categorizing women in the three groups of caregivers, survivors, and prisoners, comments on the inequality women face in society.

In the novel Purple Hibiscus, the reader spends the entire novel waiting for Kambili to transition from a character of silence and submission into an outspoken and self-entitled woman -- something that doesn’t fully happen by the end of the book. However, Kambili has very much changed from the beginning, just not in the dramatic way that the audience expects; Kambili’s life starts with dominance from their father. Kambili and Jaja learn to deal with their problems through silence, and eventually use silence as a means of power.

In the drama “The Shape of Things”, Neil LaBute explores gender roles and exposes alternative visions of power, control and morality in human relationships. The drama narrates the physical and behavioral transformation of Adam, a part-time museum guard who is subject to the manipulation and control of a radical artist named Evelyn Ann Thompson. This essay will demonstrate that Adam is not responsible for his transformation, and that he is a victim of Evelyn’s manipulation and control.

The blooming of sleepy, oval-shaped buds in front of the house is symbol of the readiness of Jaja to rebel against his father’s iron-fist authority. These changes show the experiences what he learns from his Aunty Ifeoma’s house. Other symbol include Eugene’s heavy missal, which throws at Jaja for not going to receive Holy Communion. Papa-Nnukwu’s shrine says Kambili that it looks the grotto at Saint Agnes church and mama’s figurines, which the missal breaks into pieces as it lands on the étagère. Ballet Figurines represents an important symbol in this novel Purple Hibiscus. Ballet Figurines are in small in size and places on an étagère at Jaja’s dining room. Figurines never move and never talk and easily breakable and symbolizes that Kambili, Jaja, and mother Beatrice’s silence. They resemble also weakness in physical. Their small bones easily can break because of their small bone structure like ballerina. The étagère on the stand represents the status of their family among the society. People can watch the

Gender roles are norms created by society. Our gender is given to us when born, either you are a girl or a boy, decided by how our body looks like. A girl is given norms to follow by society at a young age. A girl should usually be passive, nurturing and subordination, while those born male are supposed to be strong, aggressive and dominant. This paper will discuss how the genders are viewed and perceived in different literary periods. It will show three periods, Ancient Greece, the Middle Ages and our modern time. The essay will also discuss what the differences between the periods are and how it has evolved throughout time.

The story that I had presented for my oral presentation in Task 1 is ‘Boys and Girls’ is a by Alice Munro. This simple short story is about a young girl’s resistance to womanhood in a society infested with gender roles and stereotypes but have to accept the gender stereotyping in the end of the story. The story takes place in the 1940s on a fox farm outside of Jubilee, Ontario. The relevant theories of literary criticisms that can be applied to the ‘Boys and Girls’ short story are historical criticism and mostly feminism criticism.

Post colonial Literature is a body of literary writings that reacts to the conversation of colonization. Post colonial literature often involves writings that deal with issues of decolonization or the political and cultural independents of people formerly subjugated to colonial rule. Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, part of the third generation narration is concerned with the identity of the modern African woman in the 21st century. Chimamanda Adichie is one of the prominent contemporary Nigerian women writers. She is dynamic and writes from a feminist perspective. Her novel usually deals with the social, cultural, traditional, economical and mental conflicts of women. Adichie presents real life situations in her novels. Adichie succeeds in creating characters that negotiate hybrid identities defining selfhood. She wants woman to realize herself through self analysis. Such a quest for one’s own identity forms the theme of her novels. Purple hibiscus reflects the theme of identity. In the home culture each female is exposed to a fixed identity, but when she moves outside her home life. She is able to develop her own values from the world views of his parents. Purple hibiscus is a coming of age story for the central characters Kambili. The novel is narrated by Kambili about her struggle to attain her self- identity. This paper focuses on the search for self identity. The novel aims at discussing the divergent problems encountered by Nigerian women in the patriarchal

Feminist literary criticism’s primary argument is that female characters have always been presented from a male’s viewpoint. According to Connell, in most literary works, female characters often play minor roles which emphasize their domestic roles, subservience and physical beauty while males are always the protagonists who are strong, heroic and dominant (qtd. in Woloshyn et al.150). This means that the women are perceived as weak and are supposed to be under the control of men. Gill and Sellers say that feminist literary criticism’s approach involves identifying with female characters in order to challenge any male centred outlook. It aims at resisting traditional assumptions of gender (3). In doing so, feminist literary criticism examines how works of literature perpetuate or challenge patriarchal attitudes. In feminism lens, The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins’ presents itself as a pro-feminist series It challenges gender stereotypes by presenting a female protagonist; Katniss Everdeen. The book has successfully challenged gender stereotypes by showing that men and women are equal. It is the societal constraints that do not provide a level playing field for both genders. Using Wollstonecraft’s book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman to analyze the Hunger Games this essay demonstrates how men and women are equal.

Upon reading the extract from Affinity by Sarah Waters I found the gender roles and the contrast between the characters interesting, and therefore I have chosen to critically analyse the extract through the lenses of patriarchal figures and feminism. I wish to highlight certain parts of the extract where I feel these concepts were brought to the fore in an intriguing way.

“I wrote this novel because I wanted to write about love and war, because I grew up in the shadow of Biafra, because I wanted to engage with my history in order to make sense of my present, because many of the issues that led to the war remain unsolved in Nigeria today.”