Purple Hibiscus

ABOUT THIS GUIDE

ORANGE PRIZE FINALIST
A San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year

“One of the best novels to come out of Africa in years.” —The Baltimore Sun

The introduction, discussion questions, suggestions for further reading, and author biography that follow are designed to enhance your group’s discussion of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s extraordinary and moving debut novel Purple Hibiscus.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Set in Enugu, Nigeria, on the eve of a military coup, Purple Hibiscus tells the story of fifteen-year-old Kambili and her painful awakening from an abusive home life to the beginnings of personal freedom. Kambili and her brother Jaja grow up under their father’s watchful eye and wrathful anger. Their father is a fanatically religious man and demands perfection from his children—in school, at home, and in their religious devotion. Any infraction, however slight, is met with physical punishment, from beatings and whippings to having boiling water poured over their feet. He beats his wife so badly that she suffers a miscarriage. It is this stifling and fear-drenched environment that shapes Kambili and makes her so shy she can barely speak, so timid she doesn’t know the sound of her own laughter.

When Kambili and Jaja go to visit their high-spirited Aunty Ifeoma, a university professor in Nsukka, their world becomes suddenly larger, louder, richer, and freer. Here Kambili is plunged into a world where children and adults alike say what they think without fear, and everyone can laugh, argue, question, and challenge each other openly. And though Aunty Ifeoma is Catholic, she still embraces traditional African songs and beliefs, and her loving approach to life is a warm and welcome change from the rigid atmosphere of Kambili’s home. Immersed in this new world, Kambili begins to discover her own voice, her ability to laugh and to make others laugh. And she begins to fall in love with a charismatic young priest who helps her to see her own worth, clearly, for the first time.

But the violence of Kambili’s home life is echoed in Nigeria, as a repressive regime takes power in a military coup. Her father’s newspaper is under pressure from the new government, the lecturers have gone on strike at the university where Aunty Ifeoma teaches, and corruption runs rampant throughout the country. It is a time of great turmoil, both personal and political, and the lives of all the main characters are brought to crisis points. In this beautifully written and poignant first novel, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie offers a moving and nuanced exploration of the ongoing tension between the forces of oppression and the irrepressible human desire to be free.

Reader's Guide

1. What is the emotional atmosphere in Kambili’s home? What effect does this have on Kambili and Jaja? Why is their father so strict?

2. When Kambili visits Aunty Ifeoma, she is immediately struck by how much laughter fills the house. Why is it so surprising to her to hear people speak, laugh, and argue so freely? How does she manage to regain her own ability to speak, and, most importantly, to laugh?

3. When Kambili hears Amaka weeping after her grandfather’s death, Kambili thinks: “She had not learned the art of silent crying. She had not needed to” [p. 185]. What does this passage suggest about the differences between Amaka and Kambili? In what other ways are Aunty Ifeoma’s children—Amaka, Obiora, and Chima—different from Kambili and Jaja?

4. Amaka says, “Uncle Eugene is not a bad man,
really. . . . People have problems, people make mistakes” [p. 251]. Is he in fact a “bad man”? Why does he violently abuse his wife and children? What good deeds does he perform? How can his generosity and political integrity coexist with his religious intolerance?

5. In what ways are Aunty Ifeoma and Eugene different from one another? How does each character approach life? How do they differ in their religious views? Why is Ifeoma so much happier even though she is poor and her brother is rich?

6. Eugene boasts that his Kambili and Jaja are “not like those loud children people are raising these days, with no home training and no fear of God”; to which Ade Coker replies: “Imagine what the Standard would be if we were all quiet” [p. 58]. Why is quiet obedience a questionable virtue in a country where the truth needs to be spoken? In what ways is the refusal to be quiet dangerous?

7. What kind of man is Papa-Nnukwu? What are his most appealing qualities? What do the things he prays for say about his character? Why has his son disowned him so completely?

8. What are the ironies involved in Eugene loving God the Father and Jesus the Son, but despising his own father and abusing his own son?

9. Why does Kambili’s mother keep returning to her husband, even after he beats her so badly that he causes a miscarriage, and even after he nearly kills Kambili? How does she justify her husband’s behavior? How should she be judged for poisoning her husband?

10. How does Father Amadi bring Kambili to life? Why is her relationship with him so important to her sense of herself?

11. Jaja questions why Jesus had to be sacrificed, “Why did He have to murder his own son so we would be saved? Why didn’t He just go ahead and save us?” [p. 289] And yet, Jaja sacrifices himself to save his mother from prison. Why does he do this? Should this be understood as a Christian sacrifice or a simple act of compassion and bravery?

12. After Aunty Ifeoma moves her family to the United States, Amaka writes, “there has never been a power outage and hot water runs from a tap, but we don’t laugh anymore . . . because we no longer have the time to laugh, because we don’t even see one another” [p. 301]. What does this passage suggest about the essential difference between American culture and African culture?

13. What does the novel as a whole say about the nature of religion? About the relationship between belief and behavior?

14. What does Purple Hibiscus reveal about life in Nigeria? How are Nigerians similar to Americans? In what significant ways are they different? How do Americans regard Nigerians in the novel?

15. Why does Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie end the novel with an image of rain clouds? What are the implications of Kambili feeling that the clouds hung so low she “could reach out and squeeze the moisture from them”? What is the meaning of the novel’s very simple final sentence: “The new rains will come down soon”?

SUGGESTED READING

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart; Mongo Beti, The Poor Christ of Bomba; J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace; Edwidge Danticat, The Dew Breaker; Bessie Head, A Question of Power; Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner; Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake; Christopher Okigbo, Labyrinths; Stefanie Zweig, Nowhere in Africa.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie grew up in Nigeria, where she attended medical school for two years at the University of Nigeria before coming to the United States. An O. Henry Prize winner, Adichie was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing. Her work has been selected by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association and the BBC Short Story Awards and has appeared in various literary publications, including Zoetrope and the Iowa Review. She now divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.