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PURPLE HIBISCUS ESSAY

This passage is taken from the second section of the novel Purple Hibiscus. Here, Kambili's family is spending the Christmas holidays in Abba-Eugene's hometown. On his way to Lagos with his family, Ade Coker- the Standard's editor-drops by Eugene's holiday residence to greet him. This passage highlights the differences between Eugene and Ade Coker. Where Ade is warm, affectionate, cheerful and playful, Eugene is cold, strict and oppressive. These characteristics of Ade's character are shown when he greets Kambili and Jaja and plays with his baby. Eugene's characteristic traits are on the other hand depicted throughout the whole novel. He continuously denies his children the freedom of speech hence, the reason why they are always so quite. He controls them to such an extent that they are afraid of uttering a word without his permissionwhen questioned by Ade, they look at him before Jaja answers. Eugenes oppression also affects their socialising with their peers.-Jaja and Kambili not only have no friends but Kambilis classmates think that she is a snob. Moreover, Ade is depicted as having a very open and good relationship with his wifeYewande. This is revealed when she slaps his shoulder playfully; she is comfortable enough with him to do that. By contrast, Beatrices relationship which Eugene is the same as it is between him and the children- she would never dream of slapping his shoulder. The theme of silence dominates this passage. Being a religious fanatic, Eugene sees his children's silence as a Christian virtue -" they are not like those loud children, people are raising these days, with no home training and no fear of God. However, Ade questions silence as being a virtue in situations where the truth needs to be told. In fact he jokes "imagine what the Standard would be if we were all quite. The contradiction in Eugene's character is quite ironical as at home, he mirrors the regime he fervently oppresses in public while as the publisher of the Standard he encourages and advocates freedom of speech: "the Standard is the only paper that does tell the truth. As Kambili hears Yewande laughing, the sound of her cries to Eugene echoes in her ears as she remembers the time when Yewande came to ask Eugenes help. Ade Coker-Yewnades husband had been imprisoned for telling the truth about who the real drug barons were.

Knowing how generous Eugene is, she had come pleading for his help. And in fact, some time later, Ade was released. The theme of oppression and silence are evident in this passage. However, they start diminishing after that they go to live with Aunty Ifeoma at Nsukka. It is here that the children learn another way of living- one without being victims of oppression. Apart from this, Nsukka helps to lift the silence as Jaja and Kambili both learn how to laugh and talk without restrictions. In the novel, it can be seen that the most affected by this visit was Jaja. On his arrival back home, he put a stop to his fathers oppression-as is narrated in the first section of this novel, where Jaja refrained from going to communion so as to spite his father. He would have never dreamed of doing this before his experience at Nsukka. ___________________________________________________________________________

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