Purple Hibiscus Notes

• Main Themes

  • Family
  • Religion
  • Freedom
  • Violence
• Themes of Family


  • Eugene's family: "I knew that when the tea burned my tongue, it burned Papa's love into me." Burned has undertones of harm which reflects how papa's love is harmful because it is conditional
  • Mama never used plastic cutlery, no matter how big the group was.
  • Ifeoma's family: The dining table was made of wood that cracked in dry weather. The outermost layer was shedding, like a molting cricket.... The dining chairs were mismatched.
  • We always spoke with a purpose back home, especially at the table, but my cousins seemed to simply speak and speak and speak.
  • She did it all the time believing they would scale the rod. And they did. It was different for Jaja and me. We did not scale the rod because we believed we could, we scaled it because we were terrified that we couldn't.
  • I'm sure you think Nsukka is uncivilized compared to Enugu...I told Mom to stop forcing you both to come.
• Themes of Religion


  • How Eugene Views religion: "You should strive for perfection. You should not see sin and walk right into it."
  • How Kambili views god/religion: Sometimes I imagined God calling me, his rumbling voice British-accented. He would not say my name right; like Father Benedict. In Kambili's eyes Catholicism is a European idea foreign to her. She thinks her faith and her ethnicity are mutually exclusive and she can only choose one.
  • Face-to-face confessions made me think of Judgment Day come early, made me feel unprepared.
  • it is wrong to take joy in pagan rituals.....Pagan rituals are misinformed superstitions, and they are the gateway to Hell.
  • How Ifeoma views religion: If God is to judge our father for choosing to follow the way of our ancestors, let god do the judging, not Eugene.
  • How Jaja views Religion: Why did he have to murder his own son so we would be saved? Why didn't He just go ahead and save us?
  • The wafer gives me bad breath...And the priest touching my mouth nauseates me calling it a wafer instead of host is disrespectful.
  • How Father Amadi practices religion: Father Amadi led the first decade, and at the end, he started an Igbo praise song. While they sang...I pressed my lips closed....so that my mouth would not betray me
• Themes of Freedom

  • Eugene's fight for freedom for his country: The Standard, too, was different; it was more critical.. than it used to be.
  • Ifeoma's fight for freedom against the corruption in her university: The educated ones leave, the ones with the potential to right the wrongs...leave the weak behind. The tyrants continue to reign because the weak cannot resist....Who will break that cycle?
  • Jaja, Kambili and Mama fight for freedom against Eugene in their own little ways. Jaja doesn't go to communion and locks himself inside his room, Kambili fights for Papa Nnukwu's painting and ends up in the hospital due to the violence, Mama poisons Eugene.
  • Patriarchy: Six girls in my first-year seminar class are married.., and when they graduate, the husbands own them and their degrees. Don't you see?
  • A husband crowns a woman's life..it is what they want said by mama
  • A woman with kids and no husband, what do you call that?
  • Do you know how many mothers pushed their daughters at him
• Themes of Violence

  • Emotional abuse: Because God has given you so much, he expects much from you. He expects perfection
  • Why do you like sin?
  • Everything I do for you, I do for your own good,
  • Domestic Physical Abuse: Mama was slung over his shoulder like the jute sacks of rice
  • then he would reach across and slap me..with the casualness of reaching for the pepper shaker (she was assuming this would happen)
  • Effect of violence on victims: Her eyes were vacant, like the eyes of those mad people who wandered around the roadside garbage dumps in town.
  • I wished I could get up and hug her, and yet I wanted to push her away, to shove her so hard that she would topple over the chair. Blurring the lines between care and violence has led her to this internal turmoil.
  • I dreamed that the sole administrator was pouring hot water on Aunty Ifeoma's feet in the bathtub of our home in Enugu. Then Aunty Ifeoma jumped...into America. She did not look back as I called to her to stop. Nightmares ptsd stuff
  • Violence in the country: The men were tied to poles, and their bodies kept shuddering even after the bullets were no longer being pumped into them
  • Ade Coker was blown up when he opened the package—a package everybody would have known was from the Head of State
  • The students had set the sole administrator's house on fire; even the guest house behind it had burned to the ground
• The Purple Hibiscus

  • Jaja's defiance seemed to me now like Aunty Ifeoma's experimental purple hibiscus: rare, fragrant with the undertones of freedom, a different kind of freedom
  • We'll plant new orange trees in Abba when we come back, and Jaja will plant purple hibiscus, too, and I'll plant ixora so we can suck the juices of the flowers. Jaja plants the purple Hibiscuses because the main thing he learnt at the end of the book was to be free. The main thing Kambili learnt was to love which is why she plants Ixora because they are a reminder of Father Amandi and are a symbol of love.
• Red Hibiscus


  They seemed to bloom so fast, those red hibiscuses, considering how often Mama cut them to decorate the church altar and how often visitors plucked them
• Painting of Papa Nnukwu

  The painting was gone. It already represented something lost, something I had never had, would never have. Now even that reminder was gone
• Mama's Figurines

  • when Papa threw the missal at Jaja, it was not just the figurines that came tumbling down, it was everything
  • I meant to say I am sorry Papa broke your figurines, but the words that came out were, "I'm sorry your figurines broke, Mama."
  • I used to wonder why she polished them each time I heard the sounds from their room, like something being banged against the door
  • She shook her head to show that the figurines did not matter. They did, though. Years ago, before I understood
• Papa Eugene


  • Generosity & humility: titled Omelora ( The one who does for the community)
  • Papa making the biggest donations to Peter's pence and St. Vincent de Paul
  • keep the pride from showing, because Papa said modesty was very important.
  • Loves his family: A love sip, he called it, because you shared the little things you loved with the people you loved
  • when the tea burned my tongue, it burned Papa's love into me
  • Papa deserved praise for not choosing to have more sons with another woman
  • White supremacist: Ifeoma called him a colonial product
  • He was gracious, in the eager-to-please way that he always assumed with the ... white religious.
  • We had to sound civilized in public, he told us; we had to speak English
  • Papa said that the parish priest in Abba was not spiritual enough. That was the problem with our people......You would never see white people doing that.
  • I cannot participate in a pagan funeral, but we can discuss with the parish priest and arrange a Catholic funeral.
  • Abusive: He picked up the missile and flung it across the room, toward Jaja. It missed Jaja completely, but it hit the glass étagerè, which Mama polished often.
  • Mama was slung over his shoulder like the jute sacks of rice
  • Papa was like a Fulani nomad......as he swung his belt at Mama, Jaja, and me, muttering that the devil would not win. Fulani nomads are herdsmen
  • Controlling: Once, Kevin told Papa I took a few minutes longer...so his huge palms left parallel marks on my face and ringing in my ears for days.
  • Because God has given you much, he expects much from you. He expects perfection
  • Papa liked order. It showed even in the schedules themselves, the way his meticulously drawn lines, in black ink, cut across each day,
  • Hypocrite: But what we Nigerians needed was not soldiers ruling us, what we needed was a renewed democracy. Fights for democracy but acts like a dictator
• Aunty Ifeoma

  • Generous: Your Aunty Ifeoma brings me medicine when she can put the money together
  • Confident: Aunty Ifeoma was as tall as Papa, with a well-proportioned body. She walked fast, like one who knew just where she was going and what she was going to do there.
  • She spoke more Igbo than English, but all her English words came out with a consistent British accent, not like Papa's, which came on only when he was with white people and sometimes skipped a few words so that half a sentence sounded Nigerian
  • Criticizes her brothers ways: If God will judge our father for choosing to follow the way of our ancestors, then let God do the judging, not Eugene.
  • Called Eugene a "colonial Product"
  • I will put my dead husband's grave up for sale, Eugene, before I give our father a Catholic funeral.
  • Papa-Nnukwu was not a heathen but a traditionalist, that sometimes what was different was just as good as what was familiar
  • Respects her children and disciplines them the right way: Mostly, my cousins did the talking and Aunty Ifeoma sat back and watched them.... like a football coach who had done a good job with her team and was satisfied
  • I do not quarrel with your disagreeing with my friend. I quarrel with how you have disagreed. I do not raise disrespectful children in this house.
  • Symbolizes Freedom: Aunty Ifeoma's experimental purple hibiscus: rare, fragrant with the undertones of freedom,
  • The educated ones leave, the ones with the potential to right the wrongs. They leave the weak behind. The tyrants continue to reign because the weak cannot resist. Do you not see that it is a cycle? Who will break that cycle?
  • Defiance is like marijuana—it is not a bad thing when it is used right.
• Mama Beatrice

  • Foil for Ifeoma: Mama's bare lips were pale compared to Aunty Ifeoma's, covered in a shiny bronze lipstick.
  • you do not kill a husband you love, said by Ifeoma about her husband.
  • A woman with children and no husband what do you call that.
  • sometimes life begins when marriage ends
• Aunty Ifeoma


  • Respects her children and disciplines them the right way
  • Sits back and watches her children like a football coach who had done a good job with her team and was satisfied
• Aunty Ifeoma: '"I do not quarrel with your disagreeing with my friend. I quarrel with how you have disagreed. I do not raise disrespectful children in this house."'
• Aunty Ifeoma's experimental purple hibiscus

  Rare, fragrant with the undertones of freedom
• Aunty Ifeoma: '"The educated ones leave, the ones with the potential to right the wrongs. They leave the weak behind. The tyrants continue to reign because the weak cannot resist. Do you not see that it is a cycle? Who will break that cycle?"'
• Defiance


  Not a bad thing when it is used right
• Mama Beatrice

  • “Where would I go if I leave Eugene’s house? Tell me”
  • “ tell you these things because it is you. With someone else I would rub Vaseline on my hungry face until it shone (Ifeoma)”
  • It was not proper to let an older person do your chores, but mama did not mind; there was so much mama did not mind”
  • There is still so much that we do not say with our voices”
• Mama sounded like a recording, processed papa's murder with detachment. We can't really tell what she felt afterwards - guilt or relief
• Kambili


  • ”I felt myself go warm all over with pride, with a desire to be associated with papa”
  • ”He reaches out to hug me, I reach out too but our bodies never touch before something jerks me up…I can not even control even the dreams I made”
  • ”She did it all the time believing they would scale the rod. And they did. We did not scale the rod because we could but because we were terrified we couldn’t“
  • “I have nightmares about...the silence of when papa was alive…it mixes with shame and grief..and forms blue tongues of fire..like the Pentecost
• Jaja


  • Responsible & caring:He will never think that he did enough, and..I do not think he should have done more.
  • We will take care of the baby; we will protect him
  • Conflicted about his Faith: Why did He have to murder his own son so we would be saved? Why didn’t He just go ahead and save us?”
  • Silenced: through the years Jaja and Mama and I spoke more with our spirits than with our lips.
  • Jaja’s defiance seemed..like Aunty Ifeoma’s purple hibiscus: rare and fragrant with the undertones of freedom
• Amaka


  • ”They understood each other using the sparest of words. Watching them I felt a longing for something I knew I could never have”
  • ”She looked taller, even more fearless in a red wrapper and high heels..wore the same bright red lipstick as her mother
  • ”I smiled. I had never felt the companionship I felt sitting next to her”
  • ”I’m sure you think Nsukka is uncivilized compared to Enugu…I told Mom to stop forcing you both to come“
• Obiora

  • ”He was a bold, male version of what I could never have been at fourteen, What I still was not“.
  • “I should have taken care of mama. Look how obiora balances Aunty Ifeomas family on his head”
• Father Amadi

  • What you think about always matters to me Kambili
  • ”he started an Igbo praise song. While they sang..I pressed my lips together.. so my mouth would not betray me”.
  • ”But we are not rivals, God and I, we are simply sharing”
• Setting and Context

  • Set in post colonial Nigeria to tackle themes of freedom, gender and religion
  • Enugu - where rich live, domestic abuse
  • Nsukka - university area but really poor, supportive environment for Ifeoma's kids
  • External atmosphere - relatively privileged but violence, student riots, Ifeoma harassed
• Freedom

  • Eugene fights for democracy but is a hypocrite because he acts like a dictator at home
  • Ifeoma fights for the rights of her people but abandons her country when it starts directly effecting her
• Religion

  • Father Benedict is the local priest, white, strict and doesn't appreciate Nigerian culture
  • Father Amadi is Nigerian, playful and incorporates Nigerian culture into religion
• Gender

  • Ifeoma does go to school but most women here (Mama) suffer from dependency and are prone to prejudice from society
  • Most women don't even graduate and those who do get married before graduation and never get to work
• Kambili

  “I laughed. It sounded strange, as I’d I were listening to the recorded laughter of a stranger being played back“

  ”I laughed. It seemed so easy now, laughter. So many things seemed easy now”
• “The painting was gone. It already represented something lost, something I had never had, would never have. Now even that reminder was gone”
• “I wished I could get up and hug her, and yet I wanted to push her away, to shove her so hard”
• Father Benedict:

  • “it is wrong to take joy in pagan rituals…Pagan rituals are misinformed superstitions, and they are the gateway to Hell”
  • I imagined God calling me, his rumbling voice British-accented. He would not say my name right; like Father Benedict,”  
  • Face-to-face confessions made me think of Judgment Day come early, made me feel unprepared.” (Kambili )
• • “We always spoke with a purpose back home, especially at the table, but my cousins seemed to simply speak and speak and speak.”
  • “The outermost layer was shedding, like a molting cricket..The dining chairs were mismatched.”