Purple hibiscus igcse memorizing
As stated before, the first point is that since Aunty Ifeoma’s family home is lively, playful, and
quick to laugh while Papa always instills coldness and fear in his house with violence. Papa
Eugene oppresses his children from having individuality. On the other hand, Aunty Ifeoma is
more understanding towards her children’s decisions in life and uses more peaceful means to
bring her points across. She treats her children with respect, encouraging them to debate and
speak their minds. A quote that proves this is: “I did not say anything else until lunch was over,
but I listened to every word spoken, followed every cackle of laughter and line of banter.
Mostly, my cousins did the talking and Aunty Ifeoma sat back and watched them". The words
“laughter” and “banter” show that through Aunty Ifeoma and her children, Adichie represents
her idea of a healthy family, although Papa oppresses his family with violence. In this quote the
passive verbs “listened” and “followed” are significant, listening and following is the only thing
Kambili has done all her life. The passive verbs also relate to Kambili being a passive person
(due to violence she experiences from Papa), she does not act but instead lets things happen to
her. The words “listened and “followed” show that Kambili only knows how to obey people, she
does not know how to speak for herself, she always waits attentively for Papa to say something.
If anyone in her family expressed their true feelings or opinions, they would have to face Papa’s
violent punishments.
At dinner in the family home, everyone is always complementing Papa, other than that there
is an eerie silence. This can be proven in this extract from the book:” Pass the salt please, Papa
said. We all reached for the salt at the same time... I passed it to Papa. The silence stretched
out even more”. This extract shows the effect of Papa’s violence, he doesn’t allow Kambili to
have freedom of speech, she only says and does things Papa would approve of. When everyone
reaches out for the salt it shows that they are like Puppets that Papa controls through violence,
this is obviously very different from Ifeoma’s house. Papa’s violence does not encourage
Kambili to grow and succeed, he only threatens them with failure, this takes a toll on Jaja, who
is ashamed that he is so far behind Obiora in both intelligence and protecting his family. This is
proven in the quote: “I should have taken care of Mama. Look how Obiora balances Aunty
Ifeoma's family on his head, and I am older than he is. I should have taken care of Mama.” This
shows that Jaja looks up to Obiora because he's aware that Obiora knows better than him since
he grew up in a house without abuse. The word “should” implies an obligation or something
that ought to be done, this later foreshadows Jaja taking the blame for Papa’s death.
Papa is very controlling even when Kambili and Jaja are in Nsukka. He sets up schedules for
Kambili and Jaja. This is proven in the quote:” Papa liked order. It even showed in the schedules
themselves, the way his meticulously drawn line, in black ink, cut across each day”.
“Meticulously” has connotations of carefulness, showing great attention to detail and
preciseness. This proves that Papa wants everything to go exactly his way, he wants power even
