Purple Hibiscus - the Roles and Status' of Men and Women Help Us Understand the Cultural Context of the Novel

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English Midterm Essay- 2011 Leaving Certificate Higher Level Paper 2, Section 2-B: “The roles and status allocated to males and females can be central to understanding the cultural context of the text”. Show how this statement might apply to one text on your comparative course. In your answer you may refer to either males, females or both. In my opinion, the roles and status of men and women is crucial to our understanding of the cultural context in “Purple Hibiscus”. Adichie creates the cultural context throughout her novel by allowing the reader to see the roles and status of men and women in various ways. Men appear to be the dominant gender in this world. This is seen in a number of ways, for example, at one point in the novel, during a discussion between Ifeoma and her father, Papa Nnuwku, he announces that she is only a woman, she does not count. Another example which shows men as more important than women in this culture is when we learn how boys attend a course, the ima mmuo, the initiation into the spirit world which is a boy’s first step towards manhood. Women are not supposed to know anything at all about the spirit world, as if they are unworthy of knowing about it. In the market place, there are women who appear to be in despair and there are women who are lying in dirt. These lowly women could perhaps symbolise Kambili, her mother and all women as they are all of a lower social class and status than men. We never see men in such lowly situations as these throughout the novel. In addition to these examples, we see that Eugene (Papa) is very controlling of his family, another example of men being dominant. We see this from the very start of the novel as we learn that the children have schedules which they must follow every day. Beatrice (Mama) is also very much controlled by Eugene. We see this in one section of the text where the Achike

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