Purple Hibiscus: Women

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Women are presented through each of the female characters. Ifeoma and her daughter Amaka show striking similarities, both are portrayed as independent, confident and kind-hearted. Kambiili and her mother however, represent the more timid women who are susceptible to the father’s dominance and who endures the pain in silence, feeling respect for their dictator still because they accept how their society deems them. However both characters grow in strength and responsibility- Kambili due to the influence of her cousins and Aunt and mama as a result of the catalyst introduced at the beginning of the book. In purple hibiscus women are often shown as inferior to men. They are expected to tolerate the severe physical, mental and verbal abuse inflicted by the head of the house, which is why mama was silent and refusing to retaliate for such a long period of time. Mama could easily be forgotten for a lot of the book as she seems to blend in the background, as she is a woman of few words. Even walking through the house she never made a sound and the conversations Kambili describe with her were brief and rare- unlike those she had with her father, a lot of which resulted in violence. That is why the ‘slip slap’ had such great significance as she suddenly started to make noise which was a great shock to the norm of the novel. The slip slap can is also significant as it symbolises the beatings she had to bear. The use of onomatopoeia is effective as it makes this particular point more forceful and more poignant in the reader’s mind. They are also shown lower than men through Ifeoma’s son Obiora. He is higher ranked in the house, even though out of respect he doesn’t act upon it. He loves his mum and sister a lot and follows what is expected of him, though he would be perfectly just in ordering how his household run as many other families similar in Nigeria would be.
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